Samsung Galaxy S8 mobile test: High photo potential

DxOMark Mobile's overall score of 88 points includes separate photo and video subscores. Thanks to its excellent photography performance in all lighting conditions, the Samsung Galaxy S8 achieves a photo sub-score of 88 points, just one point behind Google's top photo score of 89.

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smartphones.

For photography, the Samsung Galaxy S8 has three strengths:

excellent autofocus, precise

white balance

noise reduction

.

It's one of the best cameras we've tested for autofocus, with smooth focusing, fast and precise performance in all lighting conditions. Shooting outdoors, white balance is very good, registering virtually no casts or errors in our tests. The Samsung Galaxy S8 also registers very low levels of

noise

in almost any lighting condition, which should appeal to photographers looking to record portraits with smooth skin tones. The main weakness of the Samsung Galaxy S8 for still images, however, is related to its low noise, as its images have low noise levels.

sharp

lower than those of its main competitors.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 records very good exposures in all lighting conditions, but its main strengths are excellent autofocus, precise white balance and effective noise reduction

The Samsung Galaxy S8's video subscore of 88 points puts the device in first place for motion picture quality alongside Google's Pixel, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, and Sony Xperia X. The video exhibits and

dynamic range

are very good, but the main strengths of the Samsung Galaxy S8 for video are its excellent stabilization system (with improved low-light results compared to its predecessor), and its excellent

color rendering

, without

color shading

in bright videos.

Unlike its photo performance, the main downside to video image quality on the Samsu ng Galaxy S8 is noise, which is noticeably more noticeable compared to previous Samsung devices, especially when shooting in low light conditions.

Exterior: excellent exposure and color

Shooting outdoors or in bright light conditions, exposure is either very good or very acceptable in almost all scenes. Under balanced lighting conditions, target exposures are excellent, rendering images bright and colorful.

The S8 recorded many excellent outdoor exposures in our extensive testing, with strong contrast, good colors and accurate white balance

In delicate high-contrast scenes, the mode

HDR

is triggered automatically, resulting in very acceptable exposures and recording detail in the brightest and darkest regions. The S8 offers quite aggressive dark recovery, which can lead to a slight feeling of

overexposure

. It's a good strategy though, as the main exposures are still very acceptable to most users.

Colors remain bright and pleasing in all outdoor exposures, even in low contrast regions, and white balance is extremely consistent, registering very few errors.

In good target exposures the color is vivid and well saturated, and even in low contrast exposures it remains very good, recording accurate white balance in almost all shots.

Interior: Effective noise reduction

For low-light photography, the Samsung Galaxy S8 uses an image processing strategy

slightly different than many of its main competitors. While many alternative devices tend to preserve high levels of fine detail, resulting in a

luminance

enhanced, the S8 uses highly effective noise reduction for much smoother low-light images. As a result, while generally acceptable detail is preserved, very fine detail in handheld low-light images is often lost. However, it can be appealing to portrait photographers who want very smooth skin tones and are willing to sacrifice some overall detail to achieve this.

100% crops of our low-light lab test setup show that the S8's highly effective noise reduction preserves some detail, but very fine detail is lost, resulting in smooth skin tones

Low-light exposures are very good, and even very low-light (5lux) images remain bright, with well-defined detail, and the results are very usable. shutter speeds

relatively slow 1/10 of a second shots are used when shooting in low light between 5 and 20 Lux, and while the lens' image stabilization system ensured sharp images in our photo of static lab setup, it should be kept in mind that any significant subject movement in low light images can potentially result in blurry images. Also keep in mind that with stacking

temporal

frame

, the shutter time provided by

exif

the data is not necessarily an accurate value.

In very low light (5lux), exposures are very usable, but the slow 1/10 of a second

shutter speed

used in lighting between 5 and 20lux may result in blurred subject movement

White balance in low-light images is generally very good. Under daylight fluorescent lighting, a cooler blue/green cast is evident, fading to a warmer yellow under tungsten lighting, but colors remain bold and pleasing in both conditions and color casts are acceptable . A slight color nuance is also visible in low-light images, fading from pink in the center to green at the edges, but again, this is minor so not too distracting or worrying.

White balance in low light -images are good, and despite a cool color cast under fluorescent lighting (left) and a warmer cast with tungsten (right), the color remains bold and pleasing

Video: improved stabilization

For video enthusiasts, target exposures are very good, especially in bright light, with films displaying wide dynamic range and good contrast. Exposure adaptation during lighting changes is smooth, if a little slow, and very slight overshoot is noticeable when transitioning between bright and low-light conditions.

Video stabilization has been significantly improved over the S7. This is particularly evident in low light conditions in both walking and panning motion shots. Despite the improvements, a slight

jerk effect

and occasional frame shifts are noticeable in widescreen videos, but that's a minor complaint and generally stabilization is much improved. The Samsung S7 already had good video stabilization, but an unsightly "jello" effect affects the quality of some theatrical films; this has been fixed nicely on the Galaxy S8.

