[Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra] mikexilva:
Did anybody test the Ultra HDR JPG from AGC (9.2)?

For several years I've been a Google Pixel user (since the Nexus days) and last year jumped on S23u and I was convinced it would give way better camera stills than my Pixel 2... but after comparing both I have never been satisfied with overall image processing on the Samsung ("lack of realism") and from time to time I search online and come here to see if there is any alternative camera app that can improve on Samsung stock camera app.

So this post is a mix of rant to Samsung as well as feeding some hope clearing some doubts I have with the community here that usually know a more than normal users.

After receiving the One UI 6.1 update on my S23u started to investigate camera diferences to S24u and the Samsung Super HDR camera mode is one of them, I suppose it does the same as Google Ultra HDR but it seems samsung decided to remove the display SDR Dimming feature from Android 14 so there is no way to view Ultra HDR photos with HDR screen mode on S23u :( it's strange because there is support for HDR video content on some streaming services and there is no HDR mode for stills? I'm almost certain that a few months ago (I think it was still with one UI 6.0) I saw the screen brightness increasing automatically when watching some of these pictures https://github.com/MishaalRahmanGH/Ultra_HDR_Samples on chrome but it doesn't do that anymore :(

Since Google back implemented the Ultra HDR on older pixels with Android 14 update for camera and screen HDR viewing), I will be complaining until they update my s23u to its hardware capabilities, I think they didn't implement Super HDR on s23u camera just because they took out that Android 14 screen HDR feature but don't believe Samsung will continue to remove those features on future updates because it will be pathetic to see a low end Samsung phone coming out with Android 16 and implementing it and keep removing those features on s23u updates for the next few years.

If we could get a GCam mod to acess the 50MP or 200MP sensor I wouldn't mind but 12MP is what I had on my Pixel 2 more than 5 years ago (that I still think it gets better overall image real colours/light/contrast balance than S23u camera and I really wasn't expecting that my 5yo phone would get better pictures when I got the s23u) the only isue is that I can't digitally zoom much on the 12MP image.

I'm sure it must have been discussed before, but does any body know if Samsung is intentionally limiting the 3rd party Apps access to 50MP and 200MP on main camera sensor? or is it just because it's not implemented in standard Android camera API? (I mean if Google Pixels nowadays already have 50MP sensors are they also accessing it with undocumented non standard camera API modes with the Google Camera App?).

It's already a bit dumb that HEIC stills coming from Samsung stock camera app are limited to 8bit/channel because phone is processing lots of information (pixel binning 4 to1 or 16 to 1) and creating an HDR image just to compress it to SDR 8bit/channel and AFAIK HEIC allows up to 16bit/channel and it does a great job compressing large MP images to a small file size but Samsung shoud have gone the extra step of registering a wider dynamic range image when choosing HEIC file format. (BTW it's also stupid that they removed the High Bit Rate on 8K video in a previous update when there was 80Mbps and 200Mbps and they could at least allow something in between, why not 120Mbps why not a slider to test and choose best bitrate?)

I've made a few shots with AGC 9.2 with Ultra HDR JPG + RAW but at the moment I don't have any device (screen/OS) capable of showing it but I intend to start registering pictures with this aditional information for the future.

Does the RAW (DNG) from AGC 9.2 have all the extra colour depth up to the "HDR level" (stops?) that Ultra HDR is registering?

I don't think we have any OLED TV capable of showing Ultra HDR JPG directly (Sony Bravia with Android or using a Chromecast), unless maybe if it's connected to a computer, but if the pictures are as good as people say they look, certainly we will be seeing it implemented in future OLED TVs.