Fake Moon Photos Produced by Samsung's S20 Ultra Series? Space Zoom Feature Explained

Samsung wowed its users when it released the "Space Zoom" feature in its S20 Ultra model in 2020, enabling users to capture detailed photos of the Moon. However, there are speculations that the brand is faking the Moon photos.

Is Samsung Faking Moon Photos From S20 Ultra Series?

Reddit user u/ibreakphotos tested Samsung's capacity to take photos of the Moon using S23 Ultra. It uses a blurry photo of the Moon that shows no details at all.

The netizen used S23 Ultra and took a photo of the first image, resulting in a clear photograph of the Moon. S23 Ultra added details that were not present in the first photo, prompting many to speculate that the snap taken by Samsung was fake, as The Verge reported.

The outlet noted that it's not a new controversy, as many have asked about Samsung's Moon photography since the company introduced its 100X "Space Zoom" feature in S20 Ultra in 2020. Some skeptic netizens speculate that the company is just copying and pasting pre-stored textures onto images of the Moon to deliver detailed shots.

A similar story was reported by Input Mag in 2021, questioning the results produced by S21 Ultra after some speculated that it used an AI trick to produce a detailed photo of the Moon.

Youtuber and influencer Alexi Bexi reportedly warned people not to fall for AI tricks presenting some videos as evidence that Samsung allegedly overlain textures on top of the 100x zoom photos of the Moon. According to Bexi, even if one takes unsharp, messy photos of anything that looks like a moon when S21 Ultra is used to take an image of the object, it will result in a moonish output. Bexi claimed that the brand used clever software to achieve it.

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Samsung Explains Space Zoom Feature

According to Input, Samsung didn't use image manipulation for their photos. However, they admitted using AI to detect the Moon's presence and enhance the details. They reportedly offer detail-enhancing functions by reducing blurs and noises.

Samsung didn't go into details other than saying it uses detail improvement engine function to effectively remove noise and maximize the details, resulting in a bright and clear picture.

The Reddit test claims that Samsung doesn't enhance the sharpness of blurry images but creates them, which prompted many to agree that the resulting image was fake.

According to The Verge, the resulting Moon photos from Samsung's phone were less optical data but more of a computational process. It's a generated image more than a photo.

The outlet noted that smartphone manufacturers have been using computational techniques to overcome the limits of smartphones' small camera sensors. It's likely that Samsung's technique to enhance photos will be more common and widely applied.

The concept of "fakeness" is a spectrum rather than binary. In photography, realness is defined by the information the optical sensor receives. Photos can be edited extensively by photographers to tweak raw images to adjust color, exposure, and contrast so the end result is not fake. However, it's a generated image more than an actual photo.

The Verge concluded that Samsung's Moon photographs are more fake than real. However, the outlet noted that this might no longer hold true in the future.

Samsung reportedly did not immediately respond to The Verge's request for comment.