The Samsung S8 uses a faster shutter speed in low-light videos compared to the S7, which helps the stabilization system for indoor and low-light conditions. This comes at the expense of more noise, however, which is noticeable in many of the S8's indoor movies, and despite the extra noise, very fine detail is lost in low-light S8 movies. In bright light conditions, noise on videos is better controlled, with generally good

texture retention

. Movie autofocus is fast, smooth and generally accurate in all lighting conditions. The S8 is also capable of good autofocus tracking on panorama videos or during walking motions.

The color of the S8 has also been improved over the video capabilities of the Samsung S7, with generally accurate color rendering. Overall, video white balance is very acceptable, although adapting to changing lighting conditions can be slow, resulting in a visible change in the color matrix. Video color shading has also been significantly improved, especially in bright light videos from the S8, and it's also barely noticeable in low light videos.

Although the S8 scored the same overall DxOMark score for video of 88 points as its main competitors, it scored lower for noise, which is its main drawback for video.

Details: Score Explanation

Exposure and contrast (89)

This is an excellent score for exposure and contrast, thanks to the S8's top performance in all lighting conditions. A few jitters with HDR activation on consecutive exposures reduced the score a bit, with some brighter exposures overexposing highlight detail. Slightly flat or low contrast rendering of darker regions on HDR exposures would benefit from post-production correction to add more

punch

, but “at the time of shooting” exposures will still be respectable for many smartphone photographers.

Small variations in consecutive HDR exposures lead to brighter images and slightly overexposed highlights in some images (right), but the S8's exposures are generally excellent

Color (85)< /p>

The S8 scored very well for color, rendering pretty bright, vibrant colors in all conditions. White balance is generally accurate and very acceptable, especially in outdoor images, in which only a slight pink cast is only very occasionally noticeable. In low light, we observed a cool color cast in images taken under fluorescent light, transitioning to a warmer tone

on the tungsten images, but again the color is still nice and the color casts aren't too strong.

Flash (87)

The Galaxy S8 scores well for flash, delivering a fairly good level of detail preservation in test images taken in all lighting conditions. Noise is also well controlled in flash exposures, with only slight luminance noise visible in the outfield.

In mixed lighting conditions, flash images benefit from excellent exposure, good color rendition, and generally accurate white balance. Exceptions are some minor color shifts when using flash mixed with tungsten light sources, but these are only slightly noticeable. In flash images without supplemental lighting, images have good detail retention, accurate white balance, and color rendition, but are somewhat overexposed; additionally, the flash is slightly off-center, so images are brighter on the left side of the frame.

Autofocus (93)

The highest category score recorded on the S8 was for autofocus, which is fast, smooth and accurate in all lighting conditions. It recorded higher variance for autofocus repeatability

in Auto mode versus Trigger mode in bright and low light conditions. That means it recorded more consistent sharpness over a series of 30 consecutive shots in shutter mode, but the S8 remains a capable autofocus performer in both modes.

Texture (92)

Noise ( 92)

The S8 got excellent scores for texture and noise, thanks to good overall detail preservation, especially for high-contrast details, and very effective noise reduction. In bright light, detail is quite good, if not exceptional, with very fine detail lost in low-contrast areas due to effective noise reduction. The same applies to low-light images in which the heavy noise reduction preserves all but very fine detail, resulting in a loss of fine color detail; However, this also results in rendering skin tones softer in portraits.

Low-light (20 lux) handheld exposures generally record good detail with effective noise reduction, resulting in soft skin tones, although very fine detail is lost

The S8 records good detail in bright light, with just a small loss of some fine detail in low-contrast areas (left and middle); and it renders some color details gray (right)

Artifacts (75)

The S8 scored quite low for

artifacts

ringtones

along the high-contrast edges were also visible on 100% crops, but that's not unusual for smartphone shots and has less of an impact on image quality. A light

cyan shift

in blue sky was also visible on some exposures and some luminance shadowing is also noticeable in low light images, but the Moiré effect is barely evident on highlights. frequency details.

Slight ringing audible at 100% scale

Cropping at 100%: the sharpness is not uniform over the entire

field of view

. It decreases sharply in the corners compared to the center of the images

88

photo

88

video

Very fast and precise autofocus in all lighting conditions

Good color rendition in low light conditions

Very good target exposure for all lighting conditions p>

Very good shadow detail for very dynamic scenes

On flash images, noise is low, with only slight luminance noise

Video Professionals

Fast, smooth and precise autofocus in all conditions with good tracking

Very effective stabilization

Good exposure and wide dynamic range

Good color rendering

Disadvantages of photography

Slight loss of detail in low contrast areas in all lighting conditions

Strong variations in sharpness visible in the field

Visible ringtone

Very fine color detail is lost in all lighting conditions

On flash images in tungsten light, color shading is slightly noticed able

Disadvantages of video

Visible noise in low light conditions

Visible jerking effect during panning movements

Frame lag sometimes visible during panning movements