Is the Galaxy S23 Ultra finally better at taking photos of moving objects?

The_Woo

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Based on early reviews and even this one, I would say there's improvement, but still the same Samsung lag. Optimistic that updates will help

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JohanJohan

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In the Camera Assistent module in the Samsung Good Lock app you can make the camera record less frames and also record the picture when pressing the button (instead of at release of the button). With this settings on the shutter lag is significantly decreased. There's still problems with blur (probably low shutter speed) and focus speed though. Taking pictures of a small child indoors you will get most of the shots blurry and a handful pictures in focus. You can't compare S23 ultra to a dedicated camera like Sony a7c using the right settings in this regard.
 
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neil74

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Looking at some the pictures this looks more like motion blur than shutter lag? Pixel looks correctly exposed the S23 slightly over exposed so maybe the Pixe is just choosing a faster shutter.
 

Go0gle

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I have an S23 Ultra and I am also a professional photographer for context.

First of all, the S23U does not really have any meaningful shutter lag. Every camera has a tiny bit of lag, but it's not enough to really affect anything on the S23U. The YouTubers saying that shutter lag is giving them blurry photos quite frankly don't even understand how a camera works, and you probably shouldn't be getting your information from those people for anything else either. By default, the phone takes a picture once you release your finger from the shutter button, not when it touches it, and that gives the perception of having way more lag than there actually is. You can change a setting to take a picture as soon as your finger touches the button. On top of this you can also tell the phone to prioritize speed over quality, which I don't personally do, but it will speed it up even further. It also makes 200MP captures faster if you care about that.

If you are getting blurry photos of moving subjects, it's either focus or shutter speed related. Shutter lag has absolutely nothing to do with freezing action, but it may affect the shooter's ability to time the perfect moment. In the above posted examples within the links, no EXIF info is provided, so we have no clue if appropriate settings are being used to freeze that type of action (probably not...)

Freezing motion works exactly the same with a smartphone as any other camera - as long as your shutter speed is sufficient, you will freeze the action. In full auto mode, smartphones tend to prioritize slower shutter speeds so they can let plenty of light in and get away with a lower ISO to give you a cleaner image. This is not helpful for action shots. The second thing is autofocus, and really you can't expect any smartphone to be able to track action very well - they just aren't set up for it. Side-to-side motion is not nearly as hard to track as distance changes (subject moving towards or away from the camera), however. The S23U does have DPAF (dual pixel AF) but you aren't going to get autofocus performance anywhere near what you would see in a good mirrorless camera. Generally speaking, you need to rely on the huge depth of field given by the tiny image sensors to keep a moving subject in focus with a smartphone rather than actual AF tracking.

If you want to try get a decent action shot with your smartphone, there's a few things you can do:

1) Set the shutter button to take the photo when you press it, not when you release it
2) Most importantly, make sure the shutter speed the camera is selecting is sufficient to actually freeze the motion. If it's not, use manual mode and force it. Freezing action in low light is the hardest (and most expensive) thing for even professional cameras to do, so don't be disappointed if you aren't getting amazing results from your smartphone in less than ideal conditions.
3) Make sure the subject will actually be in focus. If the camera isn't tracking the subject as expected, pre-focus on an area with roughly the same plane of focus as your subject. The tiny image sensors (relatively speaking) in smartphone cameras have plenty of depth of field so you don't have to be overly precise.

If you are trying to capture a very specific moment, or if you aren't sure when the action will begin:
1) Shoot a large burst of photos, preferably starting just before the action begins. You can do this by swiping down on the shutter button and holding.
2) Shoot a video and just extract the frame you want. 4K video gives you ~8MP photos, 8K video gives you ~33MP photos. The same rules for shutter speed apply to video *if* your goal is to freeze action and extract a frame. Regular video with too high of a shutter speed will look choppy.

The worst possible way to capture action is leaving everything in default/auto mode and expecting the camera to perform a miracle, which seems to be what most of the YouTubers are expecting.
 

Talderon

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I have an S23 Ultra and I am also a professional photographer for context.

-- truncated to not have a massive response...

