A lot of the talk surrounding the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra has been of it bogarting all of the best features, potentially shortchanging those with an eye on the Galaxy S20 and Galaxy S20 Plus editions.
One of those exclusive features is rumoured to be a 10x optical zoom courtesy of an inventive periscope lens. However, while the Galaxy S20 and S20 Plus will miss out on that new lossless zoom capacity, it may make up for its absence in other ways.
A tweet from the prolific Samsung leaker Ice Universe suggests the standard and Plus models will benefit from a 64-megapixel telephoto camera.
The tweet calls it a is a “special pure 64MP camera” and suggests that sensor will be used to capture photos at 64-megapixel resolution and then crop those images depending on the zoom level selected by the user.
The telephoto sensor S5KGW2 of the S20 / S20+ is a special pure 64MP camera. It cannot be 4 in 1 combined into 16MP. It will be used for pixel cropping zoom and 8K video.
— Ice universe (@UniverseIce) January 29, 2020
As SamMobile speculates, it may be that this sensor also offers a longer focal length that could aid this cropping strategy with optical zoom, leaving with S20 and S20 Plus buyers feeling a little less left out.
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Fellow Twitter leak artist Max Weinberg doubts Samsung will deploy optical zoom within the 64-megapixel telephoto lens. He reckons it’ll just be digital zoom.
The one thing I didn't go into detail about was the 64MP zoom camera. It's not optical zoom. Instead, it's just cropping in a bunch because it has a bunch of extra pixels. Will you notice the difference? Probably not.
It also means 8K won't look wonky out of a telephoto lens.
— Max Weinbach (@MaxWinebach) January 28, 2020
Ice Universe does say this sensor will be in charge of capturing 8K video on both the S20 and S20 Plus handsets, whereas the 108-megapixel main camera on the S20 Ultra will perform these duties.
While this may sound like great news for those buying the S20 and S20 Plus, some Samsung fans have expressed concern about the effect of this potential strategy on low-light photography.
The Samsung Galaxy S20 range will be revealed by Samsung at an Unpacked event on February 11, with the device expected to go on sale the following month. The cameras will once again be a major focus of the launch event, so Samsung must be careful not to create the impression of a class system within in its flagship category.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
