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.

[DrMips]

Hopefully the new update will fix some problems. From what I've read though, they seem to be concentrating on the S24 Ultra which seems a bit unfair.

[Edgie70]

Agree with @roastedwookie , camera on the S24+ is terrible

[Slavvd]

Same problem here with 24 Ultra. I have an iPhone 15 (regular non Plus). It retails for £650 and blows the S24 Ultra's (literally twice the price phone) camera to pieces. Not only captures photos in 24MP by default (which is not even possible on the S24 Ultra) but the pictures (especially indoors with artificial lighting) are more true to life and have 10 times more detail.

Taking the same picture of a person from 2m away with the phones side by side with all default settings:
- On the IPhone I can see every little flake and black dot on their skin and their skin color is exactly the way it looks in real life
- on the S24 ultra it's grainy and washed out. I can at best distinguish individual hairs on their face but even that requires a little imagination. And the skin color? If I weren't looking at them in real life I'd say they were sick. That's how pale their face looks.

I still have time to return my S24 Ultra. If this is not fixed by the end of the month I'm returning it and will be using my iPhone.

[DrMips]

Have you tried viewing the photos you have taken on a PC. As everyone is complaining the screen is washed out, your photos may look better on a different device.

You can also shoot in 24MP mode on the the S24 Ultra if you shoot in Expert Raw. Not ideal, but still doable.

[Slavvd]

I have tried looking at them on PC and on my iPhone. In all cases the colors are dull and the details are well... Not there. In comparison to the cheapest iPhone 15 the S24 Ultra camera looks like a budget phone from a couple years ago. No amount of tweaks and pro modes seem to fix this.

Regarding the 24MP of the Expert Raw - tried it with the default settings. I don't know what the difference with the regular photo mode is when processing, but it looks WAY WAY worse than the standard 12MP shot. When you zoom it it's not just blurry like in the standard photo mode, it's freaking pixelated as if shot on a 2MP camera.

I don't want to share personal pictures to show what I'm talking about. The best way I can describe it is that on the S24 Ultra:
- colours are dull and pale. Especially noticeable on human skin
- most of the details on the skin are lost and the overall appearance looks as if its smudged/washed out
- at the same time some parts of the picture are oversharpened. Frequently noticeable on hair such as eyebrows or beard.

I tried playing with the "intelligent optimisation" settings and I can summarise it as:
- Optimisation off: everything is blurry
- Otmimisation medium: Skin blury, hair a bit oversharpened
- Optimisation maximum: Everything is oversharpened, but still most noticeable on hair

I've played around with the MP, turning filters on/off, the image format (jpeg/heic), no matter what I do it's all pretty much the same.

[roastedwookie]

Hi, it's not about the colours, it's about the processing of details which no matter where you view them, is a mess: eg skin and hair, colour noise.

[Slavvd]

Hi, how's that different from what I'm describing? I am also reporting the loss of detail/noise on skin, and the oversharpening/noise on hair depending on what filters or "optimisations" are turned on. In addition to that I am also pointing out the colours are dull and not true to life.

If you don't have access to a current gen iPhone, visit an apple store and make a couple pictures of yourself with both phones side by side and on default settings. Then zoom in on your face. You'll see what I am talking about.

[Joeeye]

It most definitely is capable of taking 24MP shots as well as 50MP and 200MP, no Iphone can ever do. Try using Expert RAW if you want a default 24MP option. Can your Iphone do a 5x portrait shot at 50MP, you tried comparing that?

[Slavvd]

I've tried lots of things, in all cases the detail is just not there. MP count, by itself, means nothing.

Don't get me wrong I am not an Apple fanboy. I have only had Androids but I had to get an iPhone for work purposes. And well, as much as I hate to admit it, in the camera department there is just no competition.

I really hope this is something that is fixable with a software update. I don't want to get vendor locked in the apple ecosystem any more than I absolutely need to.

[Slavvd]

Here is a screenshot from this article: https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/samsung-vs-apple-the-galaxy-s24-ultras-cameras-battle-the-iphone-15...

This is a good example of what I mean. Both phones have 5x telephoto cameras, yet the IPhone manages to capture much more detail. Look at how much more detail the cat's fur has especially around the belly. Also take a look how much better balanced the whole picture is. The Samsung photo looks a bit overexposed and blurry.