Issues with Telephoto and Camera in general S21 Ultra

[Members_XKZVCcq]

- The telephoto lens can be horrible, my older P30 Pro do much better with an older sensor. The focus is often bad, whether it's optimal lightning conditions or not, the picture is like paint even with only 10x zoom, which is supposed to be optical, and let alone more than 10 times zoom.

- The phone doesn't use the lens properly, it uses the main sensor up to like 4-5x zoom, then only after that it switches to the 3x optical lens. Same with the 10x camera, it uses the 3x up until around 14x zoom. Both obviously turn out horrible as they're digitally zoomed in.

- The oversharpening the phone does sometime can also turn out really, really bad. I took a picture of a lake, with lot of grass surrounding the place I were at, the grass looked like smudged paint, while my A8 (2018) kept much more details, and that's an old, mid range phone.

Now, I'm not sure if this is a software or hardware issue, I tried resetting camera, clearing cache, cleaning the lens, updated software to latest April one. (Yes, I got the Exynos version). I bought this phone for the camera, but at this point I'm thinking about sticking to an old P30 Pro, unless a solution rolls out, or someone could help to solve this problem. Any advices?

[GoanGeek]

Too many posts about the use of cameras, Samsung should listen to consumers and give more control on how we can use the 3x and 10x

You are welcome to see my other posts.

[Barford1011]

I have been reading posts about the s21 ultra phone on here for some time, issues with camera, battery, the whole running of phone. I've had mine since release date and not had any problems, phone is always kept up to date through software, play store and galaxy store only thing I didn't do when I got phone was to use the smart switch where you copy from old phone to new, just a thought if people have used this weather it's the cause of problems or just people not used to having a samsung phone.

[Darkstryder360]

Yes, I am indeed sick of it.

Seriously making me miss my S10+ which I had zero issues, that I traded in for this S21U.

[Darkstryder360]

I've got zero other issues with this phone, other than its main selling point, the camera. 

Have you honestly never had any issues with the 3x lense giving you grainy, desaturated photos, mainly in non perfect lighting?  Do you never see it flick between the two lenses? 

[Barford1011]

Yes I cab honestly say I've had no issues

[GusB]

1>4.9x is obviously digital zoom but mine shifts over to the next lense at 5x, then 5x>9.9x digital, then shifts over to next lense 10x....surely this the same for everyone. The image at say 9.9x will look considerably worse than the 10x...

With this in mind you should be able to get decent images by choosing the best lense for the image?

[SimonTemplar14]

It's a known issue. The camera uses a digital crop main sensor when not in optimal lighting. Indoors especially. Not sure why given the end result is just horrendous. The lowlight performance of the camera, although much better than the horrible mess that was launch software, is still the s21u main weak point. Especially on exynos. Considering the camera system is the main selling point the device is starting to look a little lame duckish truth be told. Samsung needed to deliver a knock out blow to the competition with the camera but it looks like it's delivering the blow to itself. Really could have been a standout device but the camera issues just hold it back. And in quite a big way. Not worth the asking price in my opinion.

[Nomad33]

My s9 takes mach better pictures, after many tests, s21ultra camera is aweful! The post processing makes everything look painted...its a much inferior lense/sensor with software trying to hide it. The zoom is definately not optical, obviously digital.