Samsung Pro Mode Guide: Manual Camera Control Explained

Pro mode is the Samsung Camera app’s manual mode. Here, you have the control of adjusting the camera’s ISO and shutter speed, setting the white balance and focusing manually. This ensures that your camera settings do not keep changing from one picture to the next.

This guide will walk you through recommended settings for different scenarios, help you understand what each of these settings does and will provide you with a workflow to get you good pictures quickly.

What are the best settings for Samsung Pro mode?

These are good settings to start with for situations that people typically use Pro mode for. On Galaxy phones that have Pro mode, newer flagship models offer shutter speeds of up to 30 seconds, but some A and M series models may have a maximum of 10 seconds or may not offer shutter speed control at all (Samsung’s instructions for Pro mode on the Galaxy A57 and Galaxy A37 mention ISO and exposure value and white balance and colour tone, but don’t mention shutter speed). In the settings below, I’ve suggested white balance first, then shutter speed depending on the situation, and then the minimum ISO that would still give an acceptably bright image in the viewfinder. Take a photo and review it in Gallery and tweak one setting at a time as necessary. Samsung notes that if you set shutter speed manually on a Galaxy phone, ISO will no longer be set to Auto, so you’ll need to select an ISO value. We provide a comparison of the manual camera apps (ProShot, Open Camera, etc.) available from third parties in our best camera app for Android guide.

What does each Samsung Pro mode setting do?

What ISO should I use in Samsung Pro mode?

ISO controls how much your phone’s camera amplifies the image sensor’s signal. The lower the ISO number, the less “noise” (graininess) there will be in your pictures. ISO 50 (or whatever the lowest setting on your phone is) would be ideal in very bright conditions, 100-200 in well-lit indoor conditions, 400-800 in lower light situations (say, a restaurant or your living room at night).

Avoid going over ISO 1600 if at all possible, as noise increases dramatically with higher ISO settings, particularly in cameras with small sensors like those in phones, and noise reduction processing to get rid of the grain can cause loss of detail. If your pictures are still too dark at ISO 800, consider using a slower shutter speed and propping your phone up on something stable instead of increasing the ISO even more. Samsung’s explanation of Pro mode suggests low ISO for bright scenes or objects that are still, and high ISO for dim scenes or objects that are moving fast.

Shutter speed and movement

Shutter speed determines how long the sensor will gather light for an image. The faster the shutter speed, the less motion blur and vice versa. Motion blur can be desirable in some situations (waterfalls, capturing light trails etc) but undesirable in others (portraits taken with a handheld camera). If you’re holding your phone then use at least 1/125s for stationary objects, 1/250s for objects/people moving slowly (e.g. people chatting or walking) and 1/500s or faster for sports/action. When using a tripod you can experiment with slower shutter speeds e.g. 1s up to 30s (supported on recent Samsung flagships) for night time photography or smooth waterfalls. Some of the A and M series phones only support up to 10s. Using fast shutter speeds indoors may result in flickering/banding (dark lines) due to the pulsing nature of artificial lights (in sync with mains electricity). Samsung recommends using a shutter speed of 1/120s or slower in these situations. In countries with 50Hz mains try using 1/100s or 1/50s and compensating with a higher ISO. Examples at both extremes are in the shutter speed guide.

White balance in Kelvin

WB, or white balance, is basically just telling the camera what colour light it’s working with, so that white things appear white. In Pro mode you can either select from presets (Daylight, Cloudy, Tungsten etc) or enter a value in Kelvin yourself. Lower numbers compensate for warmer (oranger) light, and higher numbers compensate for cooler (bluer) light. For reference, daylight is around 5500K, cloudy conditions are around 6500K, and common household tungsten bulbs are around 3200K. It’s nice to have a fixed WB value when shooting a series of images, as Auto WB can change depending on what’s in frame, meaning you’ll end up with a series of photos that don’t exactly match and take longer to edit. Pick a fixed value, and an edit you apply to one photo will suit them all. Depending on what version of One UI you’re on, Pro mode may or may not remember your settings between sessions. Worth checking the WB value before shooting, just in case! The white balance guide covers mixed light and green casts.

Manual focus and focus peaking

In Pro mode you can also set focus manually: switch focus to manual, then use the focus adjustment bar (kind of like the focus ring on a lens) and drag it toward the close-up or landscape icon depending on what you’re after. (According to Samsung’s instructions, you can use the same control to switch back to autofocus, too.) As you drag the focus adjustment bar, many Galaxy phones will outline edges in focus using a technique called focus peaking, which can be easier to use than trying to eyeball focus using the tiny preview image. With One UI 8.5 you can use Samsung’s Camera Assistant app to have focus peaking always on and adjust its thickness and colour. In One UI 9 the setting is called Focus peaking in Pro modes, found under Focus in Camera Assistant. Tapping it opens up a screen with an Always show focus peaking setting, as well as options for Line thickness (Thin or Thick) and Color (verified on a Galaxy S25 Ultra in November 2026).

Manual focus can be helpful in a variety of situations, but it’s especially useful for close-ups of food and products, since autofocus often locks onto the wrong part of the scene. It can also come in handy at night; if you’re shooting the aurora or stars, for example, you can just set focus to infinity and leave it. (Keep in mind that once you set focus manually it’ll stay put until you change it again.)

How do I use Pro mode on a Samsung camera?

