Am I the only one unimpressed with the S7 camera?

[DJCBS]

The only thing megapickles really bring to the table is crop-ability, these days. 12 should be fine for a point and shoot, given the small sensor size.

Not really. The more information the software has to work with, the better it can compose a picture. And what you're failing to understand is that, unlike DSLRs and other cameras, smartphone photography is HEAVILY based on software due precisely to the space constraints of a phone.
So, a phone with only 12mp will have a lot less information to work with than one with 16 or 23mp. That has been made abundantly clear with the S7. Because it has fewer megapixels - and therefore less information - it resources to tricks like over-sharpening to try and produce a picture more clear than that which the 12mp shooter alone couldn't.
You can take as an example a photo taken with the S7 and one with the Nokia 1020*.
The Nokia 1020 has that 41mp sensor. But it produces 2 photos. One with 5mp and another with 34mp. The 5mp image is an oversampled one. That picture is however a lot more clear than one out of an actual 5mp camera. Why? Because it was composed based on the information captures by the 41mp sensor. Actually, it produces a much naturally sharper picture even than the S7 with 12mp. Because of that.
Now, on the S6, Samsung was able to also produce pretty sharp pictures (without the ability of extreme zooming of the 1020 of course) which were pretty pretty similar those produced by the S7 in terms of low light. However, the S6's pictures didn't suffer from any over-sharpening because it wasn't necessary. The camera was capturing enough information.

Samsung made a gamble with the S7 camera (although to me it seems more like a "let's copy Apple and try to beat them with the same hardware" sort of thing). I don't think it paid off. And if I had to bet, I'd bet that the camera on the S8 will again jump to a better sensor with more megapixels.
To me, the only way cameras should be going was up. By now the standard should be 20mp. Not 12mp. Larger apertures are possible on both and as HTC had already proven with the UltraPixel fiasco, larger pixels on smartphones don't really pay off.

(*I know I'm using the 1020 as an extreme example. I could say the same for the Nokia 930 or any old Nokia smartphone which used the same process. I could also have used Sony as an example, but I avoided it on purpose because Sony is the perfect example of how pointless it is to have a 21mp camera when your software is utter crap. If however you had the sensor on Sony's Z5 line with Samsung's software - and OIS - you'd have a bloody brilliant camera that would most likely beat the vast majority of PAS cameras the same way the Nokia 1020 did.)

 

[frettfreak]

OP, for a growing family you should have a dedicated camera. Not necessarily an SLR but just a good dedicated camera that shoots video too. Most all do now anyway. Look, honestly any camera phone will have limitations. Do yourself and your family a favour and document them properly and effectively with a dedicated camera and make an album or three. They will appreciate it when they grow up...really!

Save the camera phone for those precious moments when you just can't wait to show your facebook chums what you're eating or drinking today, or posting a picture of a rescue dog, or cat, or hamster, or [insert animal here] on facebook! Ooops, hope I didn't go too far..... you get the idea.

This an excellent place to begin.
Reviews and previews: Digital Photography Review

would agree 100%. So glad i got a dslr when my kids were born. Cellphones capture some great pics and vids, but you stilll will never get the kind of shots you can get from a dslr... ESPECIALLY with kids. They dont sit still!! lol

I will have to agree I'm not as impressed with the 12 mp as I was the S6 18mp camera. The downsize really took away some of those special details that made the S6 pictures stunning. These photos do at least have more vivid colors though. I would still say better than most smartphone cameras though

I dont think its the drop in MP count as much as its the processing of images. I had the s6, and note5 (wife still has a note 5) and this camera DEFIANTLY fall short of what i expected. Its the focus that really drives me nuts though. It just doesnt focus correctly a LOT of the time unless i manually tap to focus. its super fast to "focus" though, just not correctly. I am torn here. I think they can fix it with software updates, but between samsungs update history and tmobile, i will probably never see it. lol

 

[tnt4]

I dont think its the drop in MP count as much as its the processing of images. I had the s6, and note5 (wife still has a note 5) and this camera DEFIANTLY fall short of what i expected. Its the focus that really drives me nuts though. It just doesnt focus correctly a LOT of the time unless i manually tap to focus. its super fast to "focus" though, just not correctly. I am torn here. I think they can fix it with software updates, but between samsungs update history and tmobile, i will probably never see it. lol

This, exactly. In the sample comparisons I did earlier in this thread I took the time to make sure I was holding the phone perfectly steady and giving it ample time to get the right subject. Even then a couple of times the S7 didn't focus right and I'd have to do a second attempt. It focuses super fast but gets the focus wrong a lot of the times - and it's not always noticeable unless you zoom in a little bit. I know the new system has been described as using every pixel when focusing, which does make it much faster. But the actual focusing doesn't seem to be as accurate or, well, good, for lack of a better term. I'm also seeing no improvements in the ability to take action shots as it was advertised - motion is motion... in good light it does fine, without good light they still tend to come out blurry.

