Did Samsung just intentionally nerf the Note 10?!

[MoreDef]

I was taking pictures and realized they were extra blurry/terrible, and I decided that maybe the resolution of the pictures was off. I tried for literally 30 minutes to find where I could change the resolution of pics and videos...and they're gone. There is no way to select the quality of your pictures. I can't imagine any reason for this move besides making older phone models irrelevant by intentionally nerfing camera hardware that should still be relevant. Wow. New low.

Does anyone have a workaround? Am I the only one with this problem?

 

[L0n3N1nja]

I don't have the Note 10 but I still own a Note 3, 4, 5, 8, 9 and an S7 and none of then ever got crippled by Samsung.

With that said my current Note 20 Ultra doesn't let me change photo resolution/quality.

Are you sure your camera isn't having focusing problems? Does it effect every lens on the phone or just one?

Could you upload an example or a few?

 

[MoreDef]

Do me a favor. Can you check your camera options and see if you can toggle between picture quality? Because my Note 10+ doesn't have that option anymore.

 

[B. Diddy]

Is it blurry because of poor resolution or because of poor focus? It's always possible that the auto-focus mechanism has become faulty.

 

[MoreDef]

Naw, it's low-light, indoor. I know, unless you're shooting with a Pixel, it's going to look terrible. The thing is, that was just the catalyst that made me look for those settings. I could have sworn I could change the resolution of my rear camera pictures, but it's not there. I can still change the video resolution, but there's nothing for actual photos.

 

[GDany]

I do have the Note 10+, still on Android 9, and I can confirm that there's no resolution control on the camera settings. It is only possible to choose the picture type you want save, meaning that you can only save in jpg format in all modes, but the pro mode which allows you to save raw files also. There is also an other format called HEIF (high efficiency image format) which takes less space but it is not compatible with all sharing apps.
I think the resolution control was removed a long time before, by Samsung, at least. So your problem is not related to the resolution, but either to the lens, which might not be clean, or the focusing mechanism which might be damaged, as others suggested. Low light photography does not depend on the resolution. Samsung cameras mounted on smart phones are known as not so good for low light photos, as others. If your photos are sharp and focused on good light, then your phone doesn't have any problem. Try using the Night mode on the camera app, if you want better results on low light, and also use a tripod, if you don't want to get blurry photos.

 

[MoreDef]

The problem isn't with the lens being dirty, it's with how Samsung processes images...it looks like an oil painting when pixel peeping.

Anyway, you guys are probably right, and it's a combination of my old experiences with Samsung devices, and me being under the Mandela Effect =/.

Here's an example of whati could have sworn was once an option on later devices like my Note 9 and S20 Ultra that is on my Note 4...

 

[GDany]

The problem isn't with the lens being dirty, it's with how Samsung processes images...it looks like an oil painting when pixel peeping.

Anyway, you guys are probably right, and it's a combination of my old experiences with Samsung devices, and me being under the Mandela Effect =/.

Here's an example of whati could have sworn was once an option on later devices like my Note 9 and S20 Ultra that is on my Note 4...

The oil painting effect is due to the low light condition. Again, if the camera takes good pictures in good lighting conditions, then there's no problem with the hardware.
The settings you have shown on your Note 4, are still available, but not in the settings menu. You can access them from the main camera screen, as you can see in the attached pics.
And do not expect from a smart phone camera to act as professional digital camera.

 

[MoreDef]

Absolutely, you are correct. I don't expect to have a pocket point and shoot DSLR. The thing is, and I hate when tech reviewers do this, all photos are done with optimal lighting. I mean, think about when you're sitting on the couch and you just want to take a picture of your kid doing cute stuff. You don't want to stop, make sure the lighting is right, and then make sure everyone is still...you just want to point, shoot and get a good result. With a Samsung, the pictures come out terrible, while with a Pixel, they don't. I can provide examples of this, where low light softens and smudges all borders into each other, and whispy hair turns into brown globs, but that kinda details the original topic...which I have to say, I was proven wrong on. It seems I was mistaken in thinking that we always had the option to change picture quality on a Samsung.

Also, I wish Samsung could label what the resolution was with each ratio.

