Samsung cheats on photos of the Moon with the Galaxy S21 Ultra? Understand the case

In 2019, there was a lot of controversy surrounding the so-called "Moon Mode" of the P30 Pro, which would be adding extra textures and a filter to forge almost perfect images of the Moon - in fact, how a cell phone camera can photograph objects from so far with such a large amount precision? At the time, Huawei itself said the feature uses machine learning to recognize a scenario and optimize focus and exposure to improve details.

Well, it seems that history has been repeating itself, now with the Galaxy S21 Ultra. Journalist Raymond Wong of the InputMag website talked to some of the world's largest content creators to investigate the Galaxy S21 Ultra's 100x Space Zoom, which would be delivering images of the Moon "out of reality".

The consensus is that Samsung did add some tricks to the Spatial Zoom mode of the device that makes the Moon as detailed as highlighted by the manufacturer itself and the analyzes published so far.

Easy to Show. Tried it just now. Here: Even if you take an unsharp/messy photo of something that looks like a moon it snaps a moon(ish) texture on it. :) simple as that. No magic hardware just clever software (combination), huawei did same year ago. pic.twitter.com/BmVhUPnq8v

— Alexi Bexi (@alextv) January 21, 2021

According to the numerous tests done with the device, the S21 Ultra can only photograph the Moon with the Scene Optimizer enabled. The feature, also present in older models, identifies the scene, such as people, food, landscape, and moon (in the case of the S21 Ultra), and enhances the details of the image according to the device's AI capabilities.

Some reports suspect that this Scene Optimizer could add extra elements to the images by identifying the Moon scene, such as textures and even fake photos. In this case, some tests were done trying to "trick" the resource, using some moon-shaped objects to identify any possible confusion, but no changes were found.

The report tried to "confuse" the Scene Optimizer feature but found no changes in the results (Image: Playback / InputMag)

Journalist Max Weinbach also tried to search the APK of the S21 Ultra's camera to discover possible Moon textures, which would explain the very detailed images but also found no evidence.

Galaxy S21 Ultra vs. Sony A7R III: which photographs the moon best?

Another test carried out by the publication compared the images of the Moon on the Galaxy S21 Ultra with those of a professional camera with a 200-600 mm lens, the Sony A7R III. In theory, the answer would be on the tip of the tongue, since the professional camera has specific pieces for this type of photography, right? Well, surprisingly, Samsung's cell phone cameras with artificial intelligence aid achieved slightly better results.

Left: Galaxy S21 Ultra in 100x Space Zoom mode / Right: Cropped image from the professional camera (Image: Playback / InputMag)

So ... Is it fake or not?

In the end, the story concluded that the Galaxy S21 Ultra does not forge images of the Moon by adding textures and filters, but there is aggressive post-processing in the photos. Samsung itself has confirmed that it uses artificial intelligence resources in post-processing, but this practice is common in practically all the most current smartphones.

Source: InputMag