New Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra camera sample leaks are a mix of impressive and disappointing

If you’re looking forward to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, then you’re probably at least in part excited by the potential of its cameras, as this is one of the main ways in which it’s likely to rise above the rest of the Samsung Galaxy S23 series. Well, we now have more of an idea of what the cameras might be capable of, thanks to some new leaked photos, supposedly taken using them.

These come from Twitter user Edwards Urbina (opens in new tab) (via Phone Arena (opens in new tab)) and they aren’t the first Galaxy S23 Ultra camera samples this person has shared. But this time, we see a wider selection of scenes.

Among the most impressive shots are some atmospheric street scenes, shot at night – though it’s unclear how much light was available, so we can’t be certain exactly what the phone had to work with.

Still, the resulting shots are quite detailed and pleasing to the eye – and that’s despite the compression they’ll have gone through by being posted on Twitter.

That compression means you shouldn’t read too much into any of these images, as they’ll look better elsewhere.

But not all of the shots impress quite as much. Urbina also shared an image of the moon, which is… fine, but doesn’t really appear any better than similar moon shots that other high-end phones can take.

That’s a slight disappointment given that Samsung recently hyped moon shots specifically in a teaser.

There are also some shots at 10x and 30x zoom, with the 10x ones looking good, as you’d expect, given that the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra probably has a 10x optical zoom lens. The 30x shots will be using a digital zoom, and they’re more of a mixed bag.

There’s one of a tree that looks fairly good, considering it’s digital – it’s not pin-sharp but there’s a reasonable amount of detail there. Then there’s one of a monkey that looks rather worse, with the camera clearly struggling to focus.

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There are other camera samples too – you can check their Twitter feed for more, we’ve just picked out some of the most interesting ones.

Analysis: mixed results

Ultimately, the results are a bit hit and miss but seem broadly promising, and when you factor in Twitter’s compression, potential user error, and the possibility of tweaks to the camera performance by the time the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra launches, there’s every chance it will be one of the very best camera phones.

Currently, we rank the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra as the best, and with a new 200MP sensor almost certainly being included here, we’d expect some improvements. Though, of course, more megapixels doesn’t always mean better performance, so you’ll have to wait for our full Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra review to know for sure.

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