Samsung Galaxy S21 vs S21 Ultra Photo and Video Deep Dive | This Is The Camera Upgrade We Needed!

All sort of folks, myself included, have been testing the new Galaxy S21 and S21 Ultra cameras and have said some pretty positive remarks about it. Samsung Galaxy phones have for a long time been pretty good when it comes to the cameras... but Pixels and iPhones have notably done much better for low light and portrait performance. So I was curious if the S21 line improved enough to really be comparable to pixel, or if they still had a way to go. This isn't a side-by-side comparison between iphones or pixels with the S21's, this is just the in depth explaination and analysis of the cameras on these two new phones... Comparison videos will come later in the month.

Also, I know a lot of camera opinions can vary from person to person, so please be respectful of each other's views in the comments. Some people like vibrant photos, some dont.

So first, the specs. The lenses are the exact same as the Galaxy S20 on the new S21. The S21 Ultra has a different telephoto lens, and an additional one, when compared to the S20 Ultra.

Here are the specs side by side for the two that I have in hand.

S21 Sensors:

  • Main - 12 MP sensor with OIS (1x zoom), f1.8 aperture, 1.8 micron pixel size (that's a larger pixel size designed for more light)

  • Ultrawide - 12 MP w/ 120 degree FOV (0.5x zoom), 1.4µm, f/2.2

  • Telephoto - 64 MP w/ (3x hybrid optic / 30x digital zoom) 0.8µm, f/2.0, OIS - this zoom capability happens because of sensor cropping, but there is no optical magnification

  • Selfie - 10 MP, 1.22µm, f/2.2

S21 Ultra Sensors:

  • Quad rear camera:

    • Main: 108-megapixels, 0.8µm pixel size, f/1.8 aperture, optical stabilisation (OIS), laser autofocus

    • Ultra-wide (120°): 12MP, 1.4µm, f/2.2 - 0.6x zoom fixed focus

    • Telephoto (10x): 10MP, 1.22µm, f/4.9, OIS - is a folded, or periscope, lens

    • Telephoto (3x): 10MP, 1.22µm, f/2.4, OIS

  • Selfie camera: 40MP, 0.7µm, f/2.2

So, a couple of notes about the 108 mp main camera on the Ultra. Samsung calls the tech for this one "nona binning". You take a bunch of pixel - 9, to be accurate, and it's treated as one big super pixel. When you take 108 and divide it by nine, you get a 12 MP photo. If you want to shoot with this high quality detail, you have to choose 108MP within the ratio settings in order to shoot at that size.

Video options and camera app modes are pretty much the same on each phone.

You can record at several resolutions and framerates: FHD 30 and 60, UHD 30 and 60, and 8k 24. Super Steady is only available for FHD 30 and 60.

Here are some comparison shots I did between the two phones. Videos appeared pretty color accurate, though the sky is slightly saturated. It did well in shadows, too, still bringing out details in signage and in the buildings around me. The front facing video is also pretty much the same between the two - it did a much better job at keeping the sky from being blown out, and my mask was slightly oversaturated but still looked good. The audio was a bit hollow, so I'd recommend an external mic if using this for vlogging.

And some in-app features. Under the camera settings, most of the options are pretty much the same as previous gens. You can disable Ultra Wide distortion correction under the advanced options if you want. Selfie color tone can be set to natural or bright depending on your preferences. They try to get you to enable location tags in your photos but for metadata privacy, I recommend leaving that off.

You can disable face smoothing completely, or add the face smoothing techniques that you prefer under the filters options. There's a pro mode for both video and photo, and that allows for all sorts of edits, including changing the microphones direction, as an example from omnidirectional to front, rear, or USB. And if you do record 8k videos, you can take photos straight from the playback.

Single take has gotten some updates. This will still take a 5-15 second shot and it'll capture various final photos and videos for you - like filtered videos, photos, portraits, a collage, wide and cropped pics. A couple of new categories are included - one is highlight videos and the other is speed effect clips.

