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Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera review: 200MP photos, 100x zoom and better AI

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Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera review: 200MP photos, 100x zoom and better AI

The first photos from Samsung's 200MP Galaxy S23 Ultra camera show that there are subtle, but meaningful improvements year-over-year.

Matt Swider
Feb 3
6
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Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera review: 200MP photos, 100x zoom and better AI

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(Credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)

There’s a lot of hype around the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and its 200 mega-pixel camera, but does it actually translate into better smartphone photos than its rivals?

This initial S23 camera test took a lot of time and expense – please consider subscribing to The Shortcut, a banner-ad-free tech site, as a FREE or paid subscriber.

I’ve had Samsung’s new flagship phone for 2023 in hand for 24 hours, and its five cameras were the first thing I tested. I did it in an unbiased way, too. My Galaxy S23 Ultra camera tests include side-by-side photos taken with a Google Pixel 7 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max to determine which camera phone captures the best images.

Unlocked: Save up to $830 on S23 Ultra

T-Mobile: Save up to $1,000 on S23 Ultra

Verizon: Save up to $800 on S23 Ultra

AT&T: Save up to $1,000 on S23 Ultra

This is just the beginning of my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera review. I’m still several days from coming to a final conclusion on whether or not to recommend the $1,199 phone for its photography prowess. Now that we’ve analyzed the Samsung Galaxy S23 colors and the S23 specs, let’s get to the in-depth camera snapping.


How the S23 Ultra camera uses clever AI

Matt Swider in a suit at a bar using the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera
Samsung finally shines in low light conditions (Image credit: Nirave Gondhia/The Shortcut)

More important than any 200MP photo I’ve taken so far is the fact that the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera knows more about subjects before I hit the shutter button. This is mainly down to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset that is able to better segment photo layers on the Galaxy S23 phones.

The result is more natural skin tones and fewer blown-out highlights, something that I noted Samsung had struggled with in my Galaxy S22 Ultra review. Where the S22 series would try too hard to amp up the exposure in a dark bar, the Galaxy S23 Ultra camera keeps things in check, similar to the Google Pixel 7 Pro.


200MP Galaxy S23 Ultra camera review

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera photo 200MP
200MP photo (Image credit: Krista Sparks/The Shortcut)
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera photo 50MP
50MP photo (Image credit: Krista Sparks/The Shortcut)
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera photo 12MP
12MP camera (Image credit: Krista Sparks/The Shortcut)

It does make a difference – but I had to crop in to see the improvements in the 200MP Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera photos. As you can see from these pictures of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge (Samsung’s launch event was held in San Francisco), when cropped in the 12MP photo (the last one) is much more pixelated).

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera photo 200MP cropped
200MP photo cropped (Image credit: Krista Sparks/The Shortcut)
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera photo 50MP cropped
50MP photo cropped (Image credit: Krista Sparks/The Shortcut)
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera photo 12MP cropped
12MP photo cropped (Image credit: Krista Sparks/The Shortcut)

Unlocked: Save up to $830 on S23 Ultra

T-Mobile: Save up to $1,000 on S23 Ultra

Verizon: Save up to $800 on S23 Ultra

AT&T: Save up to $1,000 on S23 Ultra

Samsung’s 100x Space Zoom still wins

I did discover limitations to the 200MP Galaxy S23 camera in my testing this week. I found that fairly distant subjects looked cleaner on cropped-in 200MP shots, allowing me to create a whole new image without much quality loss vs cropped-in 12MP shots.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera sample
Ultrawide camera 0.6x zoom (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
Regular camera 12MP camera with no zoom (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
12MP camera with a 2x cropped zoom (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
Telephoto camera 3x optical zoom (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
10x zoom (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
30x zoom (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
100x ‘Space Zoom’ (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)

But very distant subjects looked better at 10x, 30x and even 100x ‘Space Zoom’ levels. These photos of the distant island of Alcatraz looked better when tapping through the various zoom levels. It was just too distant for proper AI camera analysis, even when capturing all of that data with the 200MP camera.

200MP poto (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
200MP photo at 6x zoom, the maximum of the higher-resolution modes (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)

And, frankly, the fact that I can read the letters on the side of a ship passing through San Francisco Bay on this smartphone camera says a lot about where the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera is compared to the Google Pixel 7 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.

100x ‘Space Zoom’ (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
30x Telephoto (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
10x Telephoto (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
3x Telephoto (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
12MP camera with a 2x cropped zoom (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
Regular camera 12MP camera with no zoom (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
Ultrawide camera 0.6x zoom (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
200MP photo (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)

S23 Ultra does 16-to-1 pixel binning

12MP photo (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
200MP photo (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
12MP photo cropped (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)
200MP photo (Image credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)

Eschewing 200MP photos in favor of 12MP photos has its benefits – besides the fact that 200MP shots can take up to 80MB. Samsung’s camera does something called pixel binning, meaning it takes the smaller individual pixels of the 200MP camera and merges them into larger pixels, which is ideal in lowlight environments (larger pixels are always better as it allows for more light to be captured).

So for every 16 pixels, there’s one, and the Galaxy S23 Ultra benefits, even at the 12MP setting.


Warmer selfies at 12MP on the S23 Ultra

(Credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)

Don’t fear the fact that the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has a 12MP selfie camera when the S22 Ultra featured a seemingly better 40MP selfie camera. At a close range, you don’t really need such a high-resolution camera, but you do need better skin toning.

That’s exactly what the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera provides, and it does this in a setting that allows for “natural” or “warmer” colors. I found that the differences were much more dramatic indoors and in lower light conditions than in outdoor settings. There’s no better version – the results are going to be subjective – but it’s good to see that Samsung is trying different shades for wider appeal.


Unlocked: Save up to $830 on S23 Ultra

T-Mobile: Save up to $1,000 on S23 Ultra

Verizon: Save up to $800 on S23 Ultra

AT&T: Save up to $1,000 on S23 Ultra

(Credit: Matt Swider/The Shortcut)

More Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera photos

I’m going to continue to test out the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera in various real-world scenarios this week and next. I’ve got more low-light shots to test out and I want to continue to snap 200MP photos to see if the differences are even clearer.

So far, because the Galaxy S23 Ultra design hasn’t changed much and the 6.8-inch screen has remained a constant, I feel as if a lot of the work Samsung did went into tweaking what really matters: the S23 battery, camera, and the software. It’s finally catching up with its chief camera rivals, Google and Apple, to be a contender again.

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Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera review: 200MP photos, 100x zoom and better AI

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