Although all eyes are on the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3 scheduled to launch in just a matter of days, the next big thing from Samsung, the Galaxy S22 continues to take some of the spotlights away.
Today, we have new information which reveals Samsung is taking a page out of Huawei's book for the Galaxy S22.
You see you might have heard in the past that the Galaxy S22 and S22 Plus will have a 50MP main sensor. But today we have more info on what kind of 50MP is this going to be. You see most modern flagships use RGB pixels for imaging sensors, RGB stands for red, green, and blue. But the Galaxy S22 will use an RGBW sensor. W stands for white.
While the RGB part of the sensor collects color data, the White pixel takes in any and all kinds of light to improve light sensitivity. This should improve the sensor’s overall light performance in darker scenes. Huawei is the first one to use this technology on the Huawei P8 in 2015, which was praised for its photography performance, especially in low-light situations. And considering that the Galaxy S22 is launching half a decade later than the P8, coupled with advancements by modern sensors, the S22's should perform exceptionally well in all conditions, doesn't matter if it's day or night.
Huawei is the one who kickstarted this whole periscope zoom thing on a smartphone. Huawei's P30 Pro was the first to use a periscope zoom camera, and it was 5x zoom. With P40 Pro Huawei doubled it to 10x optical zoom. But the P50 Pro which was launched a few days ago features a seemingly underwhelming 3.5x zoom lens, well underwhelming just on paper because this 3.5X periscope zoom lens takes as good as or even better zoomed-in photos than all the 10x periscope zoom cameras out there including the Galaxy S21 Ultra.
Well, that's because Huawei hasn't equipped just "any 3.5x zoom lens". This is a special 64 MP camera, aided by Huawei's post-processing. That can also zoom in up to 100x. But the quality at 100x is the same as any other smartphone with 100x capability.
But the real magic lies in the 5x to 20x zoom range where, as you can see, 
it takes a messy 10x digital zoom photo, stitches it together with data from the full 64MP periscope sensor, turning it into an exceptional-looking 10x shot rivaling smartphones with "better" zooming capabilities on paper.
Huawei hasn't specified what exactly are they using to make it happen, but it's the combination of artificial intelligence, sensor-cropping, and powerful post-processing. As you can see in this sample, the P50 Pro has far better detail at 10x zoom compared to the Mi 11 Ultra and Mate 40 Pro+, despite the fact that the other phones come with more powerful zooming solutions. Not only that, but the phone can also take some exceptional zoomed-in bokeh. This is a 10x zoom shot of a subject and as you can see the wide f/3.5 aperture makes the bokeh look simply stunning. So really impressed with Huawei's post-processing.
Unlike other Chinese companies, Huawei is the real innovator pushing other mainstream companies to their limits but it's a shame that they are now handicapped and companies like Samsung don't consider them a threat anymore. So I guess we'll have to admire its camera system from afar.
No comments yet