Thanks for this write-up! My father is a professional photographer as well, but he is more of a DSLR (finally switched from 35mm film to digital... LOL) guy and not a cell phone user for the most part (other than to use it as a phone and email machine).

Many of the hints in your post mirror what my father has always told me (outside of the mobile phone specific stuff), so the inclusion of the phone hints are very nice!

Thanks again!!
 

nuangel2

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I have an S23 Ultra and I am also a professional photographer for context.

First of all, the S23U does not really have any meaningful shutter lag. Every camera has a tiny bit of lag, but it's not enough to really affect anything on the S23U. The YouTubers saying that shutter lag is giving them blurry photos quite frankly don't even understand how a camera works, and you probably shouldn't be getting your information from those people for anything else either. By default, the phone takes a picture once you release your finger from the shutter button, not when it touches it, and that gives the perception of having way more lag than there actually is. You can change a setting to take a picture as soon as your finger touches the button. On top of this you can also tell the phone to prioritize speed over quality, which I don't personally do, but it will speed it up even further. It also makes 200MP captures faster if you care about that.

If you are getting blurry photos of moving subjects, it's either focus or shutter speed related. Shutter lag has absolutely nothing to do with freezing action, but it may affect the shooter's ability to time the perfect moment. In the above posted examples within the links, no EXIF info is provided, so we have no clue if appropriate settings are being used to freeze that type of action (probably not...)

Freezing motion works exactly the same with a smartphone as any other camera - as long as your shutter speed is sufficient, you will freeze the action. In full auto mode, smartphones tend to prioritize slower shutter speeds so they can let plenty of light in and get away with a lower ISO to give you a cleaner image. This is not helpful for action shots. The second thing is autofocus, and really you can't expect any smartphone to be able to track action very well - they just aren't set up for it. Side-to-side motion is not nearly as hard to track as distance changes (subject moving towards or away from the camera), however. The S23U does have DPAF (dual pixel AF) but you aren't going to get autofocus performance anywhere near what you would see in a good mirrorless camera. Generally speaking, you need to rely on the huge depth of field given by the tiny image sensors to keep a moving subject in focus with a smartphone rather than actual AF tracking.

If you want to try get a decent action shot with your smartphone, there's a few things you can do:

1) Set the shutter button to take the photo when you press it, not when you release it
2) Most importantly, make sure the shutter speed the camera is selecting is sufficient to actually freeze the motion. If it's not, use manual mode and force it. Freezing action in low light is the hardest (and most expensive) thing for even professional cameras to do, so don't be disappointed if you aren't getting amazing results from your smartphone in less than ideal conditions.
3) Make sure the subject will actually be in focus. If the camera isn't tracking the subject as expected, pre-focus on an area with roughly the same plane of focus as your subject. The tiny image sensors (relatively speaking) in smartphone cameras have plenty of depth of field so you don't have to be overly precise.

If you are trying to capture a very specific moment, or if you aren't sure when the action will begin:
1) Shoot a large burst of photos, preferably starting just before the action begins. You can do this by swiping down on the shutter button and holding.
2) Shoot a video and just extract the frame you want. 4K video gives you ~8MP photos, 8K video gives you ~33MP photos. The same rules for shutter speed apply to video *if* your goal is to freeze action and extract a frame. Regular video with too high of a shutter speed will look choppy.

The worst possible way to capture action is leaving everything in default/auto mode and expecting the camera to perform a miracle, which seems to be what most of the YouTubers are expecting.
This is very helpful thankyou

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YankInDaSouth

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I have an S23 Ultra and I am also a professional photographer for context.

First of all, the S23U does not really have any meaningful shutter lag. Every camera has a tiny bit of lag, but it's not enough to really affect anything on the S23U. The YouTubers saying that shutter lag is giving them blurry photos quite frankly don't even understand how a camera works, and you probably shouldn't be getting your information from those people for anything else either. By default, the phone takes a picture once you release your finger from the shutter button, not when it touches it, and that gives the perception of having way more lag than there actually is. You can change a setting to take a picture as soon as your finger touches the button. On top of this you can also tell the phone to prioritize speed over quality, which I don't personally do, but it will speed it up even further. It also makes 200MP captures faster if you care about that.

