Revelation of the sensor sizes for the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra camera

The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra was introduced today (hands-on here) with one new camera and a huge emphasis on improvements through AI.

Samsung didn’t seem keen on discussing the technical specifications of the Ultra’s cameras, but given our interest in this subject, we took it upon ourselves to investigate further. By having access to the camera’s EXIF data – focal length and aperture – we can calculate its crop factor and through that, determine the sensor size.

Having done so, we now know the camera sensor sizes on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Unsurprisingly, the wide-angle camera features the largest sensor at 1/1.33″. It combines sixteen small 0.6µm pixels into one larger 2.4µm pixel. The 12MP ultrawide camera doesn’t do pixel binning and has photodiodes measuring 1.12µm by default.

The 5x camera is the new addition here, and it remains somewhat mysterious. We don’t have detailed information on the sensor behind the 5x zoom camera, but we do know it’s a 50MP unit with a 115mm f/3.4 lens. There’s speculation that it’s a Sony IMX854, which features a 1/2.52″ imager with individual pixels measuring 0.7µm. The calculated sensor size is 1/2.6″, with the 0.08 figure well within the rounding margin of error.

For a useful comparison, consider the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s 1/2.6″ 115mm long telephoto camera with an f/3.4 lens against the Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max’s 1/3.06″ 120mm lens with an f/2.8. Comparing these two would be quite intriguing as one boasts a much larger sensor, while the other has a brighter lens.

Finally, the 3x camera remains the same old 69mm f/2.4 shooter with a 1/3.6″ sensor.

While we have the numbers, the real test lies in the actual performance of these cameras – so don’t miss our upcoming comprehensive review!