Camera Features

As Samsung's current acme-of-the-line smartphone, the Milky way S4 comes with a very comprehensive list of features. Our review focuses on the S4's camera features and performance, just permit's take a quick await at the new non-imaging features on the Milky way S4:

  • Airview: This characteristic uses sensors to let previews and magnification of certain types of content, just by hovering your finger over the screen. Unfortunately, it only works with Samsung's proprietary apps. This is the same feature that we've seen before on the Galaxy Note II and viii.0. However, the Note requires the utilize of a stylus while only your fingers are needed to use Airview on the S4.
  • Due south-Voice bulldoze: A new set of voice commands that allows you to control the device when using it as a GPS navigator. You can also ship and receive calls and texts hands-gratis.
  • S Translator is a translation app that supports text-to-spoken communication and speech-to-text. For example, you can blazon a question in your linguistic communication, then get the device to speak information technology to a person in their language. Their respond will and then be recorded, translated and put out as text by the telephone. Yous tin also take pictures of written text, such as restaurant menus or any kind of signs, and so use the S Translator application.
  • Samsung Knox was first introduced at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona and now appears on a device for the first time. The organization basically creates two profiles on your device, for personal and for business concern use, similar to what we've seen on the new Blackberry 10 devices. This gives your company control over the enterprise element of your device simply doesn't give them admission to your personal information and settings. The system is based on a security-enhanced version of Android.
  • South Wellness allows you to monitor your calorie consumption, heart charge per unit, blood sugar level and sleeping patterns with the help of a range of accessories such as heart rate monitor and the so-called South-band wristband.
  • Adjust Display: the S4'south brandish automatically adapts its brightness and contrast to the displayed content. The aim is to ensure the all-time possible viewing experience for text, movies, photos, web-browing, etc., or any other blazon of content you lot might exist viewing on your phone.
  • Air gesture allows you to navigate your device with gestures in front of your screen, without touching it. This is useful if you've only eaten some greasy fingerfood or painted your nails as you can respond a call but with a wave of your paw. For those of us living in colder regions of the planet, the touch screen also works when you are wearing gloves.
  • Smart Break automatically stops video replay if you look away from the screen and resumes when your eyes are back on the video.
  • Smart Scroll:When browsing web pages you can slightly tilt the device up or downwardly to curl the pages.

In terms of camera features, the Galaxy S4 comes with a whole bunch of new shooting modes that we are having a closer expect at beneath. It's worth noting that in well-nigh all modes other than Car you lot loose the ability to control parameters such every bit exposure bounty or ISO and are relying on the camera's automated exposure systems. It'due south also not possible to combine shooting modes; for instance, you cannot shoot HDRs in Panorama way. Annoyingly it's also not possible to combine the Sports Mode (which selects faster shutter speeds than Machine Way) with the burst shooting function.

Drama manner

This feature has potential for some interesting shots, particularly when shooting action sports or just playing around. In Drama fashion the S4 continuously captures frames over a period of five seconds or then, detects a moving subject area in the frame and creates a composite image, combining multiple shots of the moving bailiwick against the background.

It took usa a few attempts to create a usable output epitome as the function struggles with subjects that are too modest or large in the frame or move too ho-hum or fast. However, when subject size and speed are inside acceptable parameters Drama fashion creates good quality composites. You tin manually select which frames to include after they have been captured which gives you a footling creative flexibility, merely equally you can come across in the sample on the right, including too many frames tin can atomic number 82 to body parts disappearing.

The Drama fashion worked well in our testing, automatically selecting a few well-called captures of our moving subject area to create a well-timed sequence.

You do accept some control over the last image fabricated in Drama mode, but exist careful of selecting too many of the available choices as overlapping captures of your subject tin can result in some digital dismemberment.

Blithe Photo

Blithe GIFs accept been around on the web for a long time but accept more than recently seen a revival and might just be the trendiest file type in the imaging world at the moment. These quirky moving pictures only seem to be growing in popularity, even popping upward as a new photo booth tendency. Samsung is hopping on the bandwagon with the S4, adding a congenital-in Animated photo mode.

Subsequently you've recorded your viii-second clip, you'll see options to animate or freeze objects. Y'all can too trim your recording and change the direction of playback to move backward, forward or in a back-and-forth loop. Below y'all can come across an un-edited GIF. The image size is approximately 800x450 pixels and file size could, depending on the size of the animated areas, be anywhere betwixt 2 and 30MB which makes them a little big for sharing from your phone.

Below y'all tin can come across a sample for which nosotros froze part of the screen. After a clip has been captured yous can mark parts of the frame and then select to breathing or freeze them.

After the 8-second clip has been captured moving subjected are detected automatically and you tin can mark areas to be animated or frozen on the screen.

Here nosotros only wanted the person with the hoola hoop to be moving and therefore have "frozen" the persons further to the right.

The results are non too impressive. As you can see beneath the function simply animates the marked areas, just makes no attempt to isolate a moving subject field from the background like some third-political party apps do. It's also important to keep the camera very yet, otherwise you lot'll encounter camera shake in the moving portions of the frame.

Animated Photo mode is fun to play with simply we like Cinemagram, recently launched for Android, better. The app offers more creative choices for amalgam your moving images and a more than convenient interface. Overall we've seen the best animated GIF results from the Cinemagraph app that is currently only bachelor for Nokia Lumia Windows Phones.

