Terrible Camera Quality On My S25 Ultra

[brotz68]

About 4 days ago, I received my brand new Galaxy S25 Ultra. Everything has been wonderful, except for the camera performance. I have an S24 Ultra that I've been doing camera comparisons with, and in almost every scenario, my S24 Ultra wins by a long shot. It's almost like I can't take a single good picture with my S25 Ultra. 

The areas that look the worst are low-light photos. In low light, the S25 Ultra overprocesses pictures like crazy, which often results in a "smeared" look, with crazy artifacts everywhere. Low light photos consistently look like oil paintings with how aggressive the processing is. There were a few shots I took in very low light in my backyard that had some awful artifacting in the sky. The images have strange patterns, and only cover the very top of the pictures.

Most shots in normal lighting are extremely grainy, dark, and often times blurry and less detailed than my S24 Ultra. This is massively disappointing for a phone worth the price of a good gaming computer. 

I'm genuinely concerned as to whether or not this issue is software related, or it's a hardware problem, specific to my unit. If there's anyone who can help me here, please, feel free to let me know. I'll provide some pictures to give examples. 

[brotz68]

Coming from an S24 Ultra, it's very hard seeing these issues present themselves in images that would otherwise look phenomenal, but don't on my S25 Ultra. Your moon shot showcases exactly what I mentioned before, having artifacts plague the image. The picture still looks really good, but it would definitely look better without the horrible artifacting. Many users seem to believe that this problem has to do with the actual camera sensors themselves being defective, but it doesn't make any sense. The 200MP wide sensor on the Galaxy S25 Ultra is exactly the same as the sensor on the S24 Ultra. The only hardware change in the camera department on the Galaxy S25 Ultra is the ultra-wide sensor, which has been upgraded to 50MP, providing a substantial increase in detail. Given this information, it's very, very doubtful that the S25 Ultra is suffering from a mass hardware defect. The processes to manufacture and assemble these devices has not changed since the S24 Ultra's release, which means that, unless someone is sabotaging camera batches, or there's a machining fault somewhere in the production process, these cameras cannot be defective. There aren't many reports that I could find on this issue, but it's definitely there on thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of Galaxy S25 Ultra units. Samsung is currently in the process of rolling out a 24GB firmware update for the S25 Ultra, which we should hopefully see before launch day on February 7th. Keep a look out.

[Paulsky7]

same here, it overprocesess in low light,  the pictures look terrible even with optimizer turned off

[brotz68]

If you're willing to do so, you can try pro mode in the default camera application. Pro mode seems to be immune to these issues, pointing towards some sort of strange algorithmic software problem. Samsung has a firmware update in development for the S25 Ultra, coming in at 24GB, which could definitely iron out these issues. It would make sense for Samsung to push this update out any day now to prepare for the global launch. Definitely start checking for updates.

[Seeryj88]

Do not believe this after updates it will fix it, how in the name of God are review's saying it's amazing and yours is bad, paid review, send it back and get your money back or be stuck with a *** camera, look back on every post with this issue they always say updates, after the last two Samsung got me with this I moved to one plus and id never look back 

[brotz68]

The camera is, in fact, amazing. I've taken some stunning shots with my Galaxy S25 Ultra. The issue only presents itself under extreme low-light conditions, and nowhere else. If this were hardware related, the issue would be abundantly clear in every single shot, where that's far from the case. Have a look at this wonderful shot I captured earlier of my puppy. The image is crisp, lighting was controlled phenomenally through the Galaxy S25 Ultra's impressive HDR performance. The cameras on this phone are excellent, and I've found that they beat my S24 Ultra's, 9.5/10 times. Those 0.5 times are always in low-light. There is a fix, though. In pro mode, low light photography (long exposure times, just like normal night mode) looks very good. It shows impressive sharpening, good colours, and it's extremely pleasant to look at. No lines show up in pro mode, and no artifacts, either. Because of pro mode solving the problem, it's safe to assume that the issue is software related. We can only hope that Samsung is looking into this, and they might actually have a fix either in the works or ready to roll out. There's a new firmware patch (January 1st security patch) that has a file size of 24GB, which is substantial. This firmware patch is most likely a patch to resolve any issues the Samsung development team have discovered before the official global launch in a few days. I'm glad you're happy with your OnePlus device, though. They make very high quality phones, and are an excellent option as well.

