Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra vs Galaxy S23 Ultra zoom camera tested: is it better or worse?

[admin]

At Galaxy Unpacked, Samsung touted the zooming abilities of the S24 Ultra's 50MP telephoto camera with its 5x zoom. We decided to take a few snapshots to compare them to the S23 Ultra's 10x telephoto camera to see which is better.

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra vs Galaxy S23 Ultra zoom camera tested: is it better or worse? : Read more

 

[proximaCen]

It looks good on paper.
10mp 10x zoomed (S23 ultra) or 12.5mp 10x zoomed (S24 ultra) - looks good on paper.
But it's useless for photography enthusiasts/photographers who want to shoot RAW.
Does Samsung give users access to it's 50mp raw outputs? I don't think so. Even if it does, cropping 50mp raw file to get 10x equivalent zoom will leave a 12.5mp image - at this point half the details are dead since you're at the mercy of the optics used.

I'll take S23 Ultra any day over S24 ultra for this reason alone. Jpeg/heif are useless to someone who shoots raw for their photography outings.

It makes much more sense to bump the 3x optical zoom sensor to 48/50mp and (for size constraints) keep the 10mp 10x optical zoom - if their user data is telling them "only few people use 10x zoom". People are going to buy the ultra anyway.

Complete downgrade in terms of telephoto zoom, the S24 Ultra.