If you are getting blurry photos of moving subjects, it's either focus or shutter speed related. Shutter lag has absolutely nothing to do with freezing action, but it may affect the shooter's ability to time the perfect moment. In the above posted examples within the links, no EXIF info is provided, so we have no clue if appropriate settings are being used to freeze that type of action (probably not...)

Freezing motion works exactly the same with a smartphone as any other camera - as long as your shutter speed is sufficient, you will freeze the action. In full auto mode, smartphones tend to prioritize slower shutter speeds so they can let plenty of light in and get away with a lower ISO to give you a cleaner image. This is not helpful for action shots. The second thing is autofocus, and really you can't expect any smartphone to be able to track action very well - they just aren't set up for it. Side-to-side motion is not nearly as hard to track as distance changes (subject moving towards or away from the camera), however. The S23U does have DPAF (dual pixel AF) but you aren't going to get autofocus performance anywhere near what you would see in a good mirrorless camera. Generally speaking, you need to rely on the huge depth of field given by the tiny image sensors to keep a moving subject in focus with a smartphone rather than actual AF tracking.

If you want to try get a decent action shot with your smartphone, there's a few things you can do:

1) Set the shutter button to take the photo when you press it, not when you release it
2) Most importantly, make sure the shutter speed the camera is selecting is sufficient to actually freeze the motion. If it's not, use manual mode and force it. Freezing action in low light is the hardest (and most expensive) thing for even professional cameras to do, so don't be disappointed if you aren't getting amazing results from your smartphone in less than ideal conditions.
3) Make sure the subject will actually be in focus. If the camera isn't tracking the subject as expected, pre-focus on an area with roughly the same plane of focus as your subject. The tiny image sensors (relatively speaking) in smartphone cameras have plenty of depth of field so you don't have to be overly precise.

If you are trying to capture a very specific moment, or if you aren't sure when the action will begin:
1) Shoot a large burst of photos, preferably starting just before the action begins. You can do this by swiping down on the shutter button and holding.
2) Shoot a video and just extract the frame you want. 4K video gives you ~8MP photos, 8K video gives you ~33MP photos. The same rules for shutter speed apply to video *if* your goal is to freeze action and extract a frame. Regular video with too high of a shutter speed will look choppy.

The worst possible way to capture action is leaving everything in default/auto mode and expecting the camera to perform a miracle, which seems to be what most of the YouTubers are expecting.
Awesome post! Thanks for taking the time to share!
 

Michael_Archangel

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I have an S23 Ultra and I am also a professional photographer for context.

First of all, the S23U does not really have any meaningful shutter lag. Every camera has a tiny bit of lag, but it's not enough to really affect anything on the S23U. The YouTubers saying that shutter lag is giving them blurry photos quite frankly don't even understand how a camera works, and you probably shouldn't be getting your information from those people for anything else either. By default, the phone takes a picture once you release your finger from the shutter button, not when it touches it, and that gives the perception of having way more lag than there actually is. You can change a setting to take a picture as soon as your finger touches the button. On top of this you can also tell the phone to prioritize speed over quality, which I don't personally do, but it will speed it up even further. It also makes 200MP captures faster if you care about that.

If you are getting blurry photos of moving subjects, it's either focus or shutter speed related. Shutter lag has absolutely nothing to do with freezing action, but it may affect the shooter's ability to time the perfect moment. In the above posted examples within the links, no EXIF info is provided, so we have no clue if appropriate settings are being used to freeze that type of action (probably not...)

Freezing motion works exactly the same with a smartphone as any other camera - as long as your shutter speed is sufficient, you will freeze the action. In full auto mode, smartphones tend to prioritize slower shutter speeds so they can let plenty of light in and get away with a lower ISO to give you a cleaner image. This is not helpful for action shots. The second thing is autofocus, and really you can't expect any smartphone to be able to track action very well - they just aren't set up for it. Side-to-side motion is not nearly as hard to track as distance changes (subject moving towards or away from the camera), however. The S23U does have DPAF (dual pixel AF) but you aren't going to get autofocus performance anywhere near what you would see in a good mirrorless camera. Generally speaking, you need to rely on the huge depth of field given by the tiny image sensors to keep a moving subject in focus with a smartphone rather than actual AF tracking.

