S24 Ultra vs S20 Camera Comparison - horrible blur

[wurkata]

Update #2 (11.10.2024): after going back and forth with the Samsung team on this question z here's their final response:

"After analysing your report, the quality of images meets our standard. The S24 uses a large sensor predecessors and it causes the degradation of optical macro performance. This is a natural phenomenon of using a big sensor and being too close to the subject.

To prevent the degradation, we recommend keeping the following tips. Keep the proper distance from the subject. Make sure the subject is parallel with the camera. Utilize the '2X(Close up zoom)' or 'focus enhancer' while keeping more distance between you and the object."

Update #1 (25.02.2024): I reported my experience to Samsung and their response was "clearly quality is better on the S24 Ultra". I am speechless. Anyways, I had to point out explicitly how out-if-focus the photos look and they said "their experts will look into it and will get back to me". I will post updates here.

Update #0: add comparison with iPhone 7.

I recently got the S24U and so far I must say, the camera has only disappointed. I was told by Samsung representative that the February update should bring a lot of fixes. I got the update today, and the results are equally disappointing. Especially for food shoots, it does NOT focus the whole object but merely focuses at the centre and there is no way to adjust it. That is not desirable at all for such shots and only makes them worse. Here, see the examples between S24U and S20.

Test #0

In terms of colours and details, S24 Ultra seems alright. However, notice thatcentre focus that is creating annoying zoom blur, resulting in a shot that is itching the eye.

The S24U seems to have a "Focus Enhancer" feature but that does not seem to be anything apart from switching to another lense. The result from the "Focus enhancer" and a shot with the 50M camera are exactly the same. On top of that, the resulting photo looks like from a camera on a smartphone in 2010.

Here are more examples to bring to the disappointment:

Low light comparison 

Low light comparison 

S24U Food option

Colours and details look bland.

S24U Focus Enhancer

The details look disgusting - like from an old camera.

S24U Default 12M (no focus enh.)

Horrible point blur - can't even tell where the focus is.

iPhone 7 vs S20 vs S24U

Sorry, rice is gone on iPhone 7 shot.

Apart from configuring the Pro mode when I am doing food shots, does anybody have other ideas? 

Do you experience the same issues?

[Slavvd]

Yikes. That's even worse than I imagined.

[Joeeye]

Focus enhancer is on all S Ultra models from the 20 and onwards. It uses the Ultrawide camera to get close up macro shots.

[Juli3n]

For some weird reason I'm now craving some homemade bread...

[DrMips]

Have you tried Pro camera? You can change the focus from centre point to multi point.

If you are taking these pictures close up you will get a shallow depth of field. Using multi focus should slow it down and get more of your photo in focus.

[wurkata]

I did try that and it does not change much. I omitted a comparison with it because it's barely noticeable. A could get slightly better results with "manual" focus in Pro where I move manually how further to focus. This way I nearly got it to focus the full object as I see it's based on distance. However, I wouldn't want to bother with Pro settings every time I take a photo.

[wurkata]

Yes, I did notice it uses one of the wide lenses. Not great, as these tend to produce subpar quality for my use-case.

[Joeeye]

The bottom photo has a better white balance, but it's clearly out of focus. You might want to adjust your ranges.

[Reylob]

Have you tried using portrait mode?

I found that portrait mode gives better details than photo mode.

[Solo D]

This is a great post.

camera is worse than a midrange, cheap phone released 5 years ago.

Samsung, please fix it; I spent a fortune buying this.

[wurkata]

What do you mean adjust ranges? All photos were taken from phones without additional, manual setup. From a flagship phone one should expect it to perform out of the box. If I wanted to fiddle to get it working correctly, then what's Samsung providing for me?