Photojournalists from ST to shoot NDP with new Samsung phone

Eight photojournalists from The Straits Times will be using Samsung's brand new flagship Galaxy Note 20 Ultra phone to capture the National Day Parade (NDP) tomorrow.

This is the second year in a row of such collaboration between The Straits Times and Samsung.

Among the eight photojournalists is Mr Ong Wee Jin, 37, who has covered the parade every year for the past 11 years since he began working for the newspaper. He will be shooting exclusively with the Note 20 Ultra, while his colleagues will use a combination of the phone and their digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras.

Mr Ong said it is always a challenge for photojournalists at the parade as they can be positioned a significant distance away from their subjects, requiring frequent lens changes over the course of the event.

Unlike DSLR cameras, however, smartphones do not allow for lens switching. "But having shot last year using the Note10+ (the Note 20 Ultra's predecessor), I already know that the picture quality will be good enough to use in ST's print edition, which requires higher-quality images than online," Mr Ong said.

The Note 20 Ultra boasts a 108-megapixel (MP) wide-angle sensor among its three rear cameras, a significant upgrade on its predecessor's 12MP one, which Mr Ong said would help him capture images in more detail.

"What I think is useful too is the Note 20 Ultra's S Pen feature, which allows us to trigger the phone's camera automatically without having to touch the phone when it is mounted on a tripod," he added.

"This reduces any shaking typically experienced when we press the shutter (on the camera) during the fireworks segment at night, for example."

Samsung unveiled its latest Galaxy Note 20 phones - the Note 20 and the Note 20 Ultra - on Wednesday.