Best camera modes to try on the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra has one of the most fully featured camera systems available on a smartphone. Its camera app includes several shooting modes worth exploring beyond the default Photo and Video modes, and a couple of additional modes are available as free downloads from the Galaxy Store.

These are the modes that make the most of what the Galaxy S26 Ultra hardware can do:

Super Steady with Horizontal Lock is a stabilisation mode available within the standard Video mode. Super Steady reduces camera shake during movement. Horizontal Lock adds rotation correction that keeps the horizon level even if the phone tilts or rotates during recording. This makes it well suited for walking shots, action footage, and any situation where it is difficult to keep the phone perfectly steady.

To enable it, open the camera app, switch to Video mode, and tap the Super Steady icon in the viewfinder toolbar (next to the flash icon). You can toggle Horizontal Lock on or off within Super Steady settings. Super Steady uses a slightly narrower field of view to provide the stabilization range it needs, so framing may differ slightly from standard Video mode.

Video mode is where the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s Nightography improvements are most immediately noticeable. Nightography is not a separate mode. It is built into Video mode and applies automatically when the camera detects low-light conditions, optimizing exposure, noise reduction, and detail processing in real time.

The f/1.4 wide camera aperture lets in 47% more light than the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s equivalent, which gives Nightography more to work with and results in cleaner, more detailed footage in dim conditions.

Video mode supports 4K at up to 60fps and 8K at 30fps. Auto FPS is worth enabling in Video settings. It lets the Galaxy S26 Ultra automatically lower the frame rate in low light to bring in more light per frame, improving quality in difficult conditions without any manual adjustment.

Pro mode gives you full manual control over the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s camera. You can adjust ISO, shutter speed, exposure compensation, focus, and white balance independently, bypassing the automatic processing the camera applies in the standard Photo mode. You can also enable RAW capture, which saves an unprocessed file alongside the JPEG that gives you significantly more flexibility when editing.

To access Pro mode, open the camera app and swipe the mode selector to More, then tap Pro. This mode is most useful in controlled situations where you want to set a specific exposure — long exposure shots at night, freezing fast movement with a high shutter speed, or achieving a shallower depth of field by keeping ISO low and letting the f/1.4 wide camera aperture do the work.

Pro Video mode is the manual equivalent for video. It gives you control over ISO, shutter speed, white balance, focus, and microphone levels during recording. It also unlocks frame rate options not available in the standard Video mode, including 8K at 24fps, 4K at 120fps, and FHD at 120fps.

Pro Video mode is where you access log video recording, which captures a flat, low-contrast image designed for colour grading in post-production. To enable log video, go to Camera Settings > Video format and toggle Log on. You can set it to be available in Pro Video mode only, or in both Video and Pro Video modes.

Log Video on the Galaxy S26 Ultra also supports real-time LUT preview — you can see how a colour grade will look while you're shooting, then apply the LUT properly during editing afterward.

Pro Video mode also supports the APV codec, which needs to be enabled separately at Camera Settings > Video format > APV. APV preserves significantly more colour and detail than standard compression formats, making it the better choice when you want to edit footage professionally afterward.

Because APV files are large, Samsung allows recording directly to external storage. Pro Video mode also includes a smooth zoom control for more cinematic zoom transitions during recording.

Expert RAW is a separate camera app available as a free download from the Galaxy Store. It is built specifically for advanced photography and offers multi-frame RAW capture, which uses Samsung’s processing pipeline to produce RAW files with a wider dynamic range than the RAW output from Pro mode in the standard camera app.

The app includes several specialist modes under Special photo options in the Expert RAW settings. Astrophotography mode uses extended exposure times to capture the night sky in detail, with a Sky Guide overlay that identifies constellations in real time. Virtual Aperture simulates different aperture settings to control depth of field. The ND filter mode reduces incoming light for long exposures in bright conditions.

New to the Galaxy S26 Ultra is Virtual Reflector, which simulates a professional photography reflector to bounce light onto a subject. It is particularly useful for backlit portraits and indoor shots where one side of the subject is in shadow. Virtual Reflector adjusts the colour, intensity, and direction of the simulated reflected light, giving you more control over exposure balance without needing physical lighting equipment.

To use Expert RAW, search for it in the Galaxy Store, install it, and open it as a standalone app. It works across all four cameras on the Galaxy S26 Ultra.

Portrait mode captures photos with background blur, using depth detection to separate the subject from the background. The Galaxy S26 Ultra’s f/1.4 wide camera aperture produces more natural background blur than cameras with narrower apertures. But for portraits specifically, the 3x and 5x telephoto lenses give more flattering results.

Shooting at 1x in Portrait mode can introduce facial distortion at close range because of the wider field of view. The longer focal lengths of the 3x and 5x lenses produce more natural-looking proportions for faces and subjects.

Portrait mode also lets you adjust the background blur intensity before and after shooting, and apply lighting effects including Studio, Stage, and High-Key Mono. Portrait Video is available in the More modes section and applies the same background blur treatment to video, with adjustable blur strength during recording.

Slow motion mode records at a higher frame rate than standard video and then plays the footage back at normal speed, producing smooth slow-motion video. On the Galaxy S26 Ultra, slow motion is available at 240fps at FHD resolution and 120fps at UHD (4K) resolution.

To access slow motion, open the camera app, swipe to More in the mode selector, and tap Slow motion. Slow motion is most effective for subjects with clear, defined movement — water, sports, animals, or any action where individual frames would be too fast to see at normal speed.

Single Take and Dual Rec are both available after enabling them through the Camera Assistant app that’s available from the Galaxy Store. Once enabled, they appear in the More section of the camera mode selector.

Single Take captures a burst of photos and short video clips simultaneously across multiple lenses when you press the shutter once. The Galaxy S26 Ultra then selects the best results and presents them as a set, giving you a range of shots from one press. It is useful for spontaneous moments where switching between modes would mean missing the shot.

Dual Rec records video from both the front and rear cameras at the same time, saving either a combined split-screen video or two separate files depending on your settings. You can configure how the dual recordings are stored at Camera Settings > Dual recordings. It is useful for reaction videos, live event coverage, or any situation where you want to capture both a scene and the person filming it.

^{[1] Super Steady: Super Steady results may vary depending on editing method and/or shooting conditions.}

^{[2] Nightography: Results may vary depending on light condition, subject and/or shooting conditions.}