As expected, Samsung has released information about some of the Galaxy S22 camera features coming to the old phone. These include improvements to night photography, improved picture quality with images from third-party apps like Snapchat and Instagram, and more.
On the company’s Korean community forums, a Samsung moderator detailed all the photography features that will roll out to older Galaxy phones. We don’t have an exact timeline for any of these, but at least we know they’re coming.
Here’s what we know so far.
Night Telephoto Portraits
(Image credit: Tom Guide)
This may be a distinguishing feature, but the Galaxy S22 supports night-time portraits with a telephoto lens. Samsung will bring it to older models that sport telephoto lenses which are Galaxy S and Z phones all the way through 2020.
Supported phones: Galaxy S21 Ultra, Galaxy S21 Plus, Galaxy S21, Galaxy Z Fold 3, Galaxy S20 Ultra, Galaxy S20 Plus, Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20 FE, Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, Galaxy Note 20, Galaxy Z Fold 2
Auto-framing in video
(image credits: future)
The Galaxy S22 has an auto-framing function for videos. This allows the phone to zoom and pan to keep up to 10 people in the frame. We didn’t get a chance to fully test this feature, but it sounds like a useful option if you’re having trouble keeping people in the frame.
Supported phones: Galaxy S21 Ultra, Galaxy S21 Plus, Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 FE, Galaxy Z Fold 3, Galaxy Z Flip 3, Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Galaxy Z Flip, Galaxy Z Flip 5G.
Video call effect in more apps
When the Galaxy S22 launched, Samsung introduced video call effects to other apps. This will now apply to older phones that use other video chat apps such as Google Duo, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Zoom, Webex Meetings, Knox Meeting, BlueJeans, and KaKao Talk.
Auto-framing will also work in these apps, but with less phones.
Supported phones (effect): Galaxy S21 Ultra, Galaxy S21 Plus, Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 FE, Galaxy Z Fold 3, Galaxy Z Flip 3, Galaxy S20 Ultra, Galaxy S20 Plus, Galaxy S20, Galaxy S20 FE, Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, Galaxy Note 20, Galaxy Z Fold 2, Galaxy Z Flip, Galaxy Z Flip 5G, Galaxy S10 Plus, Galaxy S10, Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10 Lite, Galaxy Z Fold, Galaxy Note 10 Lite
Supported phones (auto-framing): Galaxy S21 Ultra, Galaxy S21 Plus, Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 FE, Galaxy Z Fold 3, Galaxy Z Flip 3, Galaxy Z Fold 2, Galaxy Z Flip, Galaxy Z Flip 5G
Better photo quality than third-party camera apps
(Image credit: Tom Guide)
If you want the full power of your Galaxy phone’s camera capabilities in third party apps like Snapchat and Instagram, you’ll love this update coming to the older model. You’ll get the full breadth of the Samsung Camera app’s power, like HDR and image stabilization.
Supported phones: Galaxy S21 Ultra, Galaxy S21 Plus, Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 FE, Galaxy Z Fold 3, Galaxy Z Flip 3
Galaxy Z Fold 3 Pro Mode and Expert Raw
(image credits: Coupang)
Wrapping things up, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 is getting an increase in its Pro mode and access to Samsung’s specialist Raw app. The Fold 3 will be able to use its telephoto camera in Pro Mode, which gives you fine-grained control over zoomed-in images.
ExpertRaw is Samsung’s answer to Apple’s ProRaw – we’ve even compared the two. As the name suggests, you’ll shoot photos in RAW, which is a professional file format that’s very easy to edit in post-processing.
Galaxy Camera features Outlook
It makes a lot of sense to give some older Galaxy S and Z phones access to the latest camera features. We certainly accept this decision, especially given these capabilities to very old devices like the Galaxy S20 series.
Samsung has done a great job of keeping its device portfolio updated. It may take some time for these new features to emerge – we don’t have a timeline, except that some phones will receive their updates in the H1 2022. Obviously, it is possible that Samsung will introduce these features in its home country of South Korea first. Before pushing them around the world.
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