What you need to know
- Samsung’s initiative “Coral in Focus” has been helping marine researchers restore coral reefs in in Fiji, Indonesia, and the United States.
- The company developed an exclusive camera feature called “Ocean Mode” on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, which improves images captured underwater.
- This mode reduces blue tones in pictures, providing more vivid photos of coral reefs, while incorporating other tools like optimized shutter speed and multi-frame image processing
- In collaboration with Seatrees, a non-profit, a total of 11,046 coral fragments were planted to restore 10,705 square meters of coral reef habitat.
Samsung has been working with marine researchers across three regions, helping them restore and study coral reefs for the past year, as a part of its initiative “Coral in Focus.” It partnered with Seatrees, a nonprofit organization that has been working on identifying new ways to restore coral ecosystems.
In a detailed post, the company revealed that scientists have been using Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s “Ocean Mode” instead of bulky underwater camera equipment to capture vivid pictures of coral reefs in Fiji, Indonesia, and the United States.
This camera feature, exclusively developed for the coral reef project, significantly reduces blue tones in pictures, which are prominent in underwater photography. Additionally, this feature also minimizes the blurring of images during movement, “optimized by shutter speed and multi-frame image processing.” Potentially reducing the challenges that people face when capturing images underwater.
The Ocean Mode also helps with capturing multiple shots at a pre-set time interval, instead of having the user manually press the shutter button each time they want to click an image, which could turn out to be very tedious when underwater.
This mode allows the user to pre-set the time, the number of images that need to be captured, and all they have to do is click on the shutter button once. The phone will then click a series of images that are essential for researchers when creating accurate 3D models of these reefs.
It’s important to note that this feature isn’t available on the standard Galaxy S24 Ultra devices on the market.
This has helped marine researchers produce “seventeen 3D models of coral reefs to analyze the health and growth of reefs.” And a total of 11,046 coral fragments were planted to restore 10,705 square meters of coral reef habitat, which is roughly the size of 25 basketball courts, Samsung added.
This automated photography approach not only saves time but also ensures that each shot delivers accurate images of these coral reefs, contributing to effective analysis of these tiny aquatic animals.
This project is a part of Samsung’s broader “Galaxy for the Planet” initiative that was started in 2021. Samsung has also been recycling discarded fishing nets and incorporating the material into its smartphones since the Galaxy S22 series.