Samsung, like many other smartphone manufacturers, tends to spill the beans about their latest software features before they officially unveil them. For example, the Samsung Galaxy Note 8's camera APK in the Android 8.0 Oreo-based Samsung Experience 9 release had strings about the Samsung Galaxy S9's new Intelligent Scan feature. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S4's leaked firmware had evidence pointing towards the Bluetooth LE S Pen in the Samsung Galaxy Note 9. Even the Samsung Galaxy Note 9's Android Pie-based One UI software had evidence pointing towards a new Bright Night camera mode for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S10 series. Now, we have discovered evidence for new camera features that Samsung may unveil for the upcoming Galaxy S10 smartphones. These features include Full-HD Super Slow Motion, Best Shot, HDR10+ video recording, Flaw Detection improvements, Super Steady video recording, and Scene Optimizer with Ultra Wide Angle support.
1080p Super Slow Motion
First, we have found code showing that support is being added for recording Super Slow-mo videos in FHD (1080p) resolution. Samsung's Super Slow-mo featured debuted on the Samsung Galaxy S9, and it allows you to take 0.2 seconds of 960fps video at 720p in automatic mode or 0.4 seconds of 480fps video at 720p in manual mode. The feature is also available on the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 where it allows you to take 0.4 seconds of 960fps video at 720p resolution. The feature was ported to the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Samsung Galaxy Note 8, but neither device supports 960fps. With a bump in resolution to FHD, the Super Slow-mo feature will produce more detailed slow motion videos. Samsung will also be optimizing Super Slow-mo to be able to take videos in environments in low-light conditions.
0.8 second Super Slow Motion
With the Samsung Galaxy S10, Samsung will be extending Super Slow-mo support to capture 0.8 seconds at standard quality and 0.4 seconds at high quality. The one caveat Samsung is the framerate of the Super Slow-Mo. It is very likely that Samsung has the Galaxy S10 do 0.4 seconds of 960fps and 0.8 seconds of 480fps which would then be enhanced to 960fps via software.
Best Shot
The next camera feature is called Best Shot and it sounds like it'll help you take perfectly aligned shots. Rather than lining up a great shot and twiddling your thumb to hit the shutter button, the Galaxy S10 will hit the shutter when it detects a shot has been lined up.
Bokeh Effects for Live Focus
Samsung has had Live Focus since the release of the Samsung Galaxy Note 8. This is Samsung's version of the very popular portrait mode. Since it became popular with the iPhone 7 Plus, many OEMs have worked to make it even better than it is. Then with the iPhone 8 Plus, Apple introduced Stage Lighting. This allowed for users to change the blur of the background by making it black and white or changing how the light shows on the users face. Samsung will be introducing similar effects with the Galaxy S10. These will be blur, color point, mono, slide light, spin, vintage, and zoom. Blur will be the normal bokeh blur, color point will turn the blurred background black and white, mono will make the entire picture black and white, side light will add an effect of a light on the side of your face, and spin will spin the light around the background. It is unknown what vintage and zoom will do.
Document Scanning
With the Galaxy Note 9, Samsung added support for third-party plugins for Bixby Vision. With this plugin support, Adobe released a document scanner plugin. Samsung seems to be adding this document scanning support directly into the camera. The camera will use AI to show a button to take pictures of documents without distortion.
HEIF Format Pictures
With the Galaxy S10, Samsung is going to be adding support for the HEIF image format. This image format results in efficiently stored images compared to files stored as JPG or PNG. No previous Samsung phone supports this image format. The one down side of HEIF is the support. Very few devices will be able to view photos in the HEIF format so sharing them will be an issue.
Scene Optimizer with Ultra Wide Angle support
The Samsung Galaxy S10 will not only have scene detection to determine the right configuration, but it'll also automatically recommend switching to the ultra-wide angle lens whenever appropriate. This feature is also referenced in the new flaw detection modes listed below.
HDR10+ Video Recording
One of the more impressive new camera features that Samsung will be adding is HDR10+ video recording. The Samsung Galaxy S10, thus, will likely be able to handle HDR10+ video recording on top of playback. We don't know what resolution and frame rate it'll record in, and we won't likely won't know until the phone's launch. Unfortunately, videos recorded in HDR10+ will likely only be properly viewed in the first-party Samsung video app, at least if you're trying to view the video from a smartphone.
Ultra Wide Angle Video Recording
We also found strings referencing recording videos with the ultra wide angle lens. The Samsung Galaxy S10 may be able to seamlessly switch between lenses while recording a video. If you record a 60fps video and switch to ultra wide, it seems to limit the video to 30fps. This ultra wide angle sensor is rumored to be 16MPs at ~123° FOV.
Dual Capture with Wide-Angle
While taking a picture with Live Focus, Samsung's portrait mode feature, you will also be able to take a super wide-angle lens picture. Current Samsung smartphones allow you to Dual Capture photos with the telephoto and normal lens, but since the Samsung Galaxy S10 will likely have ultra wide angle lenses, then it's natural for Samsung to extending this feature with ultra wide angle support.
Flaw Detection Upgrades
Samsung will also update their flaw detection feature with new recommendations. On the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 and Galaxy S9, flaw detection tells the user when a subject blinked or if the photo came out blurry. This feature is being updated to allow the camera app to recommend specific modes that the user can use to take a better shot. The strings mention recommendations for Food mode, wide-angle selfies, screen flash for selfies, panorama, and Live focus.
Scene Optimizer Upgrades
With the Galaxy Note 9, Samsung launched Scene Optimizer. This allowed for the phone to recognize the scene and take optimize the picture's colors for what is in it. There was a limited amount of scenes that it could recognize, about 20 to be exact. With the Galaxy S10, Samsung will be adding 10 more scenes along with more features for Scene Optimizer. The 10 new scenes are below but the most interesting part of the update is HDR and portrait. The Samsung Galaxy S10 is going to recognize when HDR is needed from excessive background light, and automatically enable it. The Galaxy S10 will also recognize when you are taking a picture of someone and enable the portrait mode. We aren't sure if this will automatically enable Live Focus or just optimize the colors for pictures of people.
Super Steady Video
Another new feature Samsung may add to the Galaxy S10 is "Super steady." This new mode will presumably offer even greater video stabilization on the Samsung Galaxy S10 than what's already possible on the existing models.
All these new features have me excited for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S10 series of smartphones. These new camera features along with features like Bright Night are poised to make the Galaxy S10 a great mobile camera. We'll find out in a little over a week, though.