 

[GDany]

I totally agree, Samsung's smart phones do not perform well in low light conditions. I didn't have the chance to own a Pixel camera, but I doubt that they perform much better in low light and fast action conditions, as a child running between your legs.
20 years ago, when my daughter was born, I bought a Sony DSLR for this purpose, hoping I'll get much better indoor action pictures. I probably got better pictures than what I get today with a Samsung smartphone, but still not what I was expecting. After a few years, I bought a newer and better Sony DSLR camera which also did not offer me what I hoped for. The only advantage I had using these cameras was the raw format which enabled me to process the pics on my computer. I then understood that almost no digital camera will give you both good low light and fast action performance and that it is very hard to get very good pics straight out of the camera in difficult light conditions. At least not with the digital cameras I could afford.
Small children photography is not so easy and smart phones are not built for this purpose, at least not for indoor light. If you can afford, the best performers nowadays are the mirrorless cameras, much smaller and lighter than a DSLR.

 

[L0n3N1nja]

Absolutely, you are correct. I don't expect to have a pocket point and shoot DSLR. The thing is, and I hate when tech reviewers do this, all photos are done with optimal lighting. I mean, think about when you're sitting on the couch and you just want to take a picture of your kid doing cute stuff. You don't want to stop, make sure the lighting is right, and then make sure everyone is still...you just want to point, shoot and get a good result. With a Samsung, the pictures come out terrible, while with a Pixel, they don't. I can provide examples of this, where low light softens and smudges all borders into each other, and whispy hair turns into brown globs, but that kinda details the original topic...which I have to say, I was proven wrong on. It seems I was mistaken in thinking that we always had the option to change picture quality on a Samsung.

Also, I wish Samsung could label what the resolution was with each ratio.

Samsung has used a 4:3 aspect ratio sensor since the S7, while it would be nice to see the resolution, any other aspect is a cropped portion of the sensor reducing resolution.

 

[MoreDef]

Here's a quick example of what my Pixel 6 did vs my S10, and this is the stuff I wish YouTube camera tech reviewers didn't gloss over...that real life stuff. I'm sitting playing with my daughter and want to send a picture to grandma and grandpa. I take a picture and...it's crap. So I take out the Pixel, and under the same lowlight indoor conditions of a child twitching to dress her Minnie Mouse doll, I get a way better image. Granted, it's an S10, but in the same situation, and with no prep time, heres what I got.

I don't want to turn this into a bash Samsung cameras thing, but you can clearly see that in a real-life situation, the Pixel delivers a better picture.

The pictures go Samsung, Pixel, Samsung, Pixel.

 

[MoreDef]

Samsung has used a 4:3 aspect ratio sensor since the S7, while it would be nice to see the resolution, any other aspect is a cropped portion of the sensor reducing resolution.

Right, and when it is cropped, it just doesn't tell you how much quality you're going to lose. I had taken a whole bunch of photos on full mode, only to realize they were terrible after the fact.

 

[GDany]

Right, and when it is cropped, it just doesn't tell you how much quality you're going to lose. I had taken a whole bunch of photos on full mode, only to realize they were terrible after the fact.

Theoretically it shouldn't be any quality loss after a crop operation. Cropping works like taking a piece of paper and cutting parts of it from the sides. The center part of the paper doesn't change, it has the same quality as before.
The digital cropping of an image works the same. The only thing that could cause a quality loss in a crop operation is the type of the source image and the type of the saved image after the crop operation. If the source image type is jpg (which is an already compressed file) and after the crop operation the remaining image is saved as a new jpg file, then there will be a loss of quality in the resulting picture.
But in a digital camera, the crop process works differently, I suppose. The source image is the raw image from the sensor, which has all the details. The crop is done on this raw image and then, the result after the crop, is saved as a jpg file. So, this way, there should not be any quality loss on the final picture. I'm almost sure that this is the way the crop is done on a digital camera.
Now, you're right about Youtube reviewers, they will never show you the really bad aspects of a product because they are not interested to do it. You should try to find unbiased reviews on well known professional sites.

 

[Da Vinci]

There most certainly used to be an option to change the picture quality and resolution on the phone. I just happend to stumble across this thread and decided to check and low and behold there isn't an option anywhere to do that now.

Here's a screenshot of the camera settings when it was possible.

I don't take photos everyday or tinker with camera settings but I did notice that the quality has become less than standard and when going to check on the front and rear camera settings they're gone. This is unacceptable..

 

[Da Vinci]

Check my reply, you're not crazy actually they did remove them.

 

[MoreDef]

I KNEW I wasn't crazy!