I also agree with a prior poster that every attempt to use bigger pixels to bring in more light on phones has had trade-offs that, IMHO, haven't been worth it, causing difficulty in balancing exposure, blowout problems, etc., forcing manufacturers to increase the processing to compensate.

 

[t0ked]

This camera has been amazing. The vast majority of times, I use my phone to quickly capture moments. The launch and focus of the camera has no equal. Yeah the post processing can be a bit much but honestly I'm not going home and opening up Photoshop and printing out some 5ft poster. My friends with other phones are fiddling with their phones while I've already take a shot or two. And it does it better than any phone out there. Sometimes I've used burst mode and boom several of the 20 or so shots are awesome. For more careful posed pictures, fiddling with the pro mode had gotten me shots that are really quite amazing.

This camera deserves the laurels it's received. I'll take the shortfalls on this camera over any other on the market because the way I takes photos, and I'm pretty sure it's the way most people take photos on their smartphone, I'll capture the most moments, in the best quality, in the most varried lighting conditions.

 

[anon(79257)]

This camera has been amazing. The vast majority of times, I use my phone to quickly capture moments. The launch and focus of the camera has no equal. Yeah the post processing can be a bit much but honestly I'm not going home and opening up Photoshop and printing out some 5ft poster. My friends with other phones are fiddling with their phones while I've already take a shot or two. And it does it better than any phone out there. Sometimes I've used burst mode and boom several of the 20 or so shots are awesome. For more careful posed pictures, fiddling with the pro mode had gotten me shots that are really quite amazing.

This camera deserves the laurels it's received. I'll take the shortfalls on this camera over any other on the market because the way I takes photos, and I'm pretty sure it's the way most people take photos on their smartphone, I'll capture the most moments, in the best quality, in the most varried lighting conditions.

I like your assessment. It's for moments. And that, it does well.

 

[monicakm]

The BEST camera is the one you have with you. I don't carry my Canon with me everywhere I go but I DO have my cell phone with me and this pone is exceptionally good! No one should expect the S7 to produce dSLR shots. I didn't even expect it to produce shots my Canon SX50 IS (50x OIS bridge cam) can give me....but it comes amazingly close with less work, unless I'm stalking African Kudus at 100 yards <g> And for what it's worth, EVERY camera, no matter how good it is, has it's faults. I've (personally) decided companies CAN make a perfect phone but why would anyone spend more money to upgrade if they already had the best?
I LOVE MY GALAXY S7'S CAMERA

 

[slopiijoe]

And, really, 12MP is more than this tiny sensor can handle. I'm fairly certain that if this sensor was worth a damn that the phone would not cost $675. Want a camera? Buy one. Don't expect quality in a disposable piece of consumer electronics. Reducing the number of megapixels was actually one of the smartest things they did. Too many on a crappy sensor actually starts to hurt detail.

This is how most (and I'm pretty sure, most) photographers feel about megapixels... The people posting in this thread are mostly pro's...

Coming from 5Dmkiii is the only lure of the 5Ds megapixels? -- Canon EOS Digital Cameras in photography-on-the.net forums

I mostly agree with that. But I still feel this sensor doesn't capture as much details as the previous sensor. The s6 in all reality (I haven't really looked it up) probably could only capture 12mp instead of the 16 it touts. But the s7 is probably only capturing 8mp instead of 12. I just don't feel its as detailed. I do think colors are more true, and darker photos are better. But it doesn't seem to capture close up details as good and photos tend to be blurry in lighting that is slightly less than moderate.

Not really. The more information the software has to work with, the better it can compose a picture. And what you're failing to understand is that, unlike DSLRs and other cameras, smartphone photography is HEAVILY based on software due precisely to the space constraints of a phone.

