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00:00Are the S21 Ultra cameras really as good as people say they are? How does it work for
00:05selfies? How about vlogs or Instagram stories? We'll find out in this video.
00:16Good day, you beautiful people! Welcome to Issa Does Tech, where we do tech in your life,
00:20in style. We're finally doing the Samsung Galaxy S21 camera vlog test today, but before we get
00:26into it, a quick plug because you guys, this girl's gotta eat. And well, I get this tech
00:30question a lot anyway. What is my shooting setup and where do I get stuff for my whole setup? Real
00:36quick, let's do this. I'm gonna be shooting this with the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, so you get a
00:41sneak peek of what type of samples we're gonna be looking at in this video. Right behind the scenes
00:45y'all, this is basically what I'm looking at when I shoot my videos. This is my camera, the Fujifilm
00:53X-S10. Hi! Now, I use the Rode Wireless Go for audio and then this ring light and it comes with
01:07an arm that connects to my table so it's not so cluttered. I got this from Lazada and my second
01:14light source would be that square and that arm, which I also got from Lazada. Like, most of these
01:21I got from Lazada. Even this desk that I use, I got from Lazada, so I'll link all of those down
01:28below. Basically built my whole home studio from buying stuff online. I mean, I think it paid off.
01:35Look at my shot. All of these things I ordered online from Lazada. Find what you're looking for.
01:41Hashtag, Naza Lazada yan. Free shipping vouchers to collect when you use your Lazada wallet and
01:46their flash sales of up to 50% off on like 10,000 products up until March 6th. All the stuff I just
01:54talked about real quickly, I'll link down in the description below so you can check that out. Also,
01:59let me know if you guys want me to make a dedicated video on the stuff I used to shoot behind the
02:04scenes, yeah? Right, back to the phone. So, the S21 Ultra has a 108 megapixel main shooter, a 12 megapixel
02:11wide, and a 10 megapixel telephoto shooter. But that's not all. There's another 10 megapixel
02:18telephoto shooter, so a total of two. And well, we're gonna figure out what that's all about and
02:24if you actually need it later on in this video. As for selfies, there's a 40 megapixel selfie
02:29shooter in that punch hole over there. Let's start with that.
02:35Despite that one selfie camera, there is a normal and a wide selfie.
02:40Perfect for taking OOTD shots. There's also an auto-wide, which basically automatically switches
02:47to that wide view whenever the phone detects that there are other people in the frame,
02:51which is great for taking photos that are socially distanced. But what's even better
02:55is not hanging out with other people right now, so I have no examples. There are also choices now
03:03for when you take selfies. You have the normal color tone and then the bright color tone. People
03:09now have a choice to get more natural selfies, though I find that the bright mode only adds like
03:15a teeny bit of freshness to your selfies anyway. There is also a beauty mode with so many different
03:21beauty settings, but the mark of a true good beauty mode is if you're able to add it on without it
03:27looking fake or overwhelming, which in this case you can. I use minimal beauty mode for these
03:33selfies and just great lighting. There are a number of selfie gestures on here, like this
03:38floating shutter button, which helps because this is such a big phone, so that just makes for easier
03:44selfies. So what I love about all these different shooting modes is that I don't need to set the
03:49timer. All I need to do is pause and the gesture mode is obviously my favorite, and the voice
03:55command is cool. Cheese! There is also portrait mode on selfie, which is pretty cool for making
04:02you the star of the show, except if it's your dog who wants to get into the shot. There's also a
04:06widened portrait, which is great for if you want to be the star of the show in a wider frame.
04:11Shot outs look generally okay. They usually get things right. There's also a color point, which is
04:17a cool effect, and this cool background thingy, which took me a number of shots to get right,
04:22but once you get it right, that could work as a profile or ID photo.
04:27So photos generally look good on wide, on 1x, even on 3x, just like the S21, and focus looks good, as you can see in this 3x photo, both of which had different focus points.
04:45But what definitely impressed was 10x. Like, this is 10x. Look at how good this is. And well, of course,
04:53we'll be talking about that zoom in more detail later on, but yeah, that is the general consensus
05:00when it comes to the photos that this camera took. In short, the 10x on this thing, man.
