I visited Barcelona recently and while the plan was to use Ricoh GR III and Nikon Z6 on the trip, funny thing happened and here I am, writing a post about Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra.
I guess everybody knows we are talking about a smartphone. Or is it a proper camera? I’d say it’s a camera which can be used as a mobile phone. I mean, this is pretty cool, right? 😎
Flying over Oslo Fjord. See in full resolution on Flickr
10x shot of Oslo city. See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
You must love the versatility of this camera (phone). It has five cameras. The main sensor is a 100mpx one for super fine details. You have 3x and 10x optical zoom cameras. Come on, in a phone? Isn’t that awesome?!
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
Have you seen this photos of Magic fountain in Barcelona? All of them were taken with the Expert RAW application from Samsung Store. I am not sure if it’s available for any other models than S22 series though.
Long story short, you have access to all settings as you would normally have on a proper camera. So you can choose ISO, shutter speed, exposure compensation and all the good stuff which can help you get the photo you want.
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
Shot from the main camera. See in full resolution on Flickr
Shot with a 10x telephoto camera. See in full resolution on Flickr
Shot with a 10x telephoto camera.. Can you spot the Camp Nou? See in full resolution on Flickr
I mean, are this photos “tack sharp”? Nope. Are they good enough? Yep. Do you like to make memories? I surely do, and this device helps me a lot.
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
100mpx shot. See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
100mpx shot. See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
It needs to be said that I took a lot of photos with 3x camera. 10x can feel a bit tight most of the time (at least in Barcelona), but 3x can save you a bit from walking and still get the shot you wanted. Compression is also nice, and the lens is plenty sharp. You can also take nightography shots with it (funny but cool word, thanks Samsung).
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
If you still haven’t noticed, dynamic range on smartphone cameras today is just WOW. So you just take a shot and image processing does the rest. It doesn’t always look that good, if you don’t like the HDR look. But you can tweak settings a bit so you don’t oversaturate the photo for example (I don’t like that either).
However, standard DSLR/MILC cameras suck at this - you can either get highlights or shadows exposed correctly. Sure, with RAW files you can fix that quite a bit, but it’s not as convenient as getting the “same” result with just one shot.
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
1x camera. See in full resolution on Flickr
10x camera. See in full resolution on Flickr
30x digital zoom. See in full resolution on Flickr
I am still impressed how the 30x digital zoom looks like. Samsung did put a lot of effort here to make this shots more than usable.
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
If you are in Barcelona, a local football club (it’s called Barcelona, not sure if you have heard about it 😏) can be playing on their Camp Nou stadium. It is quite an experience, having 99,354 seating capacity. I would buy ticket for a game anytime again, and this is coming from somebody who is not a football fan at all. But being there at the stadium and hearing all the noise just makes me wanna go back again. Definitely will.
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
The time has come to fly back home, so here are some shots of the airplane I took. Just look at the details on the 10x photo. Incredible.
See in full resolution on Flickr
10x shot. See in full resolution on Flickr
See in full resolution on Flickr
100mpx shot. See in full resolution on Flickr
Of course the battery life after shooting all the time will not be great at all, but luckily with fast chargers these days, you will be topping up you battery pretty quick, while having a coffee for example.
See in full resolution on Flickr
I know, I know, there are other phones with similar setup/cameras, and while I would like to try them all, that’s not really sustainable for my wallet.
However on this trip I had Samsung with me, and I couldn’t be happier. It was so easy just to take photos with it and forget about other gear.
