S24+ plus camera quality disappoints..

[roastedwookie]

Just got a brand new S24+ and tbh, the camera quality, especially when it comes to indoor photos in artificial light, is worse than I could have ever imagined. Knowing last year's S23+ and Ultra, this year's S24 seems a major downgrade.

I see severe color noise, fuzzy skin and hair and washed out colours. If the colour issue can be easily corrected with a quick edit, the other two: noise and people skin and hair processing are not. I could shoot in RAW and edit after but this is not the point.

I have tried to switch all sort of settings from On to Off and back again, within the Camera app settings and Camera Assistance. Expert Raw is having another problem by applying heavy contrast and sharpening, ruining the entire picture. Curious if anyone has found anything to at least improve a bit because it is quite clear the entire processing of the camera is subpar? If this is what Samsung calls "Smart AI processing", it is a real joke, remembering me the last year's iphone 14 with the same oil paint, fuzziness and mediocre camera processing.

[roastedwookie]

just did the Feb update. Nothing fixed for the camera, same horrible processing.

[Slavvd]

Which region are you? I haven't received it yet. Also are you with Ultra or plus? I read that a lot of the updates are targeting the Ultra only

[Slavvd]

I just got the update on my S24 Ultra.

I reset the camera settings of both my iPhone 15 and S24U and took pictures. Then to avoid display bias I transferred the photos to my iPhone to look at.

To summarise:
- Colors are a bit better. But still worse than the iPhone
- detail is much better on the iPhone when taking 24MP shots (default). However when the IPhone is reduced to 12MP the detail is about the same.
- Switching to Expert Raw and taking 24MP photos with otherwise default camera settings results in a very oversharpened photo and looks worse then the 12MP variant of the default camera app
- The iPhone is much more capable in preserving detail when a picture has both highly lit and highly dim areas


P. S. All this comes from an Android fan. I would hate to do it but I might have to switch my iPhone from a just work to primary device.

[alireza-nasibi]

Can't agree more! Indoor photos/videos by S24 Ultra is terrible! Guess what, this is the issue since S23 (as far as I know...maybe earlier models had these issues too) and Sammy can't fix it. Don't just waste your time or hold your breath for Samsung to fix the problem...They can't! S24 Ultra is great for outdoor (what most youtubers test it) but for indoor, it's just a trash!

[Justin 27]

Same problem as you describe. I have an old Samsung S21 which takes better indoor pictures than the s24+and it's really inconsistent with the digital processing. Sometimes it lightens the image to much and sometimes very little to not at all. The update fixed the color desaturation, but address nothing regarding the image quality. The fuzzy image is ridiculous on a 1000$ phone. I have another week before I decide what to do, but if things don't change I will get Google phone and steer clear of Samsung until they can sort these cameras issues out. It's part of the reason I bought this phone in the first place. 

[MausC]

Any updates on these issues?  The camera is still terrible for me with Image optimisation on minimum.

Why there is no off option baffles me. 

[SveinnNomis]

Exact same concerns here. I came from an s23 ultra, because I was sick of it not fitting in my pocket. I compared the camera on my 24+ with my S22 and the camera is noticeably worse. Grainy, low quality pictures with both the front and back camera.

I have had Samsung phones since the S3. This will be my last Samsung phone. It is now April and the bad camera issue still has not been fixed.

I'm done Samsung. 

[Matt-Angel]

I am too super disappointed with the S24+'s camera. The skin tone looks really unnatural. It exaggerates irregularities in pigmentation. My old S10+ is much closer to natural skin tone and complexion. On the S24, my hand looks like that of a corpse. On the S10, it looks natural, detailed and of a living person. I will attach photos for comparison. I hope there will be a camera update that fixes this. S 10+ - this is how my hand really looksS 24+ - unnatural grey stains and skin tone that is reminiscent of a corpse

[MausC]

Added to the litany of issues... Similarly I find my 8 year old Xiaomi Mi Note 10 takes better photos, and that was €300 new. 

I agree with @SveinnNomis above, I won't be continuing with Samsung after the S24 Ultra and the seriously dissapointing camera performance. I am consistently surprised at how bad it can be when looking back on photos.

And especially how inconsistent it is between MP selection and Zoom level... I've posted comparisons elsewhere in other threads, but...

Comparison photo thread... 12MP vs 50MP 

* Blurry photos at 50MP and 200MP. 

* Colour shifts between 12MP and 50MP

* Colour shifts between zoom levels (1x vs 5x)

* Barn door effect when zooming. Etc

* Forced post processing (only option is minimum, not possible to disable completely)

* No RAW photo produced in Pro mode or ExpertRaw

[Matt-Angel]

I found a solution!!!! A really simple one.

Just use the "Pro" modes for photos and videos. And then then everything looks normal and great (i.e. better than on my S10+).

I will attach a few sample photos that compare the regular photo mode with the pro photo mode. Good thing about "Pro" mode that I didn't know is that you can set everything to automatic. So you can use it just like the normal photo mode. 

I cannot wrap my head around the fact that the normal photo mode is so bad. It seems like Samsung pushed out a prototype/experimental photo processing software. However, I also checked out the iphone 15 pro today - and it has exactly the same problem. The photos look totally unnatural. Maybe this is good processing for objects. But not for living things like people and animals. 

Normal photo modePro photo mode (everything on automatic)NormalProNormalPro