If you want to try get a decent action shot with your smartphone, there's a few things you can do:

1) Set the shutter button to take the photo when you press it, not when you release it
2) Most importantly, make sure the shutter speed the camera is selecting is sufficient to actually freeze the motion. If it's not, use manual mode and force it. Freezing action in low light is the hardest (and most expensive) thing for even professional cameras to do, so don't be disappointed if you aren't getting amazing results from your smartphone in less than ideal conditions.
3) Make sure the subject will actually be in focus. If the camera isn't tracking the subject as expected, pre-focus on an area with roughly the same plane of focus as your subject. The tiny image sensors (relatively speaking) in smartphone cameras have plenty of depth of field so you don't have to be overly precise.

If you are trying to capture a very specific moment, or if you aren't sure when the action will begin:
1) Shoot a large burst of photos, preferably starting just before the action begins. You can do this by swiping down on the shutter button and holding.
2) Shoot a video and just extract the frame you want. 4K video gives you ~8MP photos, 8K video gives you ~33MP photos. The same rules for shutter speed apply to video *if* your goal is to freeze action and extract a frame. Regular video with too high of a shutter speed will look choppy.

The worst possible way to capture action is leaving everything in default/auto mode and expecting the camera to perform a miracle, which seems to be what most of the YouTubers are expecting.

Thanks for the info, I've indeed heard YouTubers say stupid things more than once... One question though. How are the iPhone and Pixel capable of taking much clearer photos of moving objects (e.g. pets) when in Auto mode? There's a famous test done where you wave your hand in front of the camera phone, and on the Samsung you always see motion blur where the hand leaves a visible trail, whereas on iPhone or Pixel, the hand is frozen in place. It's not that they prioritise faster shutter speeds in general, because those cameras tend to take both brighter shots than the Samsungs and also sharper motion shots... So I guess the only explanation is that those phones recognise when an object is in motion before the button is pressed, and in those cases only they decide to use a faster shutter speed, and otherwise use a slower one? And then the Samsungs always prioritises a slower shutter speed by default, meaning that still photos are sharp, but motion photos are blurry. And if you change the setting to prioritise faster shutter speed, then you're going to get less blurry motion shots, but darker and less sharp stills... So in this case, it's still a fault of the phone's Auto mode which is less efficient than the ones on iPhone and Pixel, and requires tweaking of settings to achieve the same results (which a lot of people using smartphones are not happy to do as they just expect to point and shoot on Auto all the time).
 

Go0gle

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Thanks for the info, I've indeed heard YouTubers say stupid things more than once... One question though. How are the iPhone and Pixel capable of taking much clearer photos of moving objects (e.g. pets) when in Auto mode? There's a famous test done where you wave your hand in front of the camera phone, and on the Samsung you always see motion blur where the hand leaves a visible trail, whereas on iPhone or Pixel, the hand is frozen in place. It's not that they prioritise faster shutter speeds in general, because those cameras tend to take both brighter shots than the Samsungs and also sharper motion shots... So I guess the only explanation is that those phones recognise when an object is in motion before the button is pressed, and in those cases only they decide to use a faster shutter speed, and otherwise use a slower one? And then the Samsungs always prioritises a slower shutter speed by default, meaning that still photos are sharp, but motion photos are blurry. And if you change the setting to prioritise faster shutter speed, then you're going to get less blurry motion shots, but darker and less sharp stills... So in this case, it's still a fault of the phone's Auto mode which is less efficient than the ones on iPhone and Pixel, and requires tweaking of settings to achieve the same results (which a lot of people using smartphones are not happy to do as they just expect to point and shoot on Auto all the time).

