Smartphone Showcase A couple Samsung S20 Ultra snaps converted from raw

Amin

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My daughter is 6 now and obliged me to test out the new phone camera.

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Ooooh, you're making it harder for me to resist the urge of upgrading my S7+ to something more modern.

With the conversion from RAW, does the S20 offer RAW+JPG or just RAW and JPG? If you did RAW+JPG, how did your SOOC JPGs look versus the RAW conversions?
 
Can you change RAW resolution - and if so, did you do that? It's hard to tell at what resolution the images were shot (forum compression). The ISO 400 shot looks pretty clean to me - your work or the phone's?

The forum compression may be the reason that the outdoor shots look ever so slightly fuzzy to me - that can't be a consequence of noise reduction at ISO 25, so it's hard to understand - it's a sort of grittiness that doesn't distract from the image, but makes it look a tad less smooth and natural. Strangely, this effect doesn't affect the indoor shot - conversion/resizing/posting at work?

However, colour, dynamic range and overall balance are all quite impressive - did you use computational photography at all in this, and if so, does that mean the effects are baked into the RAW files?

M.
 
I underexposed the two shots of my daughter outside by a stop to protect highlights and then pushed shadows. And I accidentally had exposure comp still set to -1 for the couch shot.

I do think there is some smoothing baked into the raw files. But it's a large sensor for a phone camera so not surprising that it does well at ISO 400.

Here's another one at ISO 400, this time without negative exposure comp:

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Let me know what you think!
Here goes: I think focus was ever so slightly off in the outdoor shots if you look at her face; the file quality is extremely impressive for a small sensor, but her shirt and hands are sharper in both cases. Maybe she was dithering or moving, but I doubt it, especially for the first image. The gritty look is a touch more sharpening than I'd personally do, I guess.

The sofa shot is spot on; in the original, chroma noise is visible, but it's very well controlled for a small sensor. Balance is very good right out of the camera (my RAW converter doesn't apply any corrections beforehand). Once more, a very impressive showing from the camera's sensor. I guess ISO 800 is where I put my limit - that's very good, considering. And computational photography will make up for at least three, maybe four stops ... (not my thing, but this means that you can probably shoot scenes you'd usually want ISO 3200 or ISO 6400 for ... if you decide to use JPEGs).

I had the wrong resolution numbers in my head: These are nice and solid 12MP files - from a superb sensor for its class, and a really good lens, too.

Your newest shots support that impression. That said, I'd probably pick my G1X III instead of the phone and get equal, if not better results at ISO 1600 - but I'd also need that. So, it's a wash - even though I'd have the resolution advantage. I've never seen RAWs from a smartphone this good. Still, the GR III would outclass the phone (and so it should). But that's not the point, is it? It's a fact that this phone shoots really nice images, even without loads of pseudo-magic pumped into its results.

Keep 'em coming, they're absolutely worthwhile! :)

I think I'll dig out some of my Pixel (original) RAW files and compare them ... not because I think they can compete, just to check. It's a 12MP sensor, too ...

M.
 
I think focus was ever so slightly off in the outdoor shots if you look at her face; the file quality is extremely impressive for a small sensor, but her shirt and hands are sharper in both cases. Maybe she was dithering or moving, but I doubt it, especially for the first image.

Definitely. I'm having some issues with the autofocus on this camera, but users are reporting good results with the latest firmware, and I'm looking forward to receiving it!

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Ooooh, you're making it harder for me to resist the urge of upgrading my S7+ to something more modern.
Fast forward a year-or-so and I'm in the midst of moving all family members to new phones, the long named Samsung Galaxy S20 FE 5G UW. Hopefully the FE version is a good as the samples Amin has posted. If UPS shows up tomorrow I'll have a new toy to play with this weekend. 👍
 
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