Galaxy S21 and S21 Plus beat Ultra in slow motion
The Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra is the most expensive in the series, but certainly not the best when it comes to slow motion.
This year, Samsung released a nice selection of smartphones with the Galaxy S21 series. The most expensive variant, the Ultra, costs almost € 1300 as standard. Then you expect that everything about that smartphone is better than with its little brothers. After research by AndroidAuthority, this turns out not to be the case. The slow motion of the Ultra has to compete with the S21 and S21 Plus!
Galaxy S21 Ultra slow motion turns out to be below average
Samsung hid a slightly disappointing fact in the specs of the Galaxy S21 Ultlra in terms of slow-motion. The premium device performs only half as well as the two considerably cheaper basic and Plus models. Thus the medium writes:
The Galaxy S21 5g and S21 Plus 5G allow users to record 0.5 seconds of video at 960fps with 16 seconds of playback. The Galaxy S21 Ultra allows users to record a second of video at 480fps which is digitally enhanced to 960fps with 32 second playback.
By means of digital magic you thus get 32 seconds of footage at 960fps, or only 16 seconds of image at 480fps. This effect has major consequences for the quality of slow motion. Now the software basically doubles every frame, causing all kinds of visual glitches.
That’s because the software wants to prevent the following. For the iconic opening of Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino used doubling the number of frames shot (probably 24fps) to suggest slow motion, but which has a choppy (yet artistic?) Effect. This is of course an extreme example from 1991, but Samsung’s software uses tricks to prevent this, as it were.
Samsung explains to the linked medium how the very expensive smartphone seems to be lacking here. It all has to do with the 108MP monster camera. It has a shutter speed that is too slower than that of the S21 and S21 Plus, which means that the intended result must be created with software.