I've owned most Pixel phones and my wife uses the latest iPhone, and I personally have never seen them do anything out of the ordinary when it comes to taking photos of moving subjects. They all have to play by the same rules of physics. If you are trying to compare one phone to another, it has to be done under identical lighting and environmental conditions otherwise you aren't really comparing anything. It really just comes down to shutter speed, assuming everything is in focus, if we're talking about moving subjects. If you're outdoors or in a really bright environment, the default shutter speed in auto mode is probably going to be fast enough to freeze normal action (like a person running). It's also possible other phones tune their cameras to prioritize shutter speed over light collection, but most smartphones I've had experience with really like using shutter speeds like 1/30 or 1/60 in anything other than bright environments, which is going to give you motion blur if anything is moving. They do this to keep ISO as low as possible, which will give you cleaner, less noisy/grainy image and/or an image with less noise reduction applied to it.

Another factor is what lens is being used. The wider angle lenses will have a greater depth of field, so pretty much everything will be in focus under normal circumstances. Wide angle lenses already have huge depth of field, but on smartphones they are usually paired with smaller sensors than the main camera which further increases the effective depth of field. Also the wider the lens, the more likely you will have a bright spot in the frame (like a light bulb or the sky or the sun) which will force the camera to choose a higher shutter speed to get a proper exposure, all else equal.

Yet another factor is the auto HDR modes on most modern smartphone cameras. When you press that shutter button, the camera is actually capturing a number of images (usually 7-9) at slightly different exposures and blending them so that the shadows are brighter and highlights are not blown out, more closely matching the dynamic range of what the human eye sees. If the camera is prioritizing it's exposure(s) to give you a better HDR image, it's probably going to have a harder time also dealing with action. To get more specific than that, you probably need to talk to the phone's engineers as they are all done a little differently :)

As for the hand waving test, again it's literally just the shutter speed the manufacturer chooses to use for live view. A smartphone is essentially a mirrorless camera, meaning it has no mirror to divert light up to an optical viewfinder like a traditional DSLR camera has. In order for the user to see a preview of the image they're about to take, the camera's image sensor has to be active, and therefore it will be set for a certain exposure which is governed by the same rules as actually taking a photograph or video. For the phone to show you a live preview of an image (for example in photo or video mode but before you take a picture or begin recording), it is using a certain exposure - if the shutter speed isn't high enough, you are going to get motion blur and if the FPS is too slow, it will look choppy. That blur isn't anything bad, it's just what the manufacturer has chosen as a target shutter speed for their live view. The general rule of thumb for shooting video (which is all a live view feed is doing) is to use a shutter speed roughly equal to double the frame rate. So for example, 24FPS video is most often shot at 1/50 shutter speed (i.e. most Holywood movies), and sports which are commonly shot at 60 FPS are using a shutter speed around 1/120. Using high frame rates and high shutter speeds for static or slow moving subjects is what gives the "soap opera effect" if you are familiar with that.

As for brighter shots, there are 3 parts to the exposure triangle - so shutter speed is only one part of the equation. You have shutter speed, ISO (the sensitivity of the image sensor to light) and aperture (the size of the opening that allows light through the lens). Smartphones all have fixed apertures, so there is just ISO and shutter speed to play with. A brighter image can be accomplished by changing any one of those 3 things, so without seeing the EXIF data, it's hard to know what they are doing. They are not defying physics though, so if one image is brighter than another, either they are leaving the shutter open longer or using a higher ISO, both of which have their own disadvantages. Literally everything in photography is a trade-off in one way or another.

If you manually increase the shutter speed (faster) to better freeze action, you will need to compensate either with aperture or ISO to even out the exposure - the image would only become darker if you do something wrong. Samsung phones have extremely wide fixed apertures (wider than an iPhone 14 pro max comparing main cameras), so that is a non-issue. So let's say your phone is defaulting to 1/50, ISO 100, and the aperture is a fixed F1.7 in the case of the S23U main camera. If you increase the shutter speed to 1/400 to freeze action, you need to also increase ISO a proportionate amount to 800 (3 stops) and the exposure will be identical in terms of brightness. If all you did was raise the shutter speed, then you are ignoring the core principles of photography and of course you will get a dark (underexposed) image.

