New Samsung Galaxy S6 Camera Specifications

Samsung has put a lot of work into producing an innovative new flagship smartphone with the Galaxy S6. One of the most important aspects of any smartphone is the camera functionality, so here we take a look at the features of the Galaxy S6 camera.

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Firstly, Samsung has recognised the importance of having quick access to the camera. On the Galaxy S6, all you need to do is double click the home button and the camera will launch and be ready to use within 0.7 seconds. That should minimise the risk of missing those one-in-a-lifetime photo opportunities, e.g. when you get the opportunity for a selfie with a famous celebrity.

Samsung has used the same 16MP Sony IMX240 sensor that was used in the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, which will take photos with 2988 x 5312 pixels. This time though the lens has a wider f/1.9 aperture, giving excellent low light performance and making photos as bright as possible. This is a wider aperture than the iPhone 6 has (f/2.2). If you like taking photos in dark lighting conditions then you should be well served by the Galaxy S6. Its wide aperture means it can use a lower ISO (sensitivity to light) setting than other phone cameras when shooting in low light, keeping the speckling (or sensor "noise") down and improving the look of the photo. The camera has an automatic night mode to take care of all the optimal settings for you.

The camera also offers lots of advanced colour adjustments, including contrast, saturation, temperature and tint. You can also use Auto High Dynamic Range to make the colours in your pictures look as good as possible.

 Needless to say the camera has autofocus, face detection and smile detection. It also has tracking autofocus, meaning it can stay focused on a moving object until you want to take your picture. As expected, the S6 has a panorama mode which works very well.

 If you are really serious about your photography, you can turn all the automatic assistance off and use a Pro manual mode, making the following settings yourself:
- Manual focus.
- ISO.
- White Balance.
 - Exposure compensation.

Once you have got all your settings right, you can save them as a custom preset.

The Galaxy S6 is also a great video camera and can shoot 2160p video, whereas the iPhone 6 can only manage 1080p video. Video sound recording is also much better than the iPhone 6, with the S6 recording in stereo at 256Kbps bitrate (48kHz sampling rate), while the iPhone 6 only records in mono at a much lower 64Kbps (44.1kHz sampling rate).

So there we have it, the Samsung Galaxy S6 camera should please enthusiastic photographers. You can view a full Samsung Galaxy S6 tech spec here and find out where the phone is available for pre-order. The official UK release date of the S6 is Friday 10th April 2015.