Samsung is unlikely to make any radical camera improvements to the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s hardware next year. It will stick to mostly the same camera sensors as the last few Galaxies, but use a wider aperture for the primary shooter to improve low-light picture quality. A new leak now points to the company at least addressing two major pain points with Galaxy cameras.
Lens flaring is a common issue on modern smartphones, especially evident when directly capturing bright light sources or low-light scenarios. Many companies have used advanced and newer lens coatings to resolve the issue to a great extent. iPhones are infamous for this problem, with the flaring being easily noticeable in sub-optimal situations.
Samsung will also supposedly jump on the same bandwagon and use a new coating on the S26 Ultra’s camera to reduce flaring (via @UniverseIce).
Additionally, it will further take steps to reduce the yellowing of human skin tones — another common complaint with Samsung phones’ cameras. It appears the company will achieve this with the help of the enhanced coating and processing changes.
Galaxy S26 Ultra may not live up to its Ultra moniker
From all the leaks, Samsung seems set to refine the camera experience with the S26 Ultra instead of overhauling it. As part of this, it will add support for the Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec, enabling users to capture RAW videos with higher bitrate and more details for greater flexibility in post-production.
The only notable rumored camera upgrade is a wider f/1.4 aperture. This should allow more light to hit the camera sensors, helping reduce noise and improve low-light image quality. But such a wide aperture brings its own set of problems, most noticeably a very shallow depth of field. The narrow focus plan can make it harder to keep subjects fully in focus, especially during close-up shots.
The 5x telephoto and ultrawide may remain unchanged. Samsung may upgrade the 10MP 3x telephoto shooter to a higher 12MP sensor, but again, this is unlikely to bring any radical improvements.
Unfortunately, Samsung is so far behind in the camera department compared to its Ultra-tier Chinese competitors that these changes might not be enough.