Not really. It's really half and half and depends on the smartphone. Some smartphones do have their camera software touch up photos to make them look better (Apple) but I do feel the S7 is actually based on it's sensor. The problem with DSLR's vs Smartphones is Smartphones don't have nearly as good of sensors that DSLR's have. But DSLR's doesn't have nearly as good of processors that smartphones have. Canon released a new SemiPro DSLR. Can't shoot in 4K (yeah I know its mainly used for photography rather than video but still) but this reason is because it doesn't have as fast of a processor as most newer smartphones.

Me personally I think I have been able to capture better photos on my phone rather than a DSLR (I do have an older model canon though, and I'm talking normal photos, not slow shutter, macro's, etc..) but I do feel this is due to lack of processing speed of a DSLR. But maybe its not considered a need.

 

[slopiijoe]

by the way this a picture I captured with the s6. No filters or edits (except for it is cropped in half and resized). Now I don't have a s7 picture to compare it to but I do feel the s7 doesn't get as much details when capturing up close.

 

[tnt4]

Just for clarification purposes, I want to restate the intent of my OP. Obviously it's not a DSLR and I don't expect that. What I do expect is an improvement over the prior generation given the hype surrounding this camera, and I'm simply not seeing it. It's super fast, yes. But that's about the only real improvement, and in a few other areas it's taken a half a step backward IMHO. And even then, the only reason I decided to make such an admittedly nitpicky post about it was due to the incredible hype the S7's camera has been receiving from all of the reviewers and bloggers - so much so that when I started seeing the results myself, they simply weren't matching up to what I was hearing / reading, and it began to feel like people were stating it was the greatest because Samsung said it was (a la Apple to be honest). It is indeed a great phone camera, period. But besides the fast (though sometimes inaccurate) auto-focus, it is by no means above and beyond other recent phone cameras (including the S6) and in some ways not as strong.

Basically the whole point of my post was, "chill with the hype, it's not the best."

 

[LeoRex]

About the 12 vs 16 thing... The 16 in the S6 isn't a 4:3 sensor, it's a 16:9. Due to the aspect ratio, the S6 has more information... But that comes in two 2MP bands on each side. The S7 actually had a higher vertical resolution. The S6, cropped to 4:3 (which is a more standard size), yields a 12MP picture. Now, there are other things at play here, like field of view, aperture, lens quality, etc. But the S7's larger sensor should, on paper, lead to more fine pixel-level detail.

If it doesn't, there has to be something else in play... And I suspect that is coming from the fact that it's clear, from the pictures that I see from my wife's S7, that Samsung is over processing the picture. I need to look at some RAW photos at some point, but I can clearly see processing junk... In side by side shots between hers and my 6P, the S7's is sharper, but artificially so. The 6P shots are softer, but retain more of the original image.

As for the focus on close pictures... That's the drawback for having a 1/1.7 aperture. That focal plane get really tight, and the closer you get, the tighter it gets. Wide apertures and macro shots don't mix well.

 

[tnt4]

I don't want to leave these up forever, but here's an example of the crazy differences in good lighting (All three are cropped from larger versions of the photo using identical resolutions. None of the originals were zoomed in and he was about 10-15 feet away from me [probably closer to 15 feet in the 3rd picture]):

*removed*

Edit: Interestingly (and not really the point of the picture), in addition to the color / exposure differences, I noticed the middle photo seems to add diagonal lines on the light blue stripes on the shorts (if you click it and zoom in a bit), while the first one does not (the 3rd is just too far away). What's interesting about that is that it doesn't have any diagonal lines, but it does have horizontal lines on those light blue stripes. It also has horizontal lines on the yellow portion. This is what they really look like (sorry... they got into some mud after those first shots were taken):

*removed*

 

[mcl5000]

I don't want to leave these up forever, but here's an example of the crazy differences in good lighting:

You're just seeing differences in focus points. Exposure is based on the amount of light in the focus point. I don't see that your first picture is "yellow", just that it focused on something brighter and toned down the exposure a little bit. I bet if you tapped your kid's face to focus all of these on his face, the exposures would be pretty similar. Also, I have a hard time believing none of these are zoomed or cropped. I had a Note 5 and also an S7 edge, and I haven't had a single outdoor shot in good light that is this soft.