05:06This thing can get up close as well. This is a photo of macro shots, though there is no dedicated
05:12macro mode on this phone, but on the right, that is a close-up shot using the wide, and on the left,
05:18the normal 1x.
05:24One big feature that I had to dedicate a separate category for on the S21 Ultra would be the zoom.
05:30Samsung believes it to be big enough that they put two telephoto cameras on a phone. Now, I did
05:38see so many photos of the moon shot by the S21 Ultra, so I knew what they were gonna look like,
05:44but when I tried it myself, it was absolutely mind-blowing. Like, I've never seen the moon that
05:51detailed from a photo I took, and just the zooming in action was crazy. And the fact that this is
05:58what it looks like on wide and 1x, and then this was the photo I took, it's amazing. I did read a
06:04really great article on Input Magazine about how this whole zoom thing works, about how Samsung
06:10uses AI to achieve this, so I tried taking this photo without AI. So that is the moon, 1x, 3x, 10x,
06:2630x. Now, it is a hit or miss taking these moon shots because it's really tough to hold your hand
06:34up for so long. Thank God there is a stabilization mode built into these cameras.
06:40Without the scene optimizer, let's see the difference. Without the scene optimizer,
06:50with the scene optimizer, what the heck? Anyway, here are more moon shots because
06:57it's still blowing my mind, honestly. In that same article, they list a number of things that
07:03the AI has been optimized for when it comes to using the 100x zoom. Now, I tried it on a couple
07:09of those things, and though it's amazing and utterly mind-blowing that this camera can even
07:14zoom 100x in, photos didn't look as sharp or as crispy.
07:19Okay, so we are shooting with our cameras. Here are the dogs saying hi. This is wide.
07:321x, 3x. Wow, 3x looks good. 10x, and so does 10x, up until 20x. What's happening?
07:46So, this is full HD auto. Ultra HD 30fps. This is wide. 1x, 3x, 10x, and 20x. Ultra HD 60fps. Why are
08:06they so itchy? 1x, 2x, 4x, 10x, only up until 10x, and there doesn't seem to be a wide. There is a
08:18wide, it's just that you can't switch from 1x to 10x to wide in one shot. Finally, this is crazy.
08:26This is 8K footage you're seeing right now, and you can do 2x, 4x. This is 4x right now.
08:38Hi, Bruce. And it goes up until 6x. Back to 1x. Well, I just tried it. There is no wide on 8K.
08:49Okay, so let's go back to ultra HD. So, like I said, there is stabilization settings in the
08:57settings, and the leftmost is turned off. In the middle, visual stabilization is turned on, but
09:05that's it. Super steady mode 1x on the rightmost, and yeah, there is a wide mode available on super
09:12steady mode. There's a super slow mo, but as you can see here, even in like this really bright
09:18scene I have, it does struggle a little bit. You need like really, really, really bright
09:24lighting for this to work well. There is also slow mo. Okay, I was just pretending, but yeah,
09:34there is a normal slow mo mode on this, and I find that that generally performs better. It's
09:40not that slow, but you don't need blinding light for it to look good. Just like in photos, this
09:47can go from wide to macro. Well, at least that's me moving manually closer to the flower, and it
09:54looks good. Yeah, that doesn't really work for dogs because they move so much. In general, videos
10:09look great, but even more impressing is how zooms are on video as well. This is me zooming in, not
10:18manually this time, and check out how I'm switching focus between the flower and then that thing.
10:26Is it that flower up far there? Yeah, yeah, that thing, but yeah, look how good this all looks.
10:34Taking it a step further, let's zoom in to 20x. Right, that still looks good.
10:42Unfortunately, you can't focus on the flower, but this looks amazing.
10:54And finally, on pro video mode, which is in itself a feature that vloggers or mobile filmmakers
11:02would love, there is an option to switch how you're recording audio. If you're recording it
11:08from the front, if it's gonna be from the rear, omnidirectional, or even record via Bluetooth
11:14earphones. I did a sample of this on my hands-on, so check it out on the video. I'll link it up here.
11:25Front-facing camera does not have a dedicated steady mode, but it still has that steady mode
11:30baked into the settings. This is what you're seeing. This is also being shot at full HD
11:35auto, so it can do 30 or 60. This is auto, and you can do ultra HD in 30 fps, which is this,
11:43or HD in 60 fps. This is that. So there is, of course, portrait video on here. As you can see,
11:51it's pretty good because I'm like moving around, and it's not like being weird. It's cutting me out
11:56correctly. Yeah, and under portrait mode, there are also different fun filters like
12:04color point. Yes, we have a video version of this filter, and the glitch filter.
