Camera and Video Quality

Unsurprisingly, Samsung has repurposed the Galaxy S4's camera module for the Milky way Note 3. What you're getting is a 13-megapixel Sony Exmor RS IMX135 backside illuminated ane/3.06" CMOS sensor, featuring 1.12 μm pixels, plus a 31mm (constructive) f/ii.2 lens module. There's no optical image stabilization (OIS), which definitely affects low-light images, and the rear camera is paired with a 2-megapixel front-facing unit.

In practiced lighting conditions, results from the Note three'south camera are fantastic, with solid color reproduction, accurate white balance and reasonably skillful dynamic range. Looking at full-resolution crops reveal images are quite sharp, if slightly over-candy, and usually without grain. The f/2.2 lens tin focus shut enough that macro-style images are possible, withal bokeh is merely average, and then don't expect amazing results.

Where conditions become less ideal (indoors, cloudy days, bogus lighting), the Note 3 is however a reasonable performer. Colors remain quite accurate although slightly less vibrant; sometimes images can be washed out, only ordinarily dissimilarity is good enough. Every bit far as smartphones get, the Note three's photographic camera in moderate lighting conditions is one of the better ones I've used, but still not perfect.

Samsung has fabricated some tweaks to the way the camera software functions in lower levels of calorie-free to compensate for the lack of optical image stabilization. When you lot capture an image in poor lighting, a dialog appears saying "Processing". While I'm not absolutely certain what is going on behind the scenes, I believe a flare-up shot is beingness taken, with software automatically selecting (and then enhancing and post-processing) the sharpest image afterwards.

The tweaked software appears to piece of work quite well, with almost images I took in lower light beingness quite sharp, despite the lack of OIS and sensor'southward pocket-sized pixels. However information technology's clear that a high ISO is being used, masked with quite severe dissonance reduction that significantly reduces the effective resolution of the image. Y'all don't have to view total-resolution images to see the quality reduction in low light, especially in black areas where artifacts are immediately credible.

Calculation in OIS in a future model would allow the camera software to use a slower shutter speed and lower ISO, resulting in better images akin to the Nokia'due south high-end Lumia devices.

By default, the Galaxy Note three shoots 9-megapixel cropped 16:9 images (which form the bulk of samples in this section), simply you tin can expand this to full 13-megapixel 4:3 images in the photographic camera settings. The 16:9 images fill the screen when you're viewing them after, merely if you want the extra resolution at the top and bottom, it's all-time to switch over to 4:3.

Like the Milky way S4, there are a broad range of photographic camera features within the application to explore. Many of these features rely on burst mode: All-time Photo allows you to select one image from a burst shot; Best Face takes five photos and stiches in the all-time faces; Drama takes a burst shot of a moving subject field and merges the images; Eraser can remove moving objects from the background of an prototype; and Golf takes a quick burst of a golf swing.

Animated Photo is a photo manner where you can create cool still/moving hybrid GIF images, and Audio & Shot adds a short snippet of sound to an prototype. There are two panorama modes – Panorama and Surround Shot (aka. Photograph Sphere) – which are quite easy to use, plus there's a range of effects/filters you tin can apply in real fourth dimension to photographs you lot take.

Many of these shooting modes are good for one-off cool images, merely mostly y'all'll be shooting in the automated mode, or the fantastic Rich Tone (HDR) mode. High dynamic range (HDR) images are composite photos of the one scene at multiple exposures, and the Galaxy Notation three has one of the best HDR modes I've seen. If you're taking a photo of a scene with lots of contrast or shadows, the HDR fashion will take an epitome with far greater amounts of visible detail than the standard Auto mode, making it the perfect shooting way for when you can't become the exposure quite correct.

The Milky way Notation 3 has the best set of video recording features I've seen in a smartphone, packing up to 3840p30 (4K Ultra HD) recording for the beginning fourth dimension, using the Snapdragon 800'due south full set of encoding features.

Recording at Ultra Hd is limited to the Snapdragon model, only at 48 Mbps High-profile H.264 and a resolution of 3840 x 2160, the results are fantastic. Especially when downscaling the video to 1080p, the clarity that you gain from filming in Ultra Hard disk, even if limited to five minutes of shooting with massive file sizes, is awesome. Color reproduction is similar to what you get from still photos, and audio quality is likewise very skillful.

If y'all don't want to motion-picture show in Ultra Hd, or y'all accept purchased the Exynos model, the Galaxy Note three besides supports shooting 60 frames per 2d 1080p video, like to the LG G2. Filming in this fashion, labelled Smooth Movement in the settings, delivers stutter-free videos, although sharing them in total quality becomes tricky when sites similar YouTube just back up upwards to 30 FPS videos.

Two other modes include Fast Motion, like to time lapse video recording, and Slow Motion. I always notice boring motion recording incredibly fun and compelling, and the Galaxy Note 3 supports upwards to 120 frames per second at 720p. The quality of each frame recorded in slow motility is not as adept equally you'll get when recording at 720p30, just it's even so an interesting feature to play effectually with. If you want to become slower than 120 FPS, the Note does support recording at 8x slower than real life (240 FPS), but playback is but at 15 FPS.