[TheaM]

Just an example... taken during the day and not "extreme low-light", yes the corner is darker... but are these extreme artifacts normal in your eyes? This is just a section of the photo.

 

[brotz68]

What you're seeing in that picture is likely just the algorithmic processing failing to recognize the scene properly. That isn't exactly what I was referring to, as it looks like you took a selfie, rather than an image from the rear 200MP wide sensor, but I could be mistaken. Pictures taken on the main wide 200MP sensor suffer from immense processing issues in decently low-light, that cannot be resolved by simply turning off certain features. The only way to get past the processing problems is by going into pro mode, which shouldn't have to be the "solution".

[TheaM]

Thanks for your answer. No this wasn't a selfie. I took this photo of my husband from a distance with I guess 2 times zoom.

I've tested a lot with expert Raw, main camera and other camera apps such as pixtica and xcamera. Both other apps produce way better quality under the same conditions. I also tried different settings.

The main camera also uses a much higher (and in my opinion not always neccecary) ISO compared to S23U in the same conditions. S25U = 2500 vs. S23U = 500 for example.

I tested the pro-mode in low light also... the photos are not that sharp, looking like I've used a soft filter. so unfortunately that doesn't work also.

I'm really frustrated and dissapointed by now and I really hope that these are "just" software issues that'll be solved with a hopefully very soon to come update.

[Lindy2]

I am really disappointed in the S25 Ultra camera.  My Galaxy S10+ took excellent pics that transferred well to other apps and messaging. With The S25 Ultra, I am trying every different setting possible, including with and without optimization, Max - Med - Min settings, it's just a disaster.  All the pics come out dim, fuzzy, lifeless, and distorted.  I am so sorry I already sent my trade-in back because that 5 year old cam put this one to shame.

I really hope and pray their software update fixes this, because I'd hate to return the phone and set up like 92 apps all over again.  Phone was way too expensive to be this way.  And tech support was ridiculous, I had to go through 3 different agents (2nd one got into my phone and did absolutely nothing to fix it) before I got one who understood what I was talking about.  His suggestions still didn't work.

So far, there's nothing about this phone I'd recommend except the battery improvement.  Not a happy camper.

[brotz68]

I totally get where you're coming from. Although my device wasn't as old, my S24 Ultra served me pretty well before my S25 Ultra. I'm a fanatic with these kinds of things, and I upgrade every year because I'm fortunate enough to be able to. Last generation, with my S24 Ultra, there were quite a few things that really bothered me. It had a sluggish-feeling response time, which made the display feel like 90hz, instead of 120hz. Bluetooth and WIFI connectivity were horrible, and I could barely hold a connection with my earbuds for even 10 minutes before they cut out. Battery life also didn't hold up too well, as after a month, the device started draining quicker than I could've even imagined at the start. It wasn't all too bad, though. The camera performance was absolutely incredible, and I still stand by that. The phone had a really premium build, with a super nice design. The Bluetooth S-Pen was also a nice feature (sad to see that go). So, after upgrading to my S25 Ultra, it was very disappointing to see the camera performing very poorly. There's not a lot you can do to fix this right now. I believe that this issue is software related. Users have reported that there is technically a "fix". Its more of an alternative than a fix, but this lies in the realm of pro mode. In your default camera application, using pro mode will get rid of the night mode artifacts, as well as the lines. I have tested this myself, and it does, in fact, solve the problem. You should not have to do this, though. On a phone that retails for over $2,000 CAD, there should be no alternative method required to normally use your camera. Samsung's development team had more than enough time to figure this out, and it's absolutely shameful knowing that they didn't ship these phones with a patch to cover these problems. As for your discovery of pictures looking "fuzzy", try pro mode, or, just use Expert RAW for the time being. Both "solutions" will work great. I've captured some remarkable images using Expert RAW, and I highly recommend it. You do not need to be an "expert" to use it, as the name could suggest. It's quite literally as simple as downloading, and talking a picture. The only thing that won't go away in Expert RAW is the night mode problems. These are even more problematic when using Expert RAW. Overall, though, I'm picking up what you're putting down. This is unacceptable garbage to have to deal with, especially considering the brand identity and, of course, the bankrupting price-tag. If I were you, I'd wait for the January patch that Samsung is currently starting to make available. You'll likely get it either on the global release date (February 7th), or very, very soon after. Keep your eyes peeled for more news. I'll update you once the firmware patch becomes available.