Yesterday, mobile phone giant Samsung announced the arrival of the Samsung S9, a very highly anticipated smartphone, and to be honest with you, not much has changed from the Samsung S8. Except their new camera!
Samsung this time has put a huge focus on their dual lens camera. The S8 and prior have only one camera. First off, both cameras have OIS (Optical Image Stabilisation) which is a great thing if you’re a run and gun photographer. The wide angle snapper boats apertures of up to f/1.5 while the telephoto is still only at f/2.4. Not too bad.
But where it’s at, is the new Super Slow-Mo technology, which means users are able to capture video footage at a whopping 960 frames per second, and “four times slower than any other slow-motion mobile technology.” according to Samsung, although Sony have already done this with their Sony XZ Premium we took a look at a while ago. Now this is one piece of tech I want to try. Having slow motion video like this on a mobile phone means that you can now see things like a water balloon popping. Not quite Phantom speeds yet, but give it time.
The nice thing is that Samsung’s camera can now detect motion. So if you’re not recording for whatever reason, like at a football game where you think your team isn’t going to score, the Samsung S9 will automatically capture that moment due to it detecting motion in front of it. Pretty nifty if you ask me.
The extra speed of the aperture means that low-lighting level photography is better than ever too, as it’s able to capture that much more detail in a dimly lit environment. Also, by combining 12 pictures taken at once, which the Samsung S9 does in low lighting, stitching these images together means the images you create will display up to 30x less noise. Of course there is a pro mode for you photographers to get artistic too.
And last but not least, animojis. However, Apple have already coined that name, so Samsung are calling these AR Emojis, but they’re basically the same thing. The difference here however, is rather than being a dog or a cat or a panda, you can be yourself, and turn yourself into an animated character to then send to your friends. It detects more than 100 facial areas to build the character and animate it.
AS I said, Samsung have really has a fixation on making their camera better this year, and they seem to be doing a good job at it. However, on paper could be a lot different to real world, so I would love to get my hands on one to try before I make such a bold claim. Keep watch of this space everyone, our review will be live soon. In the mean time, why not take a look at this cool infographic giving you the differences between the Samsung S9 and last year’s S8.
