A Samsung Galaxy S23 teaser video highlights epic night and moon shots
One giant leap for phone photography?
One thing a lot of the best phones are surprisingly good at is taking photos of the moon, and there’s a high chance the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra will be even better than the current crop, going by a new official teaser video.
Samsung has posted a short video to its YouTube channel (via GSMArena) showing a moon coming out of shadow to be lit up clearly, then overlaid with the word “Mooon” with three camera lenses used in place of each 'o'.
This obviously suggests that one or more phones in the Samsung Galaxy S23 series will be capable of taking bright, detailed shots of the moon.
The use of three camera lenses in the image of the word ‘moon’ would seem to suggest the teaser is talking about the standard S23 or the Galaxy S23 Plus rather than the Ultra, as that model will almost certainly have four lenses. But it’s also likely to be the best of the bunch for photography, and particularly moon photography, since it’s sure to be able to zoom much further; so perhaps we shouldn’t read too much into the number of lenses depicted.
The video then states that “epic nights are coming”, suggesting that beyond moon shots, night photography in general will be a strong suit of these phones. The fact that the moon comes out of shadow in the video could also be a suggestion that night shots taken with S23 series phones will be impressively bright.
Analysis: not the first hint of impressive night photography
We’ve been hearing for a while that the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, in particular, will be capable of taking exceptional night shots, so this teaser doesn’t come as much of a surprise.
One leaker even claimed that the phone essentially has night vision, while recent leaked camera samples showed very bright night-time scenes.
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This is likely powered, at least in part, by the new 200MP primary sensor that’s been widely rumored for the phone, replacing the 108MP sensor found on the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and its siblings are set to be unveiled on February 1 at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2023, so we’ll see just how good they really are soon.
James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at TechRadar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.