If you wanted to see how each phone behaved in Auto mode with regards to freezing action, you would need to set them all up side by side in the same environment and shoot the same subject at the same time from the same position. Then you would need to look at the EXIF data of each photo, which shows what settings they were shot at. Assuming all phones have similarly wide fixed apertures (let's say they do for this example), if one phone is freezing action better than another, it is because it's choosing both a higher ISO and a higher shutter speed. Increasing the ISO degrades image quality and eventually leads to a grainy/noisy image, and these tiny image sensors have pretty terrible ISO performance all things considered, so prioritizing one over the other isn't necessarily a bad thing, it jus depends what your end goals are. You can also easily force any of these scenarios in manual mode without losing any brightness.

Night mode does a few things to combat the poor ISO performance of tiny image sensors. First, they use image stabilization to allow you to use as long of a shutter speed as possible without introducing too much motion blur into the image. Second, they take multiple images and stack them (I believe Samsung takes 9) - noise in an image occurs randomly, so the more images you can stack on top of each other, the more noise that can be filtered out and replaced with actual image data. So when you see that phone A has brighter night photos than phone B, again since they cannot defy physics, all they've done is found a way to keep the shutter open longer to allow for a longer exposure without introducing too much blur into the image. So it's probably more of a testament to their image stabilization and AI processing than anything else. Third, the best night mode performance is always from the main camera, which typically has the widest aperture and the largest physical image sensor, both of which help improve low light performance.

And lastly just an example of how shutter lag has absolutely nothing to do with freezing motion, lets say we were trying to take a picture of a spinning propeller, and set up 2 cameras to do so (camera A and camera B) Camera A has zero shutter lag, and is set up for an exposure of ISO 100, 1/50 shutter speed, and has a fixed aperture of F1.7. Camera B is on a one minute timer (essentially making shutter lag an absurd one full minute), but has its exposure set at ISO 3200, 1/1600 shutter speed and also has a fixed aperture of F1.7. Both of those cameras at their respective settings will produce an identical exposure in terms of image brightness, but camera B will freeze the motion of the propeller when it takes it's picture, and camera A's image will be nothing but a blur.

Sorry that was long, hope I didn't go off on too much of a tangent lol.
 

Michael_Archangel

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If you are trying to compare one phone to another, it has to be done under identical lighting and environmental conditions otherwise you aren't really comparing anything. It really just comes down to shutter speed, assuming everything is in focus, if we're talking about moving subjects. If you're outdoors or in a really bright environment, the default shutter speed in auto mode is probably going to be fast enough to freeze normal action (like a person running).

Many thanks for the detailed response! Very interesting and definitely not too much off a tangent lol.

With regards to the hand test, it's done in this review in the same indoor environment: https://www.dxomark.com/samsung-galaxy-s22-ultra-exynos-camera-test-retested/

The Galaxy S22 Ultra Exynos is all blurry: https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/...amsungGalaxyS22Ultra_Exynos_DxOMark_05-00.jpg

The iPhone 13 Pro Max has frozen the hand and is sharp: https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/...88/Barman_AppleiPhone13Pro_DxOMark_05-00.jpeg

Downloading the images to see the EXIF data, we can see in the same conditions the Samsung at f/1.8 went for 1/25 sec. exposure at ISO-640, whereas the iPhone at f/1.5 went for 1/33 sec. exposure at ISO-500.

This is repeated in other tests I've seen including with the S23 Ultra vs the iPhone 14 Pro Max, for example at 2min 34s in this review where the iPhone is consistently sharper while being an indoors test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkEPM8yN8kU
 

neil74

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I've owned most Pixel phones and my wife uses the latest iPhone, and I personally have never seen them do anything out of the ordinary when it comes to taking photos of moving subjects. They all have to play by the same rules of physics. .

I used to be a pro photographer too and agree but honestly sometimes the Pixel with it's computational photography often makes me just go wow. I would have been cranking the ISO up opening the lens up and walking the shutter speed tightrope to get some of those shots on an SLR not that long ago.

It is very impressive.
 

JohanJohan

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First of all, the S23U does not really have any meaningful shutter lag. Every camera has a tiny bit of lag, but it's not enough to really affect anything on the S23U.
It depends on what the subject is and how fast it is moving.

A model standing still is not a problem. A moving child is.

