Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra is right here, packing a wealth of upgrades from the design to its fancy new Privacy Display, which goals to maintain individuals from spying on no matter shady stuff you’re as much as in your commute. However the Extremely vary has at all times been the place Samsung has unleashed its newest, biggest digital camera expertise, so let’s take a better take a look at what’s new for the photographers amongst you.
When it comes to {hardware}, not so much has modified. The primary digital camera has a 200-megapixel decision, a 50-megapixel ultrawide-angle digital camera, and 10-megapixel 3x telephoto and 50-megapixel 5x telephoto cameras. These specs are the identical because the earlier S25 Extremely, so these of you hoping for a wild overhaul of the cameras to maintain tempo with Xiaomi’s upcoming 17 Ultra could also be upset.
The larger aperture in the primary lens and 5x tele digital camera ought to assist the Galaxy S26 Extremely seize higher nightitme photographs and movies.
However there have been some tweaks. The primary and ultrawide cameras now have wider apertures, which ought to assist seize extra gentle and be particularly helpful in low-light conditions. Actually, Samsung particularly highlighted the improved efficiency of evening mode imagery for each stills and video, with the evening video mode using extra superior software program processing for noise discount and improved colours.
Talking of video, it’s going to nonetheless shoot in 8K and helps Log codecs with built-in LUTs (which is what cinema professionals name filters, primarily), which ought to make the telephones extra interesting to critical video creators. To point out the cellphone means enterprise, Samsung took a leaf out of Apple’s playbook and filmed and livestreamed its San Francisco launch occasion utilizing the S26 Extremely.
Samsung filmed its occasion utilizing Galaxy S26 Ultras.
There’s additionally a characteristic referred to as Horizon Lock, which goals to maintain the horizon degree whereas capturing video, irrespective of the way you twist and switch your cellphone. This sort of stabilization exists in motion cameras already, and it may be useful for filming intense motion, like if you happen to’re operating to maintain up as you are filming your good friend skateboarding.
However as a result of it is 2026 and AI is the phrase on each tech firm’s lips, most of the main updates come within the type of generative AI. It is constructed deep into the digital camera expertise, permitting you to make use of pure language prompts to edit photos, together with compositing one ingredient of a picture onto one other, and even altering the outfit somebody in your picture is sporting.
Throughout its Unpacked event, Samsung demoed the options, displaying how its AI instruments can take an image of a canine and place it within the arms of a woman in one other picture. The corporate additionally confirmed how the cellphone can immediately change a girl’s outfit from a easy shirt to a comfortable sweater, after which to a extra grungy skater aesthetic.
There’s plenty of AI baked into the images expertise on the S26 Extremely.
To be honest, the photographs seemed photo-realistic — at the least so far as I may see on the YouTube livestream — although how these instruments really work in on a regular basis use stays to be seen till we spend a while with them. The larger query is whether or not you really need them. I will not reply that for you, however I’ll say that I am upset that Samsung is following the pattern of utilizing AI gimmicks as the primary upgrades for its cameras quite than specializing in taking higher photos in the actual world.
I will reserve judgment till I’ve had a while to take photos round my stunning dwelling metropolis of Edinburgh, Scotland. There, I will deal with discovering out how nicely the cellphone can seize pictures I might wish to share with household and associates, not simply how simply I can placed on a faux sweater.
