8 MP snapper is improved
The Samsung Galaxy S III offers the same camera in terms of pixels but actually improves on the performance. It can capture stills with resolution up to 3264 x 2448 pixels and 1.9 MP ones with the front-facing cam.
The sharpshooter on the latest Galaxy offers geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection and digital image stabilization. Due to the fast quad-core processor it is also able to simultaneously record HD (1080p and 720p) video and take near full-resolution pictures (those are cropped to an aspect ratio of 16:9 to match that of the videos).
The camera app interface is quite similar to the one on the Galaxy S II. You get two shortcut bars on each side of the viewfinder - on the right you get the still camera / camcorder switch, virtual shutter key and the gallery shortcut (which is a thumbnail of the last photo taken).
On the left you get several controls and the good news is that you can pick any five shortcuts to put there - you can easily put all commonly used features just a tap away.
Samsung Galaxy S Iii Preview Samsung Galaxy S Iii Preview
Samsung Galaxy S III camera UI
The Galaxy S III's sensor offers an F/2.6 aperture as opposed to the F/2.65 of its predecessor and a focal length of 3.7 mm contrasting with the 3.97 mm of the Galaxy S II. This results in a slightly wider viewing angle on the Galaxy S III compared to its predecessor, so you'll be able to fit more in your photos.
We've prepared a quick comparison between the two below. The Galaxy S III indeed offers slightly higher resolution, but it also tends to go a bit too far with the color saturation. The images are certainly looking punchier now, but also a little less realistic.
Samsung Galaxy S III • Samsung Galaxy S II
Samsung Galaxy S III • Samsung Galaxy S II
The dynamic range of the images produced by the Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III is pretty pleasing too and, despite the high saturation, noise is kept well under control. We'll need to do some more pixel-peeping before we can tell if the Galaxy S III is the best 8 megapixel camera out there, but it's certainly in the running.
Samsung Galaxy S III camera samples
Samsung was bragging left and right about the zero shutter lag of the Galaxy S III and we are happy to report that the smartphone is able to deliver. Pictures are captured extremely fast and there's even a burst mode available where you hold the virtual on-screen shutter and the phone will make 20 consecutive shots in just 6 seconds or so.
The good thing is that the images, produced by burst mode are in full 8 MP resolution. Samsung told us that the S III is actually capable of capturing full res shots at 3.3fps for much longer than that, but it has artificially imposed the 20 shots limit to prevent users from filling their storage with hundreds of identical shots.
Video recording is top notch
The Samsung Galaxy S III is able to record FullHD 1080p and HD 720p video hassle free. During recording you can also snap full-res 16:9 stills if need arises.
The camcorder interface is almost the same as the camera one - you get the same customizable panel on the left for up to five shortcuts.
Samsung Galaxy S Iii Preview Samsung Galaxy S Iii Preview
Samsung Galaxy S III camcorder UI
The videos themselves are incredibly smooth and offer a great amount of detail. The Galaxy S II was a great performer in terms of video capture but the S III seems to do even better, resolving even more detail and offering better color rendition. The video container used is mp4 and it creates clips with a bitrate of of about 17Mbps with stereo sound recording.
The same goes for 720p videos. We can't help but think that Samsung could've put some of that extra processing might to good use and implement slow motion recording at 60 fps or something of the sort. The average bitrate of the 720p videos is 12Mpbs and they too come with stereo sound. In case you were wondering, you can also record 720p video using the front-facing camera.
We've prepared an untouched 1080p@30fps video clip and 720p@30fps video clip from the Galaxy s III for you to download.