Samsung is developing its 2026 Galaxy S flagship lineup, led by the Galaxy S26 Ultra. While the phones wonโt release until early next year, leaks have already started surfacing on the web. A fresh leak reveals that the company is testing variable aperture for the Galaxy S26 Ultraโs main camera. If this makes it to the final stage, it will be a major camera upgrade for the device.
Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra might have a variable aperture camera
According to Tipster Ice Universe on Weibo, Samsung is considering adding a variable aperture to the Galaxy S26 Ultraโs primary rear camera, which should be a 200MP unit. As the name suggests, this tech dynamically adjusts the lens aperture to control the amount of light that enters through it. If Samsung adopts variable aperture, the 2026 Ultra flagship could handle low light better and reduce harshness in daylight as well.
The Galaxy S26 Ultra wonโt be the first Samsung phone to feature this camera tech though. The company adopted variable aperture many years ago with the Galaxy S9 series in 2018. The Galaxy S9โs main camera could go from f/1.5 (it lets a lot of light inside) for darker scenes to f/2.4 (less light) for bright scenes. However, since the size of the main sensor was not that large, it was not particularly helpful at the time. The Korean firm eventually dropped it since the Galaxy S20 models โ in favor of better software processing.
Samsung made no substantial hardware changes to the Galaxy S25 Ultraโs camera apart from introducing a new 50MP ultrawide lens. The rest of the camera specifications remain unchanged from those of the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The Galaxy S25 Ultra also disappointed in the DXOMARK camera test โ ranked 24th with a score of 146. Now, with its large 200MP 1/1.3-inch main sensors on Galaxy S26 Ultra, the variable aperture feature could be more useful. Hopefully, Samsung will add it to the final product and doesnโt stop at the testing phase.