Set white balance before ISO and shutter speed (colour temperature is about personal preference and won’t influence your exposure). Set shutter speed next (it’s all about how fast your subject is moving). Set ISO last, and nudge it upwards until you’re happy with the exposure preview on your screen (ISO is the only one of the three that can compromise image quality). Then focus and take a test shot. For a portrait at dusk using window light, you might use a white balance of 4500K, a shutter speed of 1/125s (if your subject is standing still) and an ISO of 400 (or whatever’s necessary to get a good exposure preview). For sport in the middle of the day, you might use a white balance of 5500K, a shutter speed of 1/1000s or faster and as low an ISO as possible (depending on available light). For a cityscape at night using a tripod, you might use a white balance of 4200K, a shutter speed of 4 seconds (there’s nothing to freeze) and as low an ISO as possible (50 in this example since we’re using a tripod). The same order works for any scene, and the exposure triangle explainer shows why.

1. 1

   Open Pro mode

   Launch Camera > More > Pro.

2. 2

   Set white balance

   Select white balance (preset or in Kelvin) according to the dominant light source.

3. 3

   Choose the shutter speed

   Adjust shutter speed depending on your subject, e.g. 1/125s (handheld, stationary subject) to 1/1000s (sports photography).

4. 4

   Raise ISO until the preview is bright enough

   Raise the ISO until you’re happy with the image in the viewfinder, as the higher the ISO, the noisier the image.

5. 5

   Focus and check

   For close-up shots, it’s advisable to use manual focus (tap on Focus in Camera > More > Pro). You can enable peaking to highlight the in-focus area. Take a shot and check it in Gallery before moving on.

Pro video basics

Shooting video? There’s a Pro video tab next to Pro in More, and everything works just like shooting photos except for one important consideration: shutter speed.

When shooting photos, shutter speed affects the amount of blur in the image. When shooting video, shutter speed also affects how choppy or smooth the video appears. As a rule of thumb, use a shutter speed approximately twice as fast as your frame rate (also known as the 180-degree shutter rule).

According to a video guide from Australian Photography, this will give you video clips with a natural-looking motion blur. On the other hand, StudioBinder points out that if your shutter speed is much faster than your frame rate, motion can appear choppy.

ND filters for phones do exist, but they’re clip-ons and only really useful if you’re after slower shutter speeds for bright daytime videos (on a phone you can’t change the aperture, and you can’t take the ISO any lower than the base ISO, so in bright conditions even 1/50s can still be too slow and produce an overly bright video). Alternatively you can opt for faster shutter speeds, but this will make the video a little jittery. Variable ND filters (as recommended by Australian Photography) can be useful as they allow you to increase or decrease the amount of ND according to the conditions. (The ND option in Expert RAW’s Labs section only applies to images shot within that app.)

One of the features you may want to take advantage of in Pro video mode is the ability to record audio from a USB or Bluetooth microphone. You can also prioritise the level of sound coming from a particular direction (according to Samsung’s Galaxy S26 user guide). Exposure monitoring is available in both Pro and Pro video modes, and includes a Zebra pattern (according to Samsung’s Tips app on One UI 9). Camera Assistant’s Touch AF/AE setting lets you choose whether or not exposure can be altered after recording begins when using Pro video mode. The cinematic video settings guide puts all of this into a full setup, including Samsung Log for footage you grade later.

Saving Pro mode presets

In Pro mode, Camera Assistant lets you save and apply presets with specific camera settings (ISO, shutter speed, exposure value, focus, white balance, etc.). With One UI 8.5 Camera Assistant (via SamMobile), these presets also remember camera lens selection. You can create a preset from scratch or based on a photo in Gallery. Create different presets for different scenarios (e.g. cityscape with tripod, person in front of window) to quickly jump to a known good set of starting camera settings. On a Galaxy S25 Ultra with One UI 9, this option is called Presets in Pro mode and appears under its own Presets section in Camera Assistant. For more information on saving and loading, our Pro mode presets guide has a nice printable page that walks you through everything step by step and provides 6 presets for getting started.

Fixing common Pro mode problems

• Using your phone camera in low light? Night mode is usually better than Pro mode as it takes multiple exposures (30 images according to Samsung) and combines them whereas Pro mode will only take one. Unless you’re using a tripod, Night mode will usually produce better results. But when a tripod enables Pro mode’s advantage, a slow shutter speed with ISO 50, it gets the better of Night mode, as the comparison in our Night mode guide shows.
• Images look too blue/orange? Check you haven’t changed the white balance and left it there or accidentally nudged the slider when changing something else. Check all the settings shown before you start shooting.
• Images aren’t in focus? Check you haven’t left the camera in manual focus mode from a previous use, as the small image may fool you but the peaking option is more reliable.
• Images look banded or flickery when shot indoors? Fluorescent and LED lighting (think offices, gyms, arenas etc) actually flickers. It’s just so fast you can’t see it. When using a fast shutter speed this can sometimes be captured in images. Try lowering the shutter speed to 1/120s (or 1/100s or 1/50s if on a 50Hz power supply) and increasing the ISO to compensate.
• Struggling with really bright conditions? According to the Tips app in One UI 9, Pro and Pro video modes have a range of exposure monitoring options including a Zebra pattern which highlights the brightest areas of an image as stripes. Use this to check if areas of an image are getting too bright, then fix them by either increasing the shutter speed or decreasing the ISO until the stripes disappear.