The Galaxy S26 Ultra’s 5x camera could finally get a loooooong overdue upgrade

The Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra leaks continue to stream in, and we recently saw camera specs surface online. Now, a trusted leaker has revealed even more details about the Ultra phone’s camera hardware.

Tipster Ice Universe has claimed on Twitter that the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s 50MP 5x camera will have an f/2.9 aperture. That’s significantly wider than the S25 Ultra’s f/3.4 shooter. So what does that mean for users, then?

Well, a wider aperture enables increased light intake, and more light means a brighter photo with less noise. A wider aperture is particularly useful at night or indoors, allowing for brighter, cleaner shots in these situations. Another benefit of a wider aperture is that the camera’s shutter doesn’t have to stay open as long, resulting in images with reduced blur.

Finally, a wider aperture offers a shallow depth of field, which should enable portrait photos with more natural bokeh effects (i.e., a blurry background). That means the camera app doesn’t have to heavily lean on software-based depth effects, which can look unpolished.

We’re therefore expecting the S26 Ultra’s 5x camera to capture higher-quality low-light shots with less blur, as well as improved portrait mode images. For what it’s worth, we thought the Galaxy S25 Ultra was disappointing in our camera zoom shootout earlier this year. So we hope the Galaxy S26 Ultra puts up a serious fight against next-generation rivals.

This leak also comes as many rivals offer telephoto cameras with wide apertures. The vivo X200 Pro offers a 200MP f/2.7 periscope camera (3.7x), the Xiaomi 15 Ultra delivers a 200MP f/2.6 periscope shooter (4.3x), and the Pixel 10 Pro has a 48MP f/2.8 periscope lens (5x). In fact, the HUAWEI P60 Pro was a trailblazer back in 2023, offering a 3.5x periscope camera with an f/2.1 aperture. So this upgrade is definitely overdue for Samsung.