As one the first major phone releases for 2025, the Galaxy S25 Ultra continues to prove it’s one of the best camera phones around, thanks in part to its assorted upgrades and better low light performance. About a month ago on a clear night, I started to capture some astrophotography shots with my Galaxy S25 Ultra to see how it’s improved over the Galaxy S24 Ultra — but I soon came across an odd problem.
After snapping a handful of snapshots of my favorite deep space targets, like the Great Orion Nebula, I noticed a peculiar characteristic that appeared in some of my shots. Apparently there was a Galaxy S25 Ultra camera glitch that caused photos in night mode to develop these weird white bands and artifacts. They looked horrible, so I stopped right then and there to save myself from freezing outside.
Since that encounter, I was told from Samsung that a software update would be rolling out soon to address the glitch. After a couple of weeks, it finally landed, so I quickly installed the update and proceeded to use the next clear night to take astrophotography shots with the Galaxy S25 Ultra. Here’s what I found out.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra astrophotography: what you need to know
If you’ve been following my other astrophotography shootouts, like the ones I've performed with the Pixel 9 Pro XL, OnePlus 13, and iPhone 16 Pro Max, then you know the necessary gear you need to get the best results. You’ll definitely need a phone holder/cradle and a tripod in order to keep the Galaxy S25 Ultra as still as possible while it’s shooting astrophotography.
On the software side, I also recommend setting the timer function on with the Galaxy S25 Ultra — so that it buys a little bit of time for the phone to get steady before it starts to capture images of the night sky. Furthermore, you’ll want to set the exposure to its max setting in night mode, which I’ve seen to come out to 8 seconds. That way, the sensor can absorb as much light as possible during the long exposure period.
Finally, you can also try out Pro Mode with the Galaxy S25 Ultra to get an even longer exposure upward of 30 seconds. And while you can get closer to targets by switching over to the S25 Ultra's telephoto cameras, they’re hard to capture because the slightest shake from the wind can ruin them.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra astrophotography: Before the update
It’s worth revisiting the first batch of astrophotography photos I captured with my Galaxy S25 Ultra prior to the software update.
You can see the weird bandings across all the astrophotography images in the gallery above, which also seemed to affect the sharpness of images. They just look dull and soft, nowhere close to the results I got from the Galaxy S24 Ultra last year.
From what I determined, this camera glitch only happened whenever I captured shots in night mode with the main camera and the exposure set to its maximum. I confirmed this because none of the photos I shot with the ultrawide or telephoto cameras on the S25 Ultra appeared to show this problem, nor did any of the snapshots I captured in Pro Mode.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra astrophotography: After the update
Once I installed Samsung's software update, I was under the impression that the results would greatly improve — but they did not. On one hand, I’m happy to report that the white banding effect was non-existent in any of the photos I captured. However, the astrophotography shots from the main camera in night mode continue to be of extremely poor quality.
The best shot I managed to get is the first one in the gallery above, which was the result of a 5-second exposure with night mode. Although there’s an abundance of stars in the shot, there are weird artifacts that crop up everywhere throughout the image. They look like splotches that are attempted to be covered up because there’s discoloration in those areas.
The second image turns out worse in my opinion, with stars appearing less defined — and it doesn’t help that there’s an even softer, overall tone.
The subsequent photos above show more of the same results with different parts of the sky I captured that evening with the Galaxy S25 Ultra. What’s apparent in all of them is the lack of detail, definition, and sharpness I get from other phones. Also, it appears as though Samsung's phone struggles at finding the correct focus.
Next up, I decided to switch up my approach by taking astrophotography in both night and pro modes. All of the shots in the gallery above show the image taken in night mode with the main camera and exposure set to maximum, followed by the corresponding image in pro mode with the exposure set to 30 seconds.
From what I can tell, most of the shots have circular bandings that are actually quite common with photos taken in low light. I prefer the look of the shots taken in pro mode because there's less artifacting with parts of the sky.
I did take several moon shots with the Galaxy S25 Ultra and its space zoom feature. At 1x zoom with the main camera, the moon’s clearly overexposed. I even tried with the 3x and 5x optical zoom cameras while lowering the exposure, but they still made the moon look overblown.
It wasn’t until I got to 30x when it finally kicked in to reveal some of its detail. For a phone, it’s not bad, but far from the richer detail I get from smart telescopes like my SeeStar S50.
Finally, I wanted to try and capture my favorite nebula with the Galaxy S25 Ultra — M42 the Great Orion Nebula. It’s still high enough and far away from obstruction near ground level, so I pointed the phone in its direction and proceeded to snap the set of photos above with all four of the S25 Ultra's cameras.
All the photos of the Orion constellation were taken in pro mode with a 30-second exposure. Due to the long exposure, there’s noticeable trailing with all the stars when I switched over to the 3x and 5x zoom. The last thing I tried was going up to 10x zoom in hopes of getting a better look at the nebula. I even tried an 8-second exposure while increasing the ISO, but the result still isn’t to my standards.
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra astrophotography: Verdict
I’m disappointed by how these astrophotography images came out. Despite Samsung correcting the camera glitch from earlier, the Galaxy S25 Ultra images still lack the definition and sharpness I’ve been able to capture with the Pixel 9 Pro XL — which still is my favorite phone for astrophotography.
Of course, there’s still room for improvement with subsequent updates that could further enhance the photos, but I’m not that optimistic. Quite frankly, it’s also possible that something is up with the hardware in my Galaxy S25 Ultra, so I’m hopeful to test it out with a replacement to see if the quality is any better. Expect a follow up in the near future about that.
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