A hallmark of some of the best camera phones is how much they can zoom. Cameras like the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra use a combination of long focal length periscope telephoto lenses, on-sensor cropping, plus AI magnification algorithms to enable up to 100x zoom. Now, with the introduction of Android 15 and Samsung's One UI 7 interface, accessing the higher zoom settings in Samsung's premium phones has just got easier.
In the case of the S24 Ultra, if you wanted fast access to its 30x and 100x zoom modes, your best bet was to install Samsung's Camera Assistant app. This enabled additional camera settings and features which weren't available in Samsung's regular camera app. One such feature was ability to add persistent buttons for extra zoom levels, like 30x and 100x.
But with One UI 7, this is no longer necessary. The standard Samsung camera app will now contain the option to tap any of the standard zoom pre-set buttons (in the case of the S24 Ultra, that's 0.6x, 1x, 2x, 3x, 5x, and 10x) then additional buttons will then appear for the 30x and 100x zoom pre-sets. The same trick works for the S24 and S24 plus, where tapping the standard 0.6x, 1x, 2x, and 3x zoom buttons will reveal buttons for 10x, 20x, and 30x zoom options. With any S24-series phone, if you long press on a zoom button, a zoom slider then appears which can be used to zoom in or out to any focal length within the phone's total focal range.
This new zoom feature will apply whether you're shooting stills or video. In Pro video mode, One UI 7 also lets you control zoom speed for smooth focal length transitions. In addition to the zoom improvements, Samsung has repositioned major camera app controls, including the mode selection menu, to the bottom of the screen, in order to make key settings more easily reachable with one hand.
Story credit: Sam Mobile
