Samsung made a quiet but significant swap inside the Galaxy S26 Ultra’s telephoto system, and it didn’t mention it once at the Unpacked event.
The 50MP 5x telephoto camera no longer uses the periscope-style lens found in every Galaxy S Ultra before it. A teardown confirmed Samsung replaced it with an All Lens On Prism setup, known as ALoP. That’s why the telephoto opening on the S26 Ultra is circular rather than the rectangular cutout seen on its predecessors.
Samsung actually announced ALoP technology back in late 2024, initially showing off a 3x version. Many expected it to land on the Galaxy S25 series. It didn’t. Instead, Samsung quietly developed a 5x zoom variant and saved it for this year.
The practical effect is a physically smaller telephoto camera module and a noticeably different quality to background blur. Where the S25 Ultra produced bokeh with rectangular light shapes, the S26 Ultra renders them as circular or oval, which looks considerably more natural and closer to what you’d get from a traditional DSLR.
There is a real downside, though. Minimum focusing distance has doubled, jumping from 26cm on the S25 Ultra to 52cm on the S26 Ultra. If you were used to getting close to a subject with the telephoto lens, that’s no longer possible from the same distance.
The wider aperture does help in low light video, which partially offsets that limitation. But the trade-off is real, and it likely explains why Samsung stayed quiet about the change entirely.
Via – SamMobile
