Let’s talk about shooting video with the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. We'll look at the Blackmagic Camera app as well as shooting with the native app. There's the new APV high quality video codec which Samsung has implemented with their own Log profile to rival the iPhone’s ProRes, ProRes RAW and Apple Log 1 & 2.

S26 Ultra - What's New?

The cameras on the Galaxy S26 Ultra are pretty similar to the S25 Ultra, but there have been some changes.

For the main camera we now have a wider f1.4 aperture, compared to the S25 Ultra’s f1.7 aperture, letting in about 47% more light. The 5x telephoto now has a f2.9 aperture compared to the previous versions f3.4 aperture, letting in about 37% more light.

So this should be good in low light situations, as well as offering a shallower depth of field. In other words, a blurrier background. On the other hand, a camera letting in more light might also mean you need stronger ND filters if you are aiming for the 180 degree shutter which is recommended for shooting cinematic video.

Another change, perhaps seen as a downgrade - the 3x telephoto sensor is actually slightly smaller on the S26 Ultra compared to the previous model.

In the native camera app UI you now get a HDR button, which is on by default. With this on you will be shooting HDR10+ video, which is like Apple’s Dolby Vision. This format isn’t always compatible with every platform and every monitor. If you don’t want to shoot HDR10+ then just tap to disable. You can also go into settings and switch it off completely.

Tap the 4 dots, tap the cog, tap Video Format, then toggle off HDR. Back in the camera UI the HDR button is now gone.

If you want to enable Log and APV recording, you can do that in the same place. Back in the main UI you now get an APV Samsung Log button. Tap to enable, and you will see it also says Log underneath. Beside the button you get the amount of video you can record in this format using the current settings.

External or Internal Drive?

Unlike iPhone and ProRes, the Samsung S26 Ultra does not restrict APV / Log recording to an external drive at any frame rate or resolution - so you can shoot up to 8K APV Log at the highest quality, direct to your internal storage.

That said, it is recommended that you attach an external fast SSD. Especially if you are going to record more than a few minutes of footage. I have about 400GB storage free on this phone and you can see that at 8K APV 30fps it’s saying I can record about 5 minutes of footage. That doesn’t mean 5 minutes of 8K APV is 400GB, it just means that’s how much internal space Samsung is giving me.

A 5 second clip comes out at around 2GB.

5 seconds of 4K APV comes out at about 500MB.

So yes, you’re better off with an external SDD and if you want to record 8K APV you will need an SSD with minimum read/write speed of 400 MB/s.

Samsung says support for up to 4.5 W power draw is required for recording high frame rate or 8K APV. When you plug an SSD into your phone, the phone supplies power to the drive through the USB-C port. Some cheaper or older SSDs draw more power than the port can reliably supply, which can cause the drive to disconnect or fail mid-recording.

All this means your SSD needs to operate within a 4.5W power budget, which most modern portable SSDs comfortably do.

For my shots, I used this one: the Aiffro P20, which has read and write speeds of up to 1000 MB/s. So that’s plenty fast enough. You can just plug it directly into your phone. It comes with adapters as well, so you can have it placed against the back of the phone, instead of sticking out the side.

But it’s good to have the option to record internally, if you just want a few minutes of footage and you don’t want to mess about with an SSD.

S26 Ultra External SSD Problem

While I was testing recording with the external SSD I came across a bit of an issue.

When I first connected the drive, everything worked perfectly. The Camera app detected it, switched to external recording, and I was getting nice 8K APV Log footage straight to the SSD. Happy days.

A couple of days later, the Samsung native camera app would prompt me to switch to external storage, I'd tap change, but I didn’t get the USBC indicator in the top corner, and it would just record internally, even after I told it to change to external recording.

On the other hand, the Blackmagic Camera recognised the SSD and I was able to route the app to record externally - no problem.

I tried everything. Reformatting the drive. Clearing the camera cache. Checking USB settings. Secret USB codes. Developer options. None of it worked.

Eventually I found a fix that has worked for me so far - although it’s a bit extreme. Go to Settings > Apps > Camera > Storage > Clear cache AND data.

Unfortunately, because clearing data is like a factory reset for the camera app, you lose your camera app settings. But if you’re having the same issue, this might get you back up and running.