Just keep in mind that you can play around with exposure by focusing on different things. If you want the pictures above to be brighter, focus on the blue of his swimsuit or the shadowy hair on the back of his head. If you want them to be darker, focus on his body. Focus (in a very simplified view) is based on distance from the lens. Any point on his body in these pictures would allow for fine focus on his face, but like I mentioned, modify the exposure values to be more what you're looking for. Now if you're taking a close up shot, that won't necessarily be the case, but for shots as wide as these, you'd be fine.

 

[tnt4]

Also, I have a hard time believing none of these are zoomed or cropped.

Yes you are right - sorry about that. When I was cropping them to fit them neatly together, it felt obvious so I didn't think to mention it, but I'm editing the post now to state that. All three are cropped from larger versions of the photo using identical resolutions. None of the originals were zoomed in and he was about 10-15 feet away from me (probably closer to 15 feet in the 3rd picture).

You're just seeing differences in focus points. Exposure is based on the amount of light in the focus point. I don't see that your first picture is "yellow", just that it focused on something brighter and toned down the exposure a little bit. I bet if you tapped your kid's face to focus all of these on his face, the exposures would be pretty similar.

The first picture is actually my preferred one out of the bunch because it matches real life. The second one is a very tiny amount sharper, but he's completely over-exposed. The third one falls somewhere in between. If I posted the originals of all three, you would see in the first picture the shadows in the background are darker, in the second one they're much brighter, and the 3rd one is in between the two. If what you're saying is what happened in these (that the first one focused on something brighter), then the first one is the only one that got it right, and the other two (namely the second one) did one of two things - either 1) it blew out the focal point of the picture (him) in an attempt to lighten all of it, or 2) it didn't even treat him as the focal point and simply tried to brighten everything up. I have about 20-30 photos from each phone in my backyard and every single one turned out the same as these three, even when their faces were the focal points (none were up close, most were 5-15ft away).

Just keep in mind that you can play around with exposure by focusing on different things. If you want the pictures above to be brighter, focus on the blue of his swimsuit or the shadowy hair on the back of his head. If you want them to be darker, focus on his body. Focus (in a very simplified view) is based on distance from the lens. Any point on his body in these pictures would allow for fine focus on his face, but like I mentioned, modify the exposure values to be more what you're looking for. Now if you're taking a close up shot, that won't necessarily be the case, but for shots as wide as these, you'd be fine.

I appreciate that input and it's helpful. My only issue is that these were shots taken quickly as they were playing and there's not really a great opportunity to tap to change exposure or mess with any settings in those scenarios, and even then it didn't make a big difference the few times I tried. Admittedly, despite being outdoors, that's probably not the easiest situation for the cameras because he was in bright sunlight and a good chunk of the background was in darker shade.

 

[ded1945]

Basically the whole point of my post was, "chill with the hype, it's not the best."

I think there's a whole lot of folks who don't agree with that opinion.

 

[zerospace-net]

Coming from a Motorola phone before this (actually, my last 2 phones were Moto) -- the S7's camera is great by comparison. However, does it totally blow me away with each and every pic? No. If I want the best quality photo, I still have to reach for my DSLR, just not as often now that my phone does a better job with casual, spur-of-the-moment stuff (read: my random photos of my dog doing something funny that I just have to send to a family member look a whole lot better than they did before).

I do agree that the hype is/was overdone. Yes, the S7 has a great camera, but I can still see graininess in low-light/indoor pics if shot in full auto (no HDR, I hate HDR). I often use mine in pro mode, as I'm not super impressed with the auto white balancing (sometimes it's spot on, other times, not so much). Playing with settings in pro mode can get some much better shots, but at the expense of the time it takes to properly set it all up to get the shot (which means there's no quickly grabbing the phone to snap a pic of something happening right then).

My overall opinion is that the S7's camera is more than adequate for a smartphone camera (not necessarily all that its been hyped up to be, though), but I'll still use my DSLR when it really matters.

 

[erica_483]

As far as I can tell camera on high-end phones all are more than adequate for the casual family photo, food Instagram, selfie/wefie....It definitely works as good if not better than those digital compact cameras. I really love Samsung for it's auto mode that gives me clear sharp pictures and I have tried low-light shots and found it much less grainy compared to G3 (Using that partially boxed in figurine in the Samsung store) --> It's understandably not as good as a DSLR and for a casual photographer, this camera is awesome when you just need to shoot on the go (like a candid moment)

 

[slopiijoe]

As far as I can tell camera on high-end phones all are more than adequate for the casual family photo, food Instagram, selfie/wefie....It definitely works as good if not better than those digital compact cameras. I really love Samsung for it's auto mode that gives me clear sharp pictures and I have tried low-light shots and found it much less grainy compared to G3 (Using that partially boxed in figurine in the Samsung store) --> It's understandably not as good as a DSLR and for a casual photographer, this camera is awesome when you just need to shoot on the go (like a candid moment)

I would agree. I do think smartphone cameras are just as good if not better than a compact point and shoot.