To make it somewhat more scientific I came up with this test:
  1. Start a stop watch on another smart phone.
  2. Take a photo of the stop watch every 10 seconds. Look at the stop watch directly, not through the camera app. Don't wait until you see 10 seconds (20 seconds, 30 seconds..) on the stopwatch. Try to hit the shutter button exactly on 10 seconds. take like 10-20 photos.
  3. Look at the images. Write down the delay for every photo. For example. If the second photo shows 20.45, write down 0.45.
  4. Calculate the average value. This is the shutter lag.

I did this and the result was:
s22 ultra is faster than s23 ultra
iphone and Pixel is faster than s22 ultra
s23 ultra with the two settings in Good Lock is faster than s23 ultra without Good Lock.

I don´t remember the exact numbers.

The worst possible way to capture action is leaving everything in default/auto mode and expecting the camera to perform a miracle, which seems to be what most of the YouTubers are expecting.
Like other users already pointed out. If Iphone and Pixel can do it in auto, Samsung should also be able to. Auto is also what most people would use.
 

Go0gle

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Many thanks for the detailed response! Very interesting and definitely not too much off a tangent lol.

With regards to the hand test, it's done in this review in the same indoor environment: https://www.dxomark.com/samsung-galaxy-s22-ultra-exynos-camera-test-retested/

The Galaxy S22 Ultra Exynos is all blurry: https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/...amsungGalaxyS22Ultra_Exynos_DxOMark_05-00.jpg

The iPhone 13 Pro Max has frozen the hand and is sharp: https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/...88/Barman_AppleiPhone13Pro_DxOMark_05-00.jpeg

Downloading the images to see the EXIF data, we can see in the same conditions the Samsung at f/1.8 went for 1/25 sec. exposure at ISO-640, whereas the iPhone at f/1.5 went for 1/33 sec. exposure at ISO-500.

This is repeated in other tests I've seen including with the S23 Ultra vs the iPhone 14 Pro Max, for example at 2min 34s in this review where the iPhone is consistently sharper while being an indoors test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkEPM8yN8kU

In the DXO examples, the iPhone is using a shutter speed over 30% faster, so it is going to freeze motion that much better. F1.5 is actually quite a bit wider than F1.8 (almost 2/3 of a stop faster). I can't see how fast the reviewer is moving his hand, hand waving is wildly variable and not at all controlled, and the exposure settings are not identical, so all that example is telling us is that the iPhone was able to choose a faster shutter speed thanks to it's wider maximum aperture (F1.5 vs F1.8 in that case), and obviously a faster shutter speed will freeze motion better. What the reviewer should have done is used manual mode to match the shutter speeds, and use something with constant motion - then that would tell you if it's in-camera processing that is making the difference or not. I realize he may have just been comparing full Auto modes, but it's a very poor test as they aren't even controlling the main variable they are trying to test (movement). Both of those phones are stacking multiple images when the photo is taken, so there are other variables at play on the processing side that we will never be privy to which help determine the final result.

In the Super Saf video, he does not share the EXIF data, so we have no way of knowing what shutter speeds were used. Also, again, waving a hand is about as uncontrolled as it gets - it would be much better to use a fan or something with a constant speed as it's entirely possible his hand is moving at significantly different speeds at the exact moment the images were taken. If we ignore that and assume his hand is moving at a constant speed (which is virtually impossible) iPhone is probably selecting a higher shutter speed and a higher ISO (the S23U has a wider aperture, of F1.7 vs the iPhone's F1.78, assuming those are accurate). In order for one image to be blurry and the other not, the only thing it can be is shutter speed. The Samsung phones look consistently better in low light than the iPhones and I suspect Samsung is prioritizing low light image quality to some degree with the help of lower shutter speeds and lower ISOs.

At the end of the day, none of these smartphones can defy physics or the core principles of photography. The reason they rely so heavily on the computational side of things is because there's only so much you can do with such tiny image sensors (relatively speaking). If one image is sharper than another of a moving subject, the shutter speed is higher. If shutter speed is identical and one image is still sharper, AND if the test subject is moving at an identical speed in a controlled environment, then the only other variable is on the processing side. The only thing I can think of there is if one camera is sacrificing HDR processing and using a single frame to avoid having to stack ~9 completely different images into a single image, which is difficult to do when the scene isn't static.
 

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