The SSD Format Fix — Mac and Samsung Playing Nice

While I was trying to fix the issue of the SSD not being recognised, I used the Samsung S26 Ultra to re-format the SSD. That actually fixed the problem... but created another one. Now my MacBook wouldn’t recognise the SSD.

Apparently, when you reformat a drive on a Samsung phone, it uses a format that a MacBook doesn’t like.

To fix this, I had to move all the APV footage on the SSD to internal storage on the phone. Then reformat the SSD on my Mac using Disk Utility to format to exFAT with the scheme set to GUID Partition Map.

After that, the SSD is now recognised by both my Mac and Samsung S26 Ultra.

What is APV?

If you don’t know what APV is: APV stands for Advanced Professional Video. It's an open-source codec developed by Samsung, and the S26 Ultra is the first phone in the world to support it.

The idea behind APV is to give you a codec that holds up all the way through your workflow — from recording, through editing, to final export. It records visually lossless video with 4:2:2 colour, which means you're retaining significantly more colour information than standard H.265. And because it's intra-frame (each frame is encoded independently) it doesn't fall apart when you re-encode or grade the footage.

To my eyes, the footage you get is very nice and clean. Perfect for colour work, allowing you to add your own taste and style to the footage.

When you edit APV footage you will need compatible software. Here, I’m using DaVinci Resolve which is obviously the best for colour grading, but there is a steep learning curve. LumaFusion also supports APV. Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere Pro do not yet support this codec.

As well, when I open a folder containing an APV file on my MacBook, there’s no thumbnail, and you can’t play the file in QuickTime, for example.

How to Shoot 120fps 4K APV

In the regular video app the Samsung S26 Ultra restricts you to shooting 4K APV Log at 60fps and 8K at 30fps.

But you can actually shoot 4K APV Log at 120fps. To do that you need to go into Pro Video mode and now the option is available.

APV and Colour Space

When you enable APV in the video settings, you'll notice your colour space options change. If you tap on the APV toggle, this opens up your colour space options.

Here, you can choose between HDR or Log, and APV 422HQ or LQ. HQ = High quality, LQ = Low Quality and that essentially means higher or lower bitrate, and higher or lower files sizes. If you want the best quality choose HQ. The HQ setting takes up about double the space compared to the LQ setting.

Like I say, you can’t shoot Rec.709 in APV codec. This makes sense when you think about what APV is for. It's a professional, visually lossless codec designed for post-production workflows. Rec.709 is a delivery format which means it's the finished product. APV is essentially for greater flexibility when grading. 

For most filmmaking work, Log is the one you want. It gives you the flattest image, the most dynamic range, and the most flexibility in post. Pair it with APV HQ and you've got the best quality footage the S26 Ultra can produce.

HDR with APV makes sense if you're delivering specifically for HDR screens and want the phone to handle the tone mapping for you.

If you just want to shoot standard video without thinking about grading, switch back to HEVC and use Rec.709.

Convert APV to HEVC

If you’ve shot a clip in APV but you decide you want the smaller HEVC you can convert the clip within the device.

Open the Gallery app and find your APV clip. Tap the three dots and you'll see an option that says Convert from APV to HEVC. Tap that and it creates a new HEVC version of the clip. Your original APV file stays untouched.

Of course, there will be quality reduction in the compression process. As well, if you shot the clip in Log, the file will remain in Log after conversion.

Convert HDR to SDR

If you have an HDR clip and you want to convert it to a regular SDR clip, open the clip, tap those three dots, and select Convert HDR to SDR. The phone then creates a new Rec.709 file and leaves your original HDR clip untouched. Rec.709 is basically supported by all platforms and screens, so you’re safe.

LUTs

When you shoot in Samsung Log, the footage looks flat. Using this flat footage captures as much dynamic range as possible, but it can make it hard to judge exposure and colour while you're actually filming.

That's what the LUT preview is for. It overlays a colour correction on your screen in real time, so you get a better idea of what the finished image will look like. Importantly, it's only a preview so the file that gets recorded is still your original flat Log footage. The LUT is not baked in.

Back in the main camera UI, once you have selected APV and Log, you now get a LUT button. Tap that to open up LUT options.

