Welcome back to my next camera comparison between Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. Both phones have March security update installed. Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra indeed performs much better in camera department than on previous software however there are still some problems to be solved.
VIDEOS
Videos recorded in this comparison are 4K30FPS. Why 4K30? Because Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra can switch between lenses only when I record videos in 4K30. It's not possible to switch between lenses while recording 4K60FPS. From my observation what I noticed is that videos produced with S24 Ultra are slightly brighter in comparison to S23U. They also have more true to life colors but also slightly warmer tone in comparison to S23U which has slightly darker tone and slightly cooler colors. What I also noticed is that Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has slightly less details on videos. This is probably due to less sharpening effect both on videos and photos. The problem that I have encountered with my S24 Ultra is 3x telephoto lens. On videos you can see that when I switch from main lens to 3x telephoto color switches to purple tint. This is not present on S23 Ultra. I'm sure that this is just a software issue and this can be easily fixed with software update. This problem only occurs on 3x telephoto. However what I also noticed is that Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra handles lights much better than S23 Ultra. There are much less flares visible on S24 Ultra in comparison to S23 Ultra. Again especially on 3x telephoto lens. All cameras were cleaned before taking pictures and videos. You can see the same problem with S23 Ultra on my previous low light camera so this is indeed a problem, don't know if it's a hardware issue or software.
My verdict is that I personally prefer videos produced with new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra mainly due to slightly brighter videos, more true to life colors and less flares visible on videos. Problem with 3x purple tint can be solved with software so I think Samsung will deliver an appropriate patch soon.
PHOTOS
Now few words about night time photos. Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra destroyes Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra in 5x magnification. It really destroyes the last year model. New 5x lens is brighter, sharper and produces more true to life colors than 5x crop from 3x lens in Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. This is undeniable. I tried to take 10x magnification at night with both of them but photos in 10x on both phones are bad so I haven't included these photos here in this comparison. On both it's just oil paintings. That's why I personally think that it was a smart move to change 10x lens with 10 mpx resolution in favor of 5x lens with 50 mpx. Zoom is much more usable and photos and videos have better quality. Especially at night. What's more photos taken with main 200 mpx lens are slightly darker on Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra in comparison to Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. Why? The answer is simple and visible while taking pictures. Galaxy S24 Ultra catches less light because usually it takes pictures one second faster in comparison to S23 Ultra. S23 Ultra usually takes 3 to 4 seconds to capture night time photos in auto mode and Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra usually needs 2 to 3 seconds to capture the same scene at same conditions. Effect is visible, slightly darker photos however these photos produced with S24 Ultra have less noice, less artifacts, are sharper and have better true to life colors. They also have warmer tone but colors are better preserved. Look at photos of church and lights around the church. Lights were yellow to orange, almost the exact look as on Galaxy S24 Ultra's pictures. Galaxy S23 Ultra have blue and purple tint on these photos and these photos are brighter but have more noice, artifacts and don't represent night time conditions. There was no blue and purple tint in real life while taking pictures.
However if you want to have a similar look of night photos on Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra as on Galaxy S23 Ultra you can achieve this look using remaster feature in Gallery app. Remaster feature brightens photos to unnatural style of S23 Ultra and also bring more noice and artifacts to shots. You can definitely see this on the video. I marked photos that were originally taken with Galaxy S24 Ultra then remastered in Gallery app and also compared to Galaxy S23 Ultra shots.
So again I personally prefer photos taken at night with new Galaxy S24 Ultra. They are slightly darker but also represent color accurately, have warmer tint, are slightly more detailed and represent night as night not as a day. Algorithms don't change night time conditions into daytime. This is a plus in my opinion. What I also noticed is that 3x telephoto lens on photos on Galaxy S24 Ultra doesn't have this purple tint as on videos so this is definitely a software issue. 5x is much better on S24U Untra in comparison to 5x crop on S23 Ultra.
I'm very curious of your thoughts. Share your thoughts in comment section.