Samsung launches Galaxy S24 Ultra to the stratosphere for stunning pictures of Earth

Samsung has decided to show off the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s camera capabilities by turning it into an aerial camera that takes pictures over 110,000 feet above the Earth.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra was released in January as part of the S24 series. It sits as the most expensive and powerful version of the lineup, with a 200MP main camera sensor and useful zoom capabilities.

Samsung has always put the camera at the forefront of features to show off in the Ultra series, and the S24 Ultra is no different. To go the extra mile, so to speak, Samsung fixed four Galaxy S24 Ultra’s to specially engineered carbon fiber cages that were then attached to stratospheric balloons (via PetaPixel). The purpose was to send these $1,300 devices to a space-adjacent height above sea level and take high-res images of the Earth.

The hydrogen-filled balloons reached a height of just over 22 miles. While not quite space, the stratosphere is a fantastic layer for the Galaxy S24 Ultra to sit in for capturing pictures of the ground on Earth. Samsung’s balloons were sent up from southern California, Las Vegas, the Sierra Nevada range, and the Grand Canyon. In each spot, Samsung packed the lightweight cages with their own S24 Ultra. The idea was to capture images of various landscapes in the Western US.

Over a period of a few days, the Galaxy S24 Ultra balloon units took over 150 images at varying focal lengths, as the S24 Ultra also carries an ultrawide and optical zoom lens.

While the Galaxy S24 series cameras have been criticized for their post-processing performance, the images Samsung took are rather stunning.

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