Standard maps the footage to Rec.709, so the colours look standard. This is the most useful option for checking that your exposure is correct while shooting.

Then there are four Cinematic LUT styles:

Blockbuster gives you the orange and teal look you'll recognise from Hollywood films. High contrast, cinematic feel.

Coming-of-age is softer — calm pastel tones and low contrast. The kind of look you see in K-pop videos or indie coming-of-age films.

Romance is warm and soft. Good for emotional scenes or anything with a reflective mood.

Thriller does the opposite — it pulls the saturation down and pushes contrast up for a dark, gritty look.

Pick whichever one gives you a rough sense of the grade you're going for. Then in post, you start from the clean Log footage and build your grade from there.

Samsung Log

These are some clips I shot in Samsung Log in the APV format, imported into DaVinci Resolve.

You can also download Samsung’s official conversion LUTs from their website. You will need to create a developer account to access them, but it’s just a few clicks and takes about 2 minutes.

You will find the Samsung Log to Linear LUT, a Log to Rec.709 LUT, as well as 4 cinematic LUTs which add a style to your video. There’s Blockbuster, Coming of Age, Romance and Thriller. They come in a zip folder and you will find there are 12 LUTs, that’s because there are 3 versions of each style. For example, Blockbuster neutral, strong 1 and strong 2.

So once we've imported these LUTs into DaVinci Resolve we can now apply them, and maybe add a few tweaks to adjust to our taste. Once you’ve added a creative LUT like this, you don’t want to adjust the colour too much. If you want complete control, then just work from the basic file without using LUTs.

Horizon Lock

Horizon Lock is a new feature on the S26 Ultra which keeps the horizon level while recording video, even if you turn your camera the full 360 degrees. This is a feature that you will often find on action cameras.

To enable it, make sure you're in Video mode. At the side of the screen you'll see the stabilisation icon — it looks like a small figure running. Tap that, and you'll get a list of stabilisation options. We’ve got the old SuperSteady mode and now the new Horizon Lock.

Select Horizon lock and now you will see that as you rotate the phone, it keeps the horizon level. But for it to work fully, you need to actually be recording video.

Tap record and now, as you rotate the phone, the horizon line stays fixed. When you watch this video back, you will see the horizon remains perfectly level.

This isn’t just for small tilts. As I say, you can rotate the phone a full 360 degrees and the horizon stays locked throughout. For regular handheld video, we probably don’t need that full 360, but if you wanted to use your phone recording action sports then you might use that.

You might find this useful for handheld walking shots — anything where keeping a level horizon is important but you don't want to carry a gimbal. It won't replace a physical gimbal for everything. If you need smooth movement in all directions, you still want a gimbal.

On the downside, the frame needs to crop into the sensor, so you're not getting the full field of view. And the max resolution is 2560 x 1440, otherwise known as QHD.

Blackmagic Camera on the Samsung S26 Ultra

So I had a look at the Blackmagic Camera app on the S26 Ultra. The first thing I noticed was that there’s a new shutter and ISO priority feature. This means you can lock ISO and have shutter on auto, or vice versa - shutter locked and ISO on auto.

To access it, just tap the exposure button and now you can see you have the old EV slider as before, and next to that you can choose between 3 settings: Shutter and ISO auto, Shutter auto or ISO auto.

By the way, you can also do this in the native Pro Video Mode on your Samsung. You can simply set ISO or shutter to auto, while switching the other to manual.

The new APV codec is supported, as well as the Samsung Log. And neither of those are available in the S24 Ultra version - even though Log is available using Samsung’s Pro Mode on the S24 Ultra.

Another thing I noticed was that I was unable to export LUTs from the Blackmagic app on either of my Samsung devices, as you can with an iPhone. If you go into the LUT manager, then scroll down and click export, there’s no option to save internally. I tried sharing to Google Drive but nothing happened. I tried sharing via email, but it didn't work. 

In fact, I spent a couple of hours trying to work out if it was possible to export the Blackmagic LUTs and had no luck. Which is a shame because it would be nice to have some extra free Samsung Log LUTs. It means that you can only use these LUTs for preview or to bake them in when shooting - you can’t add them later, as you can if you shot with an iPhone.