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The Galaxy S23 Ultra came out on 17th February. As the prime slab flagship from Samsung, it packs several distinctive features. The headline feature is the new 200MP ISOCELL HP2 sensor, which has fantastic dynamic range and focusing capabilities thanks to DVTG and QPD tech.
Alongside massive improvements to photography, the marketing material also consists of Samsung showing off much better video Stabilization. This stabilization is a combination of the sensor now being able to move at more degrees/ angles and partly software, too.
Samsung calls the new S23 Ultra’s camera Stabilization the best one on a Samsung phone. There’s a common misconception that OIS only helps with videos, but OIS is vital for photos.
A phone with a sound Stabilization system takes excellent photos, too, especially in low light. If the sensor is stable, it can capture more light and information without motion blur.
Photos will appear much sharper, with more details, if the stabilization is good. For Stabilization, Samsung put a lot of work into both the hardware and software of the camera algorithms on the S23 Ultra.
Recently, people faced problems with the One UI 5.1 update, causing battery drain. And like all phones, the S23 Ultra also has some early software problems. There are problems with Stabilization on the S23 Ultra.
The S23 Ultra is facing problems with stabilization
While the S23 Ultra has one of the best Stabilization systems ever on a smartphone, there’s a bug where stabilization doesn’t work as well.
Because of this problem, images have a lot of motion blur, making video footage shaky. Since there’s a Stabilization problem, videos come out with weird panning, and images suffer from detail loss due to the lack of proper stabilization.
Some people report heating issues after using the camera, which we didn’t expect from the 8 Gen 2 SOC and the S23 Ultra combo. This gets incredibly annoying since people buy Samsung flagships expecting excellent image quality and good video Stabilization.
Since this bug ruins the experience, people who have this bug get inferior low-light images with a lot of grain and noise and unusable nighttime footage.
The problems aren’t as apparent with portrait mode since the phone spends more time capturing those regardless.
The bug isn’t consistent with the reports either. According to Sammobile, the problem sometimes happens with videos and sometimes happens with photos.
What’s causing the problem?
It’s difficult to pinpoint one reason why the Stabilization problems are happening. We can’t rule out physical damage, but it doesn’t look like the case here.
Since the issue occurs intermittently with photos and videos, it’s a problem with the software. This is in line with the reports of heating issues. Camera software optimization might have gone wrong.
We have yet to determine the scale of this problem and how many people it’s happening to. There’s no way to determine the root cause of the issue conclusively. But if you’re facing Stabilization problems, you may report the same on Samsung’s Product Feedback.
Since the reports are pretty limited, we can assume it’s a one-off case or a problem with only a few units. Our predictions here are purely speculative. If it’s a hardware issue, then Samsung probably has Quality Control issues.
Interestingly, an S22 Ultra user reported facing similar problems with their unit. This offers further proof in favor that it’s a software issue. It’s pretty easy to fix camera-related software problems with an update.
How do we fix the Stabilization issues?
One way is to reset the camera settings on your phone. Once you reset the camera settings, exit the app and restart your device. This might temporarily solve the problem, but it could pop up if you open and close the camera app.
If it’s a software bug, you can try contacting Samsung Support or visiting a Samsung service center. We must remember that Samsung’s “day one” patch for the S23 Ultra isn’t out yet.
The S23 Ultra only went on sale recently, so there is a chance that these problems will be solved after a few updates. If this is a large-scale bug, we hope Samsung acknowledges this problem and looks into it as soon as possible.
Note: We’ll update this live article with the latest news. You can check out our S23 bug tracker section here.
