The first question you might have is why would Samsung go from a 10x optical zoom to 5x for the periscope lens on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The answer, ironically, comes from Apple's VP of camera software engineering Jon McCormack. You might remember in the piece we wrote about the Tetraprism lens in the iPhone 15 Pro Max, we noted that McCormack said that Apple limited the optical zoom to 5x due to the inability to keep the camera stabilized at 10x optical zoom. He added, "If you look at the 10x zoom, unless you have the steadiest hands in the world or a tripod, it's really difficult to use."With the elimination of 10x optical zoom on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, Samsung will be able to give users more stabilization. And through the use of software tricks, Samsung will still be able to deliver 100x digital zoom on the Galaxy S24 Ultra although the downgraded periscope lens capabilities from 10x optical zoom to 5x optical zoom mean that more of the heavy lifting will be from the digital side of the equation.

Good news

Despite having 5x optical
Galaxy S24U still support 100x zoom

200 • 12 • 10 • 48

Main 200mp
HP2SX 1/1.3" 0.6μm

UW 12mp
IMX564 1/2.55" 1.4μm

3x Telephoto 10mp
IMX754+ 1/3.52" 1.12μm

5x Telephoto 48mp
GMU 1/2.25" 0.8μm

Final 5x aperture "might" be F/3.2 pic.twitter.com/yCfBywHTrj

— RGcloudS (@RGcloudS) October 14, 2023That Samsung can continue to offer 100x digital zoom even with the new camera configuration shouldn't be too surprising. As tipster @RGcloudS noted on X, the Galaxy S20 Ultra's 4x optical zoom allowed the phone to snap photos taken with 100x digital zoom as does Huawei's new P60 Pro despite offering only 3.5x optical zoom. Again, much depends on the software employed.

The tipster also says that the Galaxy S24 Ultra's rear camera array will look like this:

• Main 200MP HP2SX 1/1.3" sensor with 0.6μm pixel size.
• Ultra-Wide 12MP Sony IMX564 1/2.55" sensor with 1.4μm pixel size.
• 3x Telephoto 10MP Sony IMX754+ 1/3.52" sensor with 1.12μm pixel size.
• 5x Telephoto 48MP GMU 1/2.25" sensor with 0.8μm pixel size

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