Eraser

Eraser mode works by snapping a series of images and identifying and removing moving objects from the final composite image. After the images have been captured, moving objects are automatically identified and marked in imperial. You can then select to hibernate or show them and save the last image.

In our testing this worked quite well for the scenario we see information technology well-nigh likely to exist applied: when a passerby walks directly in front of a subject in a decorated public setting. How many ruined snapshots taken at tourist hotspots could accept been saved with this characteristic?

The Eraser feature finds and highlights moving objects in your scene.

The final image does a quality chore of removing the passerby from the scene, as well every bit a person moving in the background.

Eraser volition also identify moving cars and remove them from your scene. And though the newspaper boxes are also highlighted hither, the last image but removed the moving automobile.

A screenshot of the last output prototype — the automobile is seamlessly removed from the final image.

Dual Shot

The S4 is the start smartphone that we know of which is capable of recording images from its front- and rear cameras simultaneously. This has resulted in 1 of the more gimmicky photo features of the S4: the Dual Shot fashion which allows you to capture images with both cameras at the same fourth dimension and create a picture-in-movie upshot, with a diverseness of frames to environment your front-facing camera capture.

The default is a postage frame that creates a postcard effect when combined with a scenic vista. While this might be fun for holiday photos, we imagine y'all'll find your kids clamoring to play with this effect more than y'all will. To access it, select the Car mode and and so tap the Dual Shot icon, the overlapping prototype of both the front end and back of the camera symbol. Tap the arrow at the bottom of the screen to experiment with more borders around the front end-facing camera image.

In Dual Shot Mode yous tin can choose from a range of frames for your front-camera prototype.

Some app makers have been playing effectually with the dual camera idea before the arrival of the S4: DuoCam and 2sidez create click-to-flip pictures with the forepart-facing camera capture on ane side, the rear-facing photographic camera capture on the other. Dblcam makes a composite epitome from the two captures. However, none of these apps take pictures simultaneously (simply because that's impossible on whatsoever other telephone), but capture the images very quickly one after the other. Of form live preview or picture show-in-picture video is not possible.

Panorama Mode

Panorama modes and apps aren't anything new. Withal, what'southward new on the Galaxy S4 is that the stop-results are very big. When shooting in mural orientation the image is approximately 22,000 pixels broad and i,600 pixels tall. In comparing, on the S3 panoramas are simply 6,000 pixels wide, just about double the width of a standard 4:3 frame.

Stitching and exposure are typically fine too, so if you manage to capture an attractive panorama shot on the Galaxy S4 it could potentially be printed in a very large format. You lot tin can shoot both in landscape or portrait orientation. If you don't desire or need to capture a full 360-caste panorama, you can press the shutter button any time to stop capture. The app volition so create a panorama with the images you take recorded so far.

This panorama was shot in mural orientation and measures 22,096 x1568 pixels.

This was shot in portrait orientation. The finish upshot measures 19,552 ten 2976 pixels.

This 180-degree panorama measures xi,552 x 3008 pixels.

Dark Manner

The Galaxy S4 comes with the same Night Way we've seen on the Galaxy Note II earlier. It avoids intrusive noise past blending a quick burst of frames into one epitome and averaging out the racket. Equally with the HDR manner, objects moving through the frame may create foreign artifacts, so the tool works all-time with static scenes. Yous should also avoid whatever camera shake while capturing the outburst.

Yet, the main advantage of the Night Mode is that you can yet achieve a decent exposure when the Auto manner reaches its limits. For the dark scene below Auto mode selects the maximum ISO (1000) and the slowest available shutter speed (one/fifteen sec) only still the scene is underexposed. By combining various exposures Dark Mode tin create a brighter image and allows you lot to shoot night scenes like the one below paw-held. The camera app tin exist figured to automatically switch to Night Mode when the light weather make it the almost suitable shooting mode.

Auto Mode, ISO yard, ane/15 sec

Nighttime Way

Rich Tone (HDR)

The Galaxy S4'southward HDR way is very similar to its predecessor's. The camera takes three frames at varying exposures in quick succession and combines them into 1 "Loftier Dynamic Range" image. Given the limited dynamic range of the tiny sensors that are currently existence used in smartphones, this feature tin exist a life saver when shooting high contrast scenes.

In that location are no parameters to play with when using the HDR mode, simply luckily Samsung'south implementation produces very natural results. As you lot can come across in the sample below the HDR epitome shows visibly more than detail in the clouds while at the same fourth dimension the shadow areas in the trees accept been slightly lifted.

Depending on the scene, the outcome can exist stronger only if you end up with an prototype that looks a little as well flat it's easy to optimize with a level adjustment in the image editing application of your choice. Yous can also set Rich Tone to save both versions of an image, standard and HDR, so you can choice the version you like all-time.

 Auto mode

 Rich Tone (HDR) mode

All HDR modes struggle with moving subjects or photographic camera milkshake while the exposure series is being captured and the Galaxy S4 is no exception. If you don't continue the telephone still while shooting you tin finish up with a shadow effect like in the sample below. That said, normal handheld shooting works totally fine and information technology appears the S4 does to a degree compensate for subjects moving at a moderate speed, for example a walking person.

Photographic camera shake or moving subjects can upshot in a ghosting outcome in your HDR images.

 100% crop