Galaxy S22 - very poor (soft) images with "main" 24mm f/1.8 camera system

[Travelller]

Hi2all 😊

I posted this under someone else's thread but seeing as the sorting options in this "forum" are limited, I am taking the liberty to make my own post 🤗

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I've had my S22 for about three weeks and I have to say that I'm not at all pleased with the quality of the "main" (24mm f/1.8) camera system 😕

I "upgraded" f rom my 2017 LG V30 figuring it was about time; while it may very well be an upgrade in terms of processing power, Android ver etc, the camera systems were more of a "downgrade". I'm into watches and take "wristshots" on a regular basis and the LG's 30mm f/1.6 delivered excellent, crisp results, whereas the S22's 24mm is sharp only in the central area and is soft everywhere else.

Before I bore everyone with wristshots let me show the issue using a 10cm textured Cube (candle). Click on the actual links to see the 1080x1080 images. All photos taken in "Pro" mode with center focus at 1/20s & ISO 50 (using a tripod). Note that cube filled in 85% of the the original image to avoid the usual distortion found on the very edges of an image frame.

The S22's 24mm camera gets extremely soft as you leave the center of the image, the S22's 70mm is less soft, but produces an overall soft image lacking in sharpness and the LG's 30mm produces a consistently sharp image all the way to the edge of the cube.

S22 24mm: (subject 11cm from lens, original image 2992x2992)

S22 70mm (Telephoto): (subject 29cm from lens, original image 2992x2992)

LG V30 30mm: (subject 14cm from lens, original image 3492x3492)

Last but not least, I'll toss in a few "stills" of my Tudor GMT, taken with tripod, also 1/20s ISO 50. You'll note that while the dial looks crisp with all three cameras, the bezel and case (and crown) range from soft to OOF:

S22 24mm

S22 70mm

LG-V30 30mm

And just to prove that I'm no where near to the extreme edges of the image frame, here's the RAW image of the above S22's 24mm shot:

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I read that some owners have the impression that the S22's"portrait" mode gets triggered in other modes but I do not believe this to be the case as the portrait post-processing is much stronger and more deliberate than the softness I'm experiencing with my unit. Besides, I see the same results with the RAW images as well (see above)

Last but not least, GSMARENA suggested that some units of the S22/S22+ were delivered with poor lenses that produce soft images; if this is the case I would then try to have my camera unit(s) replaced.

What do you guys think? 🤔

[Liamm]

Hi! I have the very same impression as you 😞 I switched from S7 and in some areas S22 is a clear downgrade. Lenses (mainly the main camera's lens) is producing fair ammount of CA (chromatic aberration) except the very center of the shot. Field curvature of the lens seems far from perfect (not flat) and that is causing bluriness and CA near the edges. It wasn't the case with S7 (like your's V30) quality was maintained across the whole image. S22 sensor should be brighter due to pixel binning, but it seems not, and except software tricks (night mode) it's gatering quite noisy dark areas lacking of detail. I was hoping that smaller, new, and tech advanced sensor of S22 will handle better than bigger but very old (2016) S7's but it's not. S7 is still a great camera phone. It's a pitty that mine was broken and I was forced to upgrade 😕

[Travelller]

Thanks for your feedback. I have the impression that these new "tweaked for night shots" lenses are flawed (or at least a subset of them). I did notice that the RAW images are much brighter than the end product (JPEG) so I'm not sure that the sensor is at fault; rather, Samsung's aggressive post-processing. I do agree with you that CA's quite prominent but I'd be able to accept that if at least the entire image was sharp ... sigh. 🙄

I'm still considering "RMAing" my unit although I think it's rather unlikely that Samsung will accept these issues as anything other than "within tolerances" ... 😕