Galaxy S24 Ultra vs S23 Ultra Camera Comparison Review - NOT an Upgrade?!

In my last comparison we saw how they S24 Ultra stacked up to the S23 Ultra shooting at 50mp and 200mp. In this comparison, we’ll be comparing their optical zoom at 12MP, since at 12MP the S23 Ultra supports up to 10x telephoto. The S24 Ultra supports up to 5x telephoto only, so some people think it’s a downgrade since the older model supports 10x. But since its sensor has larger 1.4nanometer pixels, and it’s powered by a new NPU, it may very well end up looking better overall, even at 10x digital crop since the sensor’s going to capture more light with pixel binning.

To test this, we’re going to compare some shots taken at night because that’s the best way to really test the sensors. We’ll also be comparing their front selfie cameras, and their performance shooting videos at night.

Galaxy S24 Ultra vs S23 Ultra Main Camera (12MP)

First we’re going to compare photos taken with the scene optimizer turned off. Somehow the pictures look more natural that way. At night, shooting in the city with artificial lighting, the consistent theme throughout the shots is that the S23 Ultra tends to look brighter, with bloomier flares from streetlights, while the S24 Ultra looks more muted in the bright areas of the shot, looking more natural.

At .6x ultrawide, I thought the S23 Ultra looks more vibrant, even when the S24 Ultra shot at a shorter exposure and higher ISO. But you can already see the flares looking more pronounced. Whereas the S24 Ultra controls exposure and preserves colors better.

However, at 1x zoom, you can already see the benefits of that bigger sensor. The S24 Ultra produced softer lines and greens that look more natural. It overall looked less noisy too.

At 3x Zoom the difference is even more stark. Note that both the S23 and S24 Ultra are now shooting off a 10MP sensor. But even when they were shooting at similar exposures and ISO, the S23U looks over brightened across the image, which isn’t what my eyes were seeing. I was actually seeing something closer to the S24 Ultra’s darker sky and softer lines. Even the wet floor looks more contrasty and reflective. The S24 Ultra’s noise levels are also lower.

What we do want to know is, at 10x Zoom, since the S23 Ultra actually has optical zoom at that point, can the S24 Ultra’s 5x Zoom telephoto lens keep up, since it is actually cropping in from its 50MP sensor?

Turns out, not really. It is able to control better the lighting and color, like on other focal lengths, but it also appears noisier.

So I was wondering, perhaps it’ll look better with scene optimization? This is actually interesting because the S23 Ultra looks a lot worse with scene optimization, while the image looks cleaner now on the S24 Ultra. (Nope, I did not make a mistake here. I double checked that both phones had scene optimizer turned on, so this could be due to the S24 Ultra’s new NPU and AI processing.)

Anyway, let’s go ahead and do a 100x Space Zoom without scene optimizer. In my opinion, the S23 Ultra looks better here. It’s retaining more information and the lines look finer, overall a more natural looking image, probably pulling that extra detail from its 10x telephoto lens. The S24 Ultra looks overly processed, focusing instead on contrast rather than detail.

With scene optimizer on, the S23 Ultra looks a lot more bloomy, while the S24 Ultra added more contrast. I think I prefer the way Space Zoom looks on the S23 Ultra at 100x magnification.

Front Selfie Camera

For the front selfie camera on warm setting with zero skin smoothing, they’re both very similar. The S24U does look a little cooler in tone, and hairs seem to be more crisp looking, but that’s about it. Could barely tell the difference.

Macro

One of you asked about Macro. Shooting Macro under cool lighting, they look very similar but the S24 Ultra is capturing more dynamic range and colour, and has a bit extra sharpness, most likely because of better stabilization shooting handheld.  

Videos (Rear and Front cameras)

When it comes to videos, one of you asked if it’s possible to now zoom across all the lenses when shooting videos in UHD 60 fps. On the S23 Ultra that was not possible, you could only do that on UHD 30. But on the S24 Ultra, with the improvements in the sensor’s pixel size, you can now zoom in from .6 all the way to 20x digital zoom, without having to stop the recording and jump to another lens.

I think overall the S24 Ultra’s stabilization is better. You may not be able to tell much of a difference at the wider angles, but when you zoom in at 5x, then 10x, you can see that the S24 Ultra stabilizes handshakes better, and the shot looks less noisy. But, with the front selfie camera, both phones look very similar in terms of stabilization, colour and detail. See the difference here.

Conclusion

To conclude, the S24 Ultra’s 5x Optical Zoom is an upgrade in the sense that at 12MP, it’s pixel-binning off the 50MP sensor. You can even get native 5x optical zoom at the full 50MP resolution.

But at 10x zoom, you must use Scene Optimizer, otherwise it’s going to look more noisy than the S23 Ultra’s native 10MP 10x Optical Zoom. And I have to say that scene optimizer in general seems to work better on the S24 Ultra.

In terms of scene exposure, the S24 Ultra controls white balance and brightness better which results in pictures with deeper blacks, and is less prone to exaggerated flares from sources of light.

For videos in general, the S24 Ultra’s stabilization is better, and you do get uninterrupted zoom shooting at 4K 60 fps.

So that is how their cameras compare shooting pictures and video in low light. It’s been raining pretty badly the last couple of days, so I couldn’t get some day shots, but as soon as I can, I will come back with more comparisons and reviews of the S24 Ultra with pictures shot in the day and night. So if you don’t want to miss out on those videos, get subscribed to the main channel.

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