12:11Yeah. So back to full HD auto, because these don't seem to work on ultra HD. There is a live
12:19beauty mode as well on front-facing video, and this is what it can do. This is at max smoothness.
12:26Normally, if I'm gonna use this, I don't max it. Like I do like one, two, or three, you know,
12:31just a little bit to freshen you up. I always say that the beauty mode exists just like makeup. Like
12:38it enhances the real you, but girls, guys and girls, never be ashamed of your true self. So
12:46let's get back to that. And like most Samsung phones, another cool feature that's great for
12:50social media is that there's a my filter option on here, which means you get to pick whatever
12:55photo and look you want and apply it to the photo you already have and save that filter as is. And
13:02like I said on my hands on, this phone has S Pen capabilities. So as you can see, it works with
13:07this really cool S Pen I have, and that means you can now draw stuff on your stories. It's an added
13:15perk of S Pens. Like it's gonna be real cute and real easy to draw around whatever you're posting.
13:21Finally, let's not forget this cute feature AR Doodle works for the rear and the front
13:26facing camera. And this is best done with horns. That just means it moves with you,
13:38like you're literally drawing on real life. Rawr!
13:45But the one really, really sad thing about the S Pen capabilities of this phone is that though
13:49it can doodle on whatever thing you want it to doodle on on the phone, this particular S Pen
13:57cannot do remote Bluetooth selfies. It's because like this particular phone and the S Pens that
14:04go with it aren't Bluetooth enabled. So that means this thing doesn't have battery power or the one
14:10in the case that you could get for this phone. And that means you can do remote selfies with them,
14:16which to me is like the best application of these S Pens. Sad. So many of you asked what
14:21these stories look like on the phone I shot them with. This is the S21 Ultra. I have the iPhone 12
14:27mini. I have the S20 FE. And we're gonna look at the stories on each phone. Hearing sound from this
14:35phone.
15:05For some reason I didn't expect the night mode on this phone to be this good. Like I expected it to
15:10be not bad but not this good. There is a dedicated night mode on here which automatically adjusts to
15:17whatever lighting situation you have. So I made my room dark and tried that. Right, so this is how
15:24dark it is in this area. We're gonna try some night mode mirror selfies. See just how this camera will
15:34fare. It is amazing to me how good the overall performance of these cameras including the wide
15:42and the zoom cameras look. Like I know that the One X looks good but even those zooms man.
15:50Turn background lamp on.
15:56Yes so this is where I've been shooting. This is what it looks like.
16:00Oh by the way, wide.
16:10Something happened when I turned to 10x in this weird light. Back to 3x.
16:22Did notice though that it does take a few seconds to process those night mode shots.
16:27But yeah, they look amazing. As for night mode selfie because of course I'm gonna try that.
16:37There are basically three options. Like you have the normal selfie, you have a scene optimized
16:42selfie, and you have the night mode selfies. Two different treatments to take better photos in low
16:48light selfie scenarios. Right that was it for our camera vlog test on the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.
16:57I have to say that I personally wasn't all that jazzed about this big old phone but there's one
17:02thing that this camera test of mine has managed to do. It's impressed me with these shooters.
17:07Remember when I said on my Samsung Galaxy S21 video that I felt like the ultimate shooting
17:14point for the S21 would be the 3x zoom? Well for this camera it's a 3x zoom and the 10x zoom.
17:20As mind-blowing as the 100x zoom is, I still don't feel like they take the best best best photos
17:28unless it's the moon. But you gotta admit, again it's still pretty mind-blowing. Although I'm sad
17:33about the S Pen capabilities not being the capabilities I actually use the S Pen for. Pro
17:39video modes and all the other camera features does sound promising especially for people who shoot
17:45video on phone. All in all I think it's obvious that this phone's cameras really perform. That's
17:50it for today you guys. Let me know what you think in the comment section down below. If you want to
17:53see how I use my tech on a daily basis find me online that's at IsaDesk underscore on Instagram,
17:58TikTok, and Twitter. Until next time!