Trouble w/ S20 Ultra camera focus

[HJStrawberry]

One of the things I use my phone for the most is the camera. Help! I am finding that no pictures I take look in focus. There will be a small spot of focus and everything else blurry. Is there a setting I need to change? Tried turning off bixby scene, hdr+ etc and nothing helps! I can't believe how horrible these pics look! Upgraded from S10+ which wasn't great, but not this bad!

 

[bhatech]

Known issue and there are reviews complaining about it and camera threads in this forum discussing about the same.

Samsung has said that it'll push an update to supposedly fix these auto focus issues on Ultra. We'll have to wait and see once the update is received. Currently outside of South Korea everyone else is waiting for the camera update. When the update comes to you depends on your region/carrier. Samsung is not Apple to push update to everyone at once since they have million firmware variants for every model. So you have to just wait.

 

[HJStrawberry]

I saw those reviews, but they said an update was sent to Verizon that would download when phone was activated, which I received. I see others posting pics that look fine?!

 

[Peter Scooze]

I saw those reviews, but they said an update was sent to Verizon that would download when phone was activated, which I received. I see others posting pics that look fine?!

That was just the monthly security update. Another one is supposed to come

 

[HJStrawberry]

It sucks because there's only 14 days to return this thing! It's rolling the dice return/keep not knowing when that update will come or if it truly works

 

[Lobwedgephil]

It sucks because there's only 14 days to return this thing! It's rolling the dice return/keep not knowing when that update will come or if it truly works

Yep, hopefully the update improves things and comes before 14 days, but I am not sure it will get here in time in the U.S. Going to make for some tough decisions for a lot of people.

 

[L0n3N1nja]

Have any samples to show? If a small part is in focus but nothing else is it very well could be due to shallow depth of field. The phone has a much larger image sensor than previous phones. I've noticed it in some of the photos I've seen posted and in reviews.

 

[HJStrawberry]

Here are several examples

 

[Lobwedgephil]

Shallow depth of field just means Natural Bokeh!!

 

[L0n3N1nja]

Looks like shallow depth of field to me, a portion of the image is clearly in focus and anything closer or further to the lens from the point of focus begins to blur and gets stronger the further from the focus point it is. It's easiest to see on the watch photo you posted. Time is clearly in focus, moving towards the bottom of the image it blurs a bit and moving further away towards the top the blur is stronger.

Watch photo looks great to me, doesn't look like it was taken on a smartphone. I personally use a full frame DSLR as my main camera so I'm used to a shallow depth of field that phones traditionally couldn't create.

This is one reason the variable aperture on the S9 and S10 was so useful, could go into pro and use f/2.4 and get more in focus on close ups like these images.

 

[bhatech]

It sucks because there's only 14 days to return this thing! It's rolling the dice return/keep not knowing when that update will come or if it truly works

My suggestion is don't trust any supposed update to come and fix your issue. If an update comes within the return period see if it fixes whatever issue you are seeing, if not return. You can always check back later to see if the issues are fixed and then buy the phone when it is.

 

[DYKWIA]

I got my S20+ today (in the UK), and the system update mentioned a Camera fix of some sort, as well as the March security patch. Not sure if this is the "final" camera fix, but pictures look OK so far.

 

[HJStrawberry]

It's nice for some shots, just frustrating when I need everything to be in focus! The watch pic for example... Planning to sell on eBay, a buyer would want clear pic of watch band too!

 

[L0n3N1nja]

It's nice for some shots, just frustrating when I need everything to be in focus! The watch pic for example... Planning to sell on eBay, a buyer would want clear pic of watch band too!

You could try switching to 108mp mode and take the picture from further away and crop it in after. The further the camera is from the watch the more that will be in focus.

 

[donm527]

Fast forward to the 9 minute mark where he mentions "Razor thin plain of focus" causing a "smeared, fringed, bad looking bokah."

He also suspect that this razor thin plane of focus could be causing the focusing issue because as well as someone else mentioning that Samsung did no go with dual aperture mode on their sensor. He says the Samsung update may fix the autofocus issue but the fringing and bad bokah may be due to the hardware limitation. MKBHD knows his camera stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wOdL7HFNOs&t=910s

One of the things I use my phone for the most is the camera. Help! I am finding that no pictures I take look in focus. There will be a small spot of focus and everything else blurry. Is there a setting I need to change? Tried turning off bixby scene, hdr+ etc and nothing helps! I can't believe how horrible these pics look! Upgraded from S10+ which wasn't great, but not this bad!

 

[HJStrawberry]

Well damn. I'm not having the jumpy auto focus issue just that fringed bokeh so I might be stuck. Had some issues similar on s10+ so I ended up DL the Google camera apk which worked great. Would be bs to have to do that on a $1400 phone, grr.

 

[Kilroy672]

Here are several examples

What watch face are you using?

 

[HJStrawberry]

"Samwatch Fantasy A" in the Galaxy store. It's really cool, changes landscapes!