The Samsung Galaxy S27 Ultra is coming next year, and we've already started hearing a bunch of rumors about the upcoming phone, including a redesign that could see the camera layout drastically change for the first time in several years. However, the latest leaks suggest Samsung will implement much grander changes than just the camera's look.
In fact, it now seems as though the new look could come at the expense of Samsung's trademark fourth camera lens — the secondary telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom. Or, at least, that's what long-time leaker Ice Universe claims over on X.
It is now confirmed that the Galaxy S27 Ultra will no longer have a 3× telephoto camera.This means its rear camera system will jump directly from the 1× main camera to the 5× telephoto camera.The main camera uses the ISOCELL HP6, essentially a Galaxy-customized version of the… https://t.co/qYGcdX93oySeptember 29, 2026
Ice Universe notes that the camera app will now jump from 1x magnification on the main lens, straight to 5x magnification on the soon-to-be-solo telephoto lens. So there's no optical magnification sitting between the two, though the main lens will presumably still offer the 2x "optical quality" digital zoom that's become so popular on flagship phones in recent years.
Ice has stuck with past claims that the telephoto camera itself will remain unchanged, with the same 5x 50MP lens that is currently available on the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. This also means that the long-standing rumors that Samsung might offer some kind of variable optical zoom presumably won't be happening next year.
The software could be changing too
Modern smartphone photography involves a lot more than having lots of megapixels or fancy lenses. The software is an integral part of the process, and the Galaxy S27 Ultra is tipped to make some big changes there as well.
This news also comes from Ice Universe, which claims three changes are coming to how the S27 Ultra processes photos. The first of which is a shift from cooler color tones to something warmer. I have noticed this with Samsung cameras in recent years, and the color-temperature shift should make the final photos look closer to what rival camera phones offer.
Exclusive, detailed leak: Compared with the Galaxy S26 Ultra, the Galaxy S27 Ultra brings three very noticeable changes to its camera processing:1. The overall color tone has clearly shifted from cool to warmThis is the most obvious change, and something you can notice almost…September 29, 2026
Samsung is also set to include better highlight control for small, bright objects, such as illuminated text or far-off light sources. According to Ice, the S26 Ultra struggles to suppress these highlights, causing lost detail and overexposure in the final photo. The S27 Ultra should, in theory, control that extra brightness and preserve the clarity of the shot.
Finally, Samsung is supposedly working to reduce noise in dark areas and offer a smoother image all round. This makes perfect sense, since Samsung has done a lot of work improving low-light capabilities and reducing photo noise over the past couple of years, with the help of AI. So there's little reason to expect that it would suddenly stop without warning.
Overall, this should give us better photos with a cleaner picture across light and shadow, plus a warmer tone that doesn't look as harsh as the current cool-looking Samsung-processed photos.
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