© Image: Samar Haddad; Alison Johnson / The Verge Samsung has tons of camera customization options if you know where to find them.From the very beginning, Samsung Galaxy phones have offered many ways to customize their cameras to your liking. Want an extra trigger you can move around the screen, or have the camera take a picture every time you say "cheese"? You can do it. But that's not all: Samsung offers even more camera settings for those who want full control if they know where to look.
Samsung offers an app called Camera Assistant for the latest Galaxy phones that digs deeper into camera settings . You can disable automatic lens switching in low light and choose whether the phone takes a picture when you place your finger on the shutter button or when you put it away. It's not exactly what the casual photographer is looking for, but if you like that kind of deeply boring menu diving (and we do), Camera Assistant is probably what you're looking for. Here's how to get started.
To use the camera assistant, you must be running the Samsung One UI 5.1 operating system. The application is available for the following phones:
- Samsung Galaxy S20/S21/S22/S23 series
- Samsung Galaxy Note 20
- Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 / Z Flip 4
- Samsung Galaxy Z-Fold 2 / Z-Fold 3 / Z-Fold 4
You must download Camera Assistant from the Galaxy Store - follow this link or search for "Camera Assistant" in the Galaxy Store app.
Once you've downloaded the app, you can find the new options by opening the camera app and tapping the settings cogs in the top-left corner of the screen. Scroll down and tap Camera Assistant .
Here is an overview of what you will find there:
- Auto HDR: Disable this option (it's on by default) to disable Samsung's often aggressive HDR effect in high-contrast scenes. Note that you cannot re-enable it for individual shots without re-entering the Camera Assistant menu.
- Image Blur: Choose Off. (Default), Medium, or High.
- Auto Lens Switching: Disable this option (it's on by default) to prevent the camera from automatically switching lenses, which happens in some scenarios. For example, in low light conditions, it switches to the main camera and uses the digital zoom instead of the telephoto lens.
- Quick Set Shutter: This option is disabled by default; Enabling this setting forces the camera to take a picture when your finger touches the shutter button. (By default, recording begins when you lift your finger from the button.) Fewer frames are used to compose the final image, which can affect image quality.
- Recording speed: Here you have further recording options. Instead of completely ignoring the normal shutter behavior, you can choose between three settings: quality priority; balance between speed and quality; or prefer speed.
- Video recording in photo mode: Uncheck this option to disable video recording when you press and hold the shutter button in photo mode.
- Timer options for multiple photos. By default, the camera takes a recording in timer mode. Here you can take up to seven photos and vary the interval between shots from one to three seconds.
- Camera Timeout: Decrease or increase the amount of time before the camera automatically turns off when idle. The default is set to two minutes; You can change it from a minimum of one minute to a maximum of 10 minutes.
- Screen dimming while recording: If there is no input while recording a video clip, the screen can be dimmed automatically to save battery life. This option is deactivated by default; You can choose up to 10 minutes.
- Clear preview on HDMI display: Check this option (it is off by default) to preview the camera on another display via HDMI without showing any buttons and settings.
There are many additional controls at your disposal, so adjust the camera settings to your liking.
