Samsung Landscape Photography: Which Lens, Which Settings

Current Galaxy phones feature two to four cameras on the back, and the camera you pick can make a bigger impact on the look of a landscape than any of the camera’s settings. Stay in the same location and a rock that’s sitting at your feet can be incorporated into a landscape using an ultra-wide lens, while a telephoto lens can compress far-off mountains, creating the illusion that the mountain ranges are closer together.

In this article, we compare Galaxy phones’ various cameras side by side to see how they can change your landscape photos and offer camera settings for common outdoor scenarios.

The four lenses compared

You can also see the gap between the cameras on GSMArena’s Galaxy S26 Ultra spec sheet. Expect to see similar camera setups (with smaller sensors) across other Galaxy phones, though some models will skip the telephotos.

Ultra-wide vs main camera

If there’s something of interest a metre or two away (say a boulder or some wildflowers), the ultra-wide really comes into its own: it renders them large while making the mountains look small, adding a nice sense of depth to the picture. Remove that foreground interest and you’re likely to end up with mostly sky and a narrow band of distant mountains and hills.

Pictures from the main camera look sharper and more detailed, and it handles poor lighting conditions better, thanks to its much larger sensor. Shapes also look more natural, and while there may be some distortion with the wide-angle camera (according to Samsung), the Distortion correction option in Camera Assistant should take care of any bowing lines (Samsung says this will correct for distortion automatically).

3x vs 5x for distant hills

Telephoto views compress or “stack” landscape layers, and the farther you stand the more pronounced the effect. Pick 3x for a mid-distance focal point; reach for 5x to emphasise layers of hills or pick out distant summits. On the S24 Ultra, S25 Ultra and S26 Ultra, 10x is a crop of the 5x image (optical zoom quality according to Samsung), and longer still is digital zoom.

Telephotos exaggerate atmospheric effects, so heat shimmer and haze will be more apparent. Choose crisp, cool conditions for tack-sharp telephoto landscapes. At 111mm, minor camera shake is magnified, so lean on a rock or set the self-timer to 2 seconds to minimise blur.

Which Galaxy phones have which lenses

• Galaxy A phones (e.g. Galaxy A57, Galaxy A37) have an ultra-wide camera and main camera. They also have a 5MP macro camera. They do not have telephoto cameras, so you’ll need to take a picture with the main camera (ideally 50MP) and crop.
• The Galaxy S24, S25, and S26 have an ultra-wide camera, main camera, and 3x telephoto camera. According to GSMArena, the Galaxy S25 FE and Galaxy S26 FE also have all three of these cameras, though the telephoto camera is only 8MP.
• The Galaxy S24 Ultra, Galaxy S25 Ultra, and Galaxy S26 Ultra have all four cameras, including 3x and 5x telephoto cameras.
• The Galaxy Z Flip7 and Galaxy Z Flip8 only have a main camera and ultra-wide camera. The Galaxy Z Fold7 and Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra also have a 3x telephoto camera.
• The Galaxy S25 Edge only has a 200MP main camera and an ultra-wide camera (our S25 Edge vs S25 Ultra comparison shows what that costs you).

Landscape settings by situation

According to Samsung’s Pro mode guide, when you select a shutter speed you must select an ISO. Auto ISO isn’t an option, and image exposure is determined by the combination of those two settings.

According to Nikon’s guide to filters, an ND filter will block several stops of light and allow you to use slower shutter speeds even in bright conditions, which is the only way to achieve silky-smooth flowing water in daylight conditions when using a fixed-aperture lens.

Steps for a layered landscape

1. 1

   Find the foreground first

   Once you've located your interesting foreground, get behind it and get set up to shoot.

2. 2

   Level the horizon

   Enable grid lines and a level with the composition guide in Camera settings. Compose so the horizon is on one of the upper or lower thirds of the frame. Our grid lines guide shows where the switch is.

3. 3

   Focus on the foreground

   Tap the screen on your subject to focus there. Phone cameras will usually keep everything out to the horizon acceptably sharp, but take a test shot and zoom in on that far-off ridge line just to be sure.

4. 4

   Expose for the sky

   Lower the exposure using the brightness slider until you're happy with the amount of detail you're retaining in the clouds. You can always brighten up your foreground interest later; it's a lot easier to do it tastefully than to recover a blown-out sky.

5. 5

   Choose the resolution

   Use 50MP (or 200MP if you have an Ultra) in good light if you think you might crop or print large. Drop back to 12MP in lower light.

Expert RAW will save a 16-bit linear DNG image (on S-series flagships and foldables that support Expert RAW). You can also shoot RAW images in Pro mode. (On a Galaxy S25 Ultra with One UI 9, checked in November 2026, you can turn this option on and off in Camera settings > Photo format > Pro mode picture format.)

In low light, 12MP will often be cleaner (see our resolution guide for an explanation). The panorama guide also covers stitching images together for views wider than your ultra-wide lens can accommodate.

What goes wrong with landscapes

• The sky whites out. When shooting landscapes the metering will be for the land and so the sky can get really bright. Tap on the sky to reduce the brightness or take Expert RAW images to give yourself more latitude.
• Distorted at the edges. Ultra-wide angles are like that; keep important stuff out of the corners or use 1x instead.
• Full-res images are blurry. With a camera this capable you don’t want to compromise, but 200MP needs good light, so after sundown select 12MP.
• Images not quite as sharp as they should be. Clean your lens and if that doesn’t help check if there’s any atmospheric haze (use of a telephoto lens magnifies this effect).
• Colours, particularly blue skies and green hills/trees, are over the top. Scene Optimizer recognises landscapes (among other scenes) and enhances them accordingly. If you want less flashiness turn the feature off; on One UI 9 it’s called Scene detection and is found under Photo enhancer in Camera settings.

Editing a landscape

Back in the Gallery app’s editing suite (tap the pencil icon to open it), level out the horizon first. Play with Brightness and Contrast until things look good. Free Snapseed offers additional features, including Curves to tweak the sky’s mid-tones and Brush to selectively lighten areas that are too dark (say, the foreground). There’s also a Dehaze function that removes atmospheric murkiness from distant objects, but too much can result in an unnatural-looking sky.

Weather shapes most landscape days, so the cloud guide and the bad-weather guide cover grey and dramatic skies. Light at the two ends of the day has its own guides on sunrise and sunset. The travel photography guide deals with shooting on the move.