TOBY SHAPSHAK: Samsung: back without a bang
Impressive cameras define the latest crop of top-end smartphones
If you haven’t heard the word "bokeh" before, you’ll certainly hear it a lot this year. It’s the Japanese word for that artistic blur in photographs where the subject is in focus and the background isn’t. Until recently, you needed a fast lens with a wide aperture to achieve the shallow depth of field that creates the background blur. But few of us carry digital SLR cameras any more, or have the requisite lenses. However, we all have smartphones — and the camera is once again the stand-out feature in this year’s crop of top-end handsets. This week, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Samsung launched its Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus, with a particular focus on their impressive cameras. The S9 (with a 5.8-inch screen) has a camera that can adjust its aperture to f/1.5, for low light, or f/2.4, for bright conditions. The S9 Plus (6.2-inch screen) has two cameras on the back; the secondary lens is a telephoto or zoom lens. The difference in focal lengths between the lenses allows the p...
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