Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra's 5x camera may finally shine at night

Information about the Samsung Galaxy S26 family has been popping up online for a few months now. Camera leaks surrounding the S26 Ultra point to the primary 200MP camera getting a wider aperture for better low-light pictures. A new leak points to the phone's 5x telephoto shooter also getting a similar upgrade.

X user Ahmed Qwaider, known for his last-minute Galaxy leaks, claims the Galaxy S26 Ultra's 50MP telephoto camera will sport a wider f/2.9 aperture. That will be a considerable step-up from the f/3.4 aperture of the 5x shooter on the S25 Ultra.

While not as good as Pro or Ultra-tier Chinese Android flagships, the wider aperture should still deliver a meaningful upgrade. Allowing more light to reach the sensor will improve low-light performance, producing brighter images with less noise. The added light intake will also allow the phone to use faster shutter speeds, helping reduce motion blur.

In daylight, the f/2.9 aperture at 5x focal length should provide pleasing, natural background blur in portrait shots.

Apple also switched to an f/2.9 aperture lens on the iPhone 17 Pro's 4x camera last year, greatly improving its image quality.

While not mentioned, rumors point to the 3x telephoto shooter also getting a slightly faster aperture.

Additionally, Ahmed reiterates that the Galaxy S26 Ultra's primary shooter will use an f/1.4 aperture, up from f/1.7 on the current model. This should also improve low-light image quality, though such a wide aperture may cause focusing issues when trying to shoot subjects up close.

16GB Galaxy S26 Ultra might not be China-only

Interestingly, the leaker claims Samsung will offer a Galaxy S26 Ultra variant with 16GB RAM and 1TB of storage. While the company has offered similar memory and storage configurations on past Ultra flagships, those models were usually limited to China and South Korea. That may change this year, with the 16GB variant seemingly having wider availability.

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Given the major DRAM and NAND supply crunch, this would be a notable move from Samsung. The standard models of the S26 Ultra will ship with 12GB of RAM as standard.

If rumors are accurate, Samsung will officially take the wraps off the Galaxy S26 lineup only in late February, with the devices going on sale in early March. So, there's still a long wait ahead, and chances are, more details surrounding the phones will leak by then.