Samsung Galaxy S10 Best shot automatic capture feature gone, users say

NOTICE: We’ve created an archive of all major developments related to the Samsung Galaxy S10 lineup. We are continuously updating that page with latest S10e/S10/S10+ news so that you don’t need to search for information related to the device on daily basis. Head here to access that page.

Photography is a complex domain, which deals with both science and arts. There are a ton of parameters involved while taking a shot – some of them can be automatically adjusted, but mostly they need the instinct of the photographer.

At PiunikaWeb, we often talk about computation photography techniques and their usage in modern smartphone cameras. They can be thought of as a bunch of artificial intelligence powered methods that can emulate the photographer’s skills.

Samsung is a high ranking player in the world of smartphone photography. The recent rise of Google and Huawei with their exceptional camera performances may rattle them a bit, but the Korean OEM is still very much in the competition.

With 2019’s Galaxy S10, some critics found the improvements negligible compared to previous generations.

However, it is worth mentioning that independent authorities like DxOMark applauded the camera quality of the 10th anniversary edition of Galaxy S series and gave it the (then) all time top score of 109.

Majority of the smartphone camera users are point-n-click fans; they don’t want to fiddle with manual camera settings. For them, Samsung introduced a new feature in the Galaxy S10 – dubbed as Shot suggestions aka Best shot.

Get the finest photo compositions possible with the Shot suggestions feature on the Galaxy S10.

https://twitter.com/SamsungMobileUS/status/1099783114262482945
https://twitter.com/RCondadoMarques/status/1098304081163100160

The following video from Samsung can be handy for demonstrating the feature:

As you can see, users need to enable the Shot suggestions option from Camera settings. Afterwards, the Camera app suggests to move/change the camera angles to achieve the ‘best’ possible shot of the target.

The description of the option clearly mentions the following:

Show prompts to help you line up great shots, then automatically take the shots when they’re lined up.

I like to draw the attention of the readers to the highlighted portion, as a number of S10 users have now reported that the automatic action is vanished after the latest update.

Can anyone tell me how to make the camera shot automatically when i use Shot suggestions, because it was automatic when i got the phone but for some reason now is not . It’s not taking the photo until i press the button on the screen?

Can i turn back to automatic as soon as the two circles lineup through some settings?

I also tried to restart every camera settings but doesn’t help.

(Source)

Seems that the South Korean smartphone maker silently patched the stock camera application and entirely removed the ability to auto-capture the best shot image. Some users do favor the new design, mainly because of freedom. Others prefer to have a toggle.

I’m going to guess, based on the below and checking elsewhere, that the S10 as designed took pictures automatically based on shot suggestions but that there were a lot of people like me who didn’t agree with the CPU’s idea of what the best focal point should be.

Adding a toggle would probably have been better but might have taken more time than they had so instead Samsung turned off the automatic photo. Going to guess even further that we might see the toggle in a future software update.

(Source)

Just after the official release, Samsung pushed a day-one OTA update (ASAT to ASBA). The changelog mentioned camera stability improvements along with ultrasonic fingerprint reader related fixes.

The Galaxy S10 lineup subsequently got the March 2019 security patches in the form of ASC8 (pulled back in most regions) / ASCA OTA firmware update.

Well, another camera stability update without any detailed changelog! The lack of granular update notes makes it difficult to pinpoint the exact build from which they removed the option of auto-capture.

We guess it was the day-one patch aka ASBA build.

FYI, the Pro mode functionalities while video recording are completely absent from the Galaxy S10. Samsung ‘accidentally’ omitted it form their Android Pie based One UI, thus older phones such as Galaxy S9 or Note 9 are also affected.

Have you noticed the removal of the best shot auto capture in your Galaxy S10? Comment below.

Follow @PiunikaWeb

PiunikaWeb is a unique initiative that mainly focuses on investigative journalism. This means we do a lot of hard work to come up with news stories that are either ‘exclusive,’ ‘breaking,’ or ‘curated’ in nature. Perhaps that’s the reason our work has been picked by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and more. Do take a tour of our website to get a feel of our work. And if you like what we do, stay connected with us on Twitter (@PiunikaWeb) and other social media channels to receive timely updates on stories we publish.