I still think Single Take video captures are pretty cheesy, but I do like the filtered photos that the AI comes up with. I really do need to know why in all of my tests it chose to save a regular video that is upside down??? Like who need this? Why's it upside down? Well, you can disable the cheesy videos within the Single Take settings luckily so they won't take up all your storage.

And lastly is this very cool Director's View - this lets you record from both rear and front lenses at the same time as a picture in picture or side by side, or you can just record on the rear cameras and it'll let you switch between the lenses with a little preview pane. There is no zoom in director's view, but it's still incredibly useful, I think, if you're a vlogger. Don't mind me being completely makeup free in these examples of the camera app.

I also did a couple of test Director's View videos on both the S21 and the Ultra so you can see what those look and sound like in a final recording. It's full HD, decent audio, fairly clear picture, but quite shaky. This would probably be best if used on a gimbal.

Low light photography was consistently better on the S21 Ultra, with bright signage much easier to read, and the photo in general being much more crisp. I did get some pretty serious glare around streetlights and headlights, though, on both.

The zoom mode is FAR superior on the S21 Ultra than on the S21. On the S21, you max out at 30x zoom. On the Ultra you max out at 100x zoom. Last year this looked like a potato. This year it looks a lot better at max zoom, partially thanks to the Zoom Lock feature, more on that in a bit.

So starting at ultrawide, they're about the same, with slight variations in the exposure. Same with 1x zoom, using the main camera. But 2x and up immediately include noticeable differences. The tree is much clearer on the Ultra, same with that little DINER signage and the lights along the street. Move on up to 4x zoom, then 10x zoom, and there's obvious differences between the two. 30x is still incredibly impressive on the Ultra, while the regular S21 looks like a drunk lens.

There's a big difference in exposures with these mountain pictures, but as I zoom closer and closer to the mountain range, the S21 Ultra still looks very impressive. While the regular S21 starts look like a potato. I will mention though, 100x zoom isn't that great on the mountains. Unlike the Diner signage, where there's something clearly there for the AI to compute and sharpen, the lack of detail in the mountains and similar colors end up looking like an abstract oil painting on the Ultra.

Both phones have this new Zoom Lock when you go over 20x zoom. It uses AI to stabilize the photo to reduce camera shake. This, plus Samsung's new "Advanced Super Image Processing" help keep those photos clear because let's face it, they're smartphone digital zoom photos, not optical zoom photos, so they do lack a lot of the clarity you'd get from a traditional zoom lens. The Zoom lock is relatively easy to use but you do still need a decently steady hand in order to line up the phone in the general area that you want to focus on. So it takes a little bit of practice. It'll auto lock after 1.5 seconds, and then you can take your zoomed picture.

Portraits... wow, SUCH an upgrade from the last gen. They've absolutely done wonders with portrait mode this time around. It does a much better job of keeping my hair from blending with the background. Generally I was satisfied with all of the portrait photos I've been taking. It's not perfect, but it's much more natural and the bokeh added doesn't look so fake.

Low light portraits still give you a cutout effect, but at least my hair isn't blending with the background or the chair behind me.

Regular ultrawide photos are comparable between the two. The ultra does .6 while the regular s21 does .5 zoom on ultrawide, so there is a slight difference. Using the main lens with no portrait mode gave me some pretty nice shots with clear details and no noise like in these examples of the crane statues. I was surprised that the sky didn't get blown out in any of these photos. The Ultra tended to be sharper in details than the S21.

So, overall they're very close in quality to each other. The S21 Ultra offers consistently slightly better images than the S21, especially when it comes to zoom and detail in the photos. But they're very, very close in all other ways when it comes to photography and videography.

Affiliate links:

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Galaxy S21 Ultra on Amazon referral link: https://amzn.to/2O330hR

technologyShannon Morsesamsung, galaxy, withgalaxy, s21, phone, smartphoneComment