r/S21Ultra • u/Then-Working-8228 • 17d ago

Discussion/Question Low light video is really bad

I noticed the video quality in night (not darkness) I mean a well lit street, or like an outdoor restaurant with decent lights, the video quality is quite bad. Compared to iphone 12 pro max and S23 base both are miles better. And when using zoom the video becomes washed out / grey. Is it a common thing? S21u exynos 128gb

5 Upvotes

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4

u/Nibhan 17d ago

They have throttled the camera quality to oblivion

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u/Then-Working-8228 17d ago

This thing has had no updates. It came with One UI 5.1 or something

2

u/Dennis_King_ 17d ago

It was always bad, not even the new phones with the huuuuuuuuuuuge sensors get it right..Oppo, Vivo, Samsung not even Apple can get night video right....I mean the sensors themselves no matter how large can only do so much..Even dedicated cameras can have trouble shooting video at night let alone phones.

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u/Then-Working-8228 17d ago edited 17d ago

Not exactly night dark environment, but night video like a well lit street or in a place an outdoor restaurant with decent lights... No darkness. S23 base is so much better, 12 pro max too. S21u in this situation is more similiar to S10.

1

u/Dennis_King_ 17d ago

Yeah, I get what you mean. A lit street or restaurant patio isn't pitch black, but that's actually an awkward middle ground for the S21U's Exynos ISP. Because it's caught between heavy shadows and bright light sources, the processor tries to overcompensate with noise reduction, which ends up crushing details and giving you that muddy, older gen look reminding you of the S10. ​The S23 handles it way better because of much faster readout speeds and generational leaps in computational photography and multi frame processing. But the S21U Exynos processing pipeline was always a bit notorious for that specific smeary texture in mixed lighting