Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Galaxy S24 Ultra camera lag PROOF and how to FIX IT!”.
About a month ago, I was snapping photos in a busy area of Barcelona, with my Galaxy s24 Ultra, and I noticed something odd for every good photo I would get. There were two or three bad shots with random people in them. I was sure I was timing. My shots perfectly just like I always do with my pixel phones, but almost every time I thought I had a clean photo without any crowds passing in front of the cam. Well, I did not. There were crowds, there were people and the s24 was just slow.
This sent me on a research mission to see if I could scientifically quantify the slag and find a solution for it. First, I decided to create an easyto replicate test setup to measure this shutter lag compared to my point of reference: pixel phones, I’ve been using those for many years now and they never lagged for photography for me. So I set up my pixel Tablet running a stopwatch, because I need to be able to look at the exact difference in milliseconds between the two phone. Shooting speed and taking photos of a stopwatch is perfect. For that in front.
I put up a tripod with a double clasp for the Galaxy s24 Ultra and the pixel 8 Pro to remove any movement. My idea was to snap 20 photos of the running stopwatch at the same time, with both phones and enter the capture Time by each phone. In a spreadsheet, then all I had to do was calculate the difference between the two and see if it’s significant, the only issue is, I’m not sure if one of my hands is fast F than the other, so to be fair to both phones, I decided to Repeat this: by exchanging the position of the two phones from left to right and look at the average difference, not across one set of 20 photos, but across two sets of 20 photos, then I also decided to do it in different light conditions to see if light Affects this lag, so I repeated this experiment with 40 photos during daytime 40 photos in a late afternoon. Setting and 40 photos around night time with less light, and the result was very, very clear.
On average, in each set of 40 photos, the Galaxy s24 Ultra captured the stopwatch 340 to 360 milliseconds after the pixel 8 Pro, and the results were pretty consistent across daytime and nighttime too. So the Galaxy s24 Ultra is on average, a third of a second slower than the pixel 8 Pro at capturing any photo. Sometimes it even went half a second slower. That’S not insignificant. What this means in practice is that every time you want to snap a picture with the s24 ultra there’s a high chance that you will be a little late and you’ll miss the moment. If you’re in a crowded place like in the middle of Paris, you will catch cars and crowds, even when you think you’ve timed your shot perfectly.
If you’re taking a photo of someone or something moving, you will catch them a little late. Just look at these comparison. Shots of my husband walking the pixel consistently Slack Maps the photo before Samsung before I bought the s24 ultra. I had heard about Samsung’s notorious shutter lag, but I didn’t think it would affect my own photos all that much and it clearly does and now I understand it better. When I see parents and pet owners complaining about missing the moment with their children and cats and dogs, the Galaxy s24 Ultra is supposed to be the bestest fastest, most powerful camera in Samsung’s portfolio, and even it can’t take a photo in the right moment. When you need needed, you’ve, probably heard of good luck on Samsung phones and if not it’s a series of power user modules. You can install to customize your phone uh to the max good luck, usually unlocks options and settings that aren’t available by default in Samsung’s. One UI, so I installed good luck and I installed the camera assistant module.
There’S a quick tap shutter option in there that should, theoretically speaking, speed up the capture in the camera app. I didn’t find any Samsung doc mentation of this, but the running Theory online is that by default, Samsung phones capture a photo when you take your finger off the shutter button and not when you put it on because they’re waiting to see if you might keep it Pressed to take a video instead, other phones like the pixels and the iPhones, take a photo immediately when you touch the shutter button, and this is why they’re faster the quick T option in camera assistant on Samsung is supposed to make. Samsung phones behave like pixels and iPhones, so I turned it on and I repeated the same test again in daylight in low light and night time with 40 sets of photos. Each time and the setting mostly worked specifically during the day with quick, tap, enabled the two phones captured photos practically. At the same time, there were even a few shots when the two got the exact same stopwatch time down to the millisecond and times when Samsung was even faster than pixel, but in the afternoon light and at night the Improvement wasn’t as drastic yes, Samsung got faster, But there was still a little bit of a delay, 220 milliseconds to be exact when the lights went down. Personally, I decided to keep this setting turned on at all times on my Galaxy s24 Ultra and I’ll, be installing camera assistant and enabling Quick Tab on any Samsung phone. I get it just boggles my mind that this setting is hidden in a module and an application that very few normal users will install.
The only downside. I’Ve noticed with quick tap is that if I ever want to shoot a video by long pressing the shutter button in the photo mode, I will also get a still photo before that because Quick Tab triggers it. But honestly, I just go to video mode to record a video, so that doesn’t really affect me at all. If you’ve ever complained about the delay and photo capture on your Samsung phone, I do recommend that you turn on the setting too uh.
It will help with shutter lag. It won’t help with motion blur, but that may be an issue for another video. Until then, don’t forget to subscribe and follow Android Authority for all the latest news features tests and more .