Recently, the resolution of mobile phone cameras has been increasing at an incredible pace, and Samsung is certainly no exception in this regard. Maybe some of you lucky owners of the Korean manufacturer's flagship phones are wondering: Why does my phone have 100 or more megapixels, but only take 12Mpx photos? Is it a loop? We'll show you how to switch your Samsung S22 Ultra, but the same procedure can be used for the S23 Ultra, to 108 Mpx mode to take full-resolution photos, and we'll also touch on why it won't be worth it in most situations.
As said in the introduction, the megapixel counts of the best phones have climbed into the hundreds, with Samsung Galaxy In this regard, the S23 Ultra reached up to 200 Mpx with the primary camera, but in the default settings it only takes 12,5 Mpx photos, similar to Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra has a resolution of 108 Mpx, but outputs are 12 Mpx. But why is that, and what are all the megapixels for, when cameras still take average-sized pictures?
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In order to answer these questions, some functional aspects need to be clarified. First of all, digital camera sensors are covered with thousands and thousands of tiny light sensors, i.e. pixels, and higher resolution means more pixels. This would speak because when we have 22 Mpx on the S108 Ultra it will be an incredible thing and although it is true that the outputs from this device are really impressive, it is not only the number but also the size of the individual pixels that is at play. The more you can fit on the same physical sensor area, the smaller it logically has to be, and since smaller pixels have a smaller surface area, they can't collect as much light as larger pixels, resulting in poorer low-light performance. And high-megapixel cell phone cameras try to get around this problem with something called pixel binning.
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Simply put, this technology combines individual pixels into groups, increasing their ability to capture enough light data for the sensor to collect when the shutter button is pressed. When Galaxy The S22 Ultra is groups of 9 pixels, so we get to the 12 Mpx by simple division - 108 Mpx ÷ 9 = 12 Mpx. Unlike many of its competitors, the S22 Ultra gives you the ability to take full-resolution images without binning using the basic Camera app, and setting your S22 Ultra to full-resolution shooting takes just two taps.
Does it really make sense?
Just open the Camera app, tap the aspect ratio icon in the top toolbar, then select the 3:4 108MP option. Yes, it's that simple. The question, however, is if or rather when something like this really makes sense. First of all, it should be taken into account that the resulting outputs will take up significantly more data space. More importantly, though, you will lose some features after switching, for example, access to the telephoto lens and ultra-wide camera will be limited, but most importantly, the resulting photo may not look as good as you might expect. If you decide to return to the original settings in normal shooting mode, tap the aspect ratio icon again and select the 3:4 option.
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Wondering how images fare with and without binning? The following photos demonstrate the differences in performance in really low light conditions with binning off and on on the Samsung S22 Ultra. In each of the image sets, the first photo was always taken without pixel binning and the second with binning, whereby the 108Mpx outputs were subsequently reduced to 12 megapixels.
Below we see some improvement in image quality in the second photo that was taken with pixel binning. There isn't much of a difference in terms of noise, but if you look closely, the lines are more defined in the second photo. The edges in the first image look a bit jagged after cropping, especially towards the lower right corner. In another set taken in a very dark interior, the first image without binning is darker and we find more noise than the second image with binning. Of course, neither photo looks good, but there was a really noticeable lack of light.
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It is the same with the other images, where the first one is quite dramatically different from the second one. The first one, taken at full resolution, shows more noise than the one taken a few seconds later with the S22 Ultra's default camera settings. Paradoxically, in the last two photos at 108 megapixels, part of the details are even lost, when the text "Nashville, Tennessee" in the lower right corner of the poster is practically unreadable.
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In virtually every one of the examples above, the scene was so dark that most people probably wouldn't even think to take a picture of it. But it is definitely interesting for comparison. Pixel binning is for the physically small sensors of the high-resolution cameras that come with many system phones Android, important because it helps them recognize particularly dark scenes. It is a compromise, the resolution will be significantly reduced, but the light sensitivity will be increased. The high number of megapixels also plays a role, for example, in software zooming when shooting video in 8K, which gives it more flexibility, although recording in this resolution is still not quite common.
And what does that mean? The use of pixel binning to increase light sensitivity makes sense, although low-light outputs aren't that fundamentally different, at least on the S22 Ultra. On the other hand, shooting at the Ultra's full 108-megapixel resolution often doesn't extract much more usable detail from a scene, often even in better lighting conditions. So leaving the phone's default 12Mpx resolution brings a better experience in most cases.