 

[gtg465x]

I agree that it's a bit overrated. Overall, the photo taking "experience" is probably the best I've ever had due to the quick home button double press to launch, super fast focus and capture, excellent ability to automatically detect when HDR is needed, great manual controls, and bright screen for easy framing in bright sunlight. However, the end result / photo quality isn't the best I've seen. It's still good, sometimes even great, but in good lighting, the S7 just can't match some of the photos I took with the Galaxy S6 and Moto X Pure (yes, the Moto X Pure). I haven't had any issues with autofocus (in fact I haven't taken a single shot that wasn't perfectly focused), but I do notice quite a bit of noise in blue skies, some oversharpening halos, and the occasional overexposure, plus the 12 MP sensor just can't match the detail produced by the 16 and 20 MP sensors of the S6 and Pure in good lighting. And at night and in low light, the Nexus 5X generally produced more impressive shots for me when HDR+ was enabled, with less noise and more accurate colors. But none of those phones beat the Galaxy S7 in every situation. The Galaxy S7 is a master when it comes to the photo taking experience, but when it comes to photo quality, it's kind of a jack of all trades (pretty good at everything), master of none (probably not the very best at anything).

 

[tnt4]

I agree that it's a bit overrated. Overall, the photo taking "experience" is probably the best I've ever had due to the quick home button double press to launch, super fast focus and capture, excellent ability to automatically detect when HDR is needed, great manual controls, and bright screen for easy framing in bright sunlight. However, the end result / photo quality isn't the best I've seen. It's still good, sometimes even great, but in good lighting, the S7 just can't match some of the photos I took with the Galaxy S6 and Moto X Pure (yes, the Moto X Pure). I haven't had any issues with autofocus (in fact I haven't taken a single shot that wasn't perfectly focused), but I do notice quite a bit of noise in blue skies, some oversharpening halos, and the occasional overexposure, plus the 12 MP sensor just can't match the detail produced by the 16 and 20 MP sensors of the S6 and Pure in good lighting. And at night and in low light, the Nexus 5X generally produced more impressive shots for me when HDR+ was enabled, with less noise and more accurate colors. But none of those phones beat the Galaxy S7 in every situation. The Galaxy S7 is a master when it comes to the photo taking experience, but when it comes to photo quality, it's kind of a jack of all trades (pretty good at everything), master of none (probably not the very best at anything).

You hit the nail on the head just about perfectly. I agree with 100% of what you wrote and explained better than I've been able to.

 

[mcl5000]

I appreciate that input and it's helpful. My only issue is that these were shots taken quickly as they were playing and there's not really a great opportunity to tap to change exposure or mess with any settings in those scenarios, and even then it didn't make a big difference the few times I tried. Admittedly, despite being outdoors, that's probably not the easiest situation for the cameras because he was in bright sunlight and a good chunk of the background was in darker shade.

Yeah, I totally understand about just taking some quick pictures. But at the same time, even DSLRs would struggle with this on auto mode depending on the type of focus/metering you're using. Pro photogs make pictures in bright sunlight look easy, and while pretty much any cell camera will do a good job taking a nice sharp picture in sunlight, nailing exposure in this situation is extremely difficult. Whether you realize it or not, you're actually asking a lot of your phone to give you perfect exposure when half of your scene is dark and the other half is bright white. Even your subject is a mix of both. I mean even his hair has dark spots and light spots.

In my opinion, the S7s actually do a great job with spot metering (tapping to focus, and auto exposure based on that), but yeah, that's not always an option. The best thing to do, as it seems you realize, is to just take a bunch of pictures and delete the ones you don't want...especially because you can't even really get a good read of what your pictures look like when you're in bright sun yourself.

The other option, of course, is some slight editing. If you prefer the first picture, you can drop the brightness or exposure (depending on the app/program) on the others. Everybody goes on about RAW, which is optimal, but if the focus is OK and the image is sharp, you can make even bad jpegs look pretty decent in a few seconds.