Samsung My FanCam: how to follow one person in a video on Galaxy

You film a concert, a school play or a sports match, and you only care about one person in the shot. Samsung's My FanCam is built for exactly that. It finds the people in a video, lets you tap the one you want and makes a new clip that follows them. It arrived with One UI 9, and Samsung's support page is clear about the steps and just as clear about what it cannot do. Here is both.

What is Samsung My FanCam?

My FanCam is a Galaxy AI tool inside the Gallery app. You open a video, Galaxy AI detects the people in the frame, you choose one, and it reframes the clip around that person. The result is saved as a new version in the aspect ratio you choose. It is useful for crowded scenes, for turning a wide shot into a vertical clip, and for sharing a moment of one person without cropping by hand.

Which Galaxy phones have it?

Samsung's support page says the feature exclusively started with the Galaxy Z Fold8, Z Fold8 Ultra and Z Flip8. It ties the feature to One UI 9 but does not list a minimum version as a formal requirement. It adds that names, menu paths and screens may differ by country, model and software version.

News sites and Samsung community posts talk about One UI 9 reaching more Galaxy phones, and some say My FanCam comes with it. We could not confirm that from Samsung's page, so we only quote the three foldables. The simplest test is to open a video in Gallery and look for the Galaxy AI icon.

How to use My FanCam

What do you need?

• A Samsung account. Samsung's page says you must be signed in.
• A supported phone and software. See the section above.
• A video of at least 720x720p. Smaller videos are not supported.
• A subject that can be tracked. There must be a person in the frame.

What does My FanCam not support?

Samsung lists these limits on its page.

• Videos below 720x720p.
• Applying My FanCam to a video that already has it applied.
• Videos where there is no subject to track.
• Samsung also says accuracy of the results is not guaranteed, and that availability may vary by video.

Why does it follow the wrong person?

Samsung says tracking may fail in three cases: when people wear similar clothing, when certain poses make recognition hard, and when individuals are too small in the frame. These three are the same reasons a photographer would struggle to pick one person out of a crowd, so they are easy to plan for.

How to get better results

• Start with a video where the person is large enough. A person who fills a small part of the frame is on Samsung's list of things that can fail.
• Avoid matching outfits if you can. If two people dress alike, the tracker may jump between them. For an event you cannot control, try picking the person again.
• Use the highest quality video you have. The 720x720p minimum is a floor, not a target.
• Preview before you save. Samsung has you tap play first. Check the first and last seconds, where tracking most often slips.
• Do not reuse a finished clip. Samsung says a video that already has My FanCam cannot be processed again. Keep the original and start from it.

Does Save copy keep the original?

The button is called Save copy, and Samsung's page says it produces a reframed version in your chosen aspect ratio. It does not spell out whether your original file is left unchanged. After you save, open Gallery and check that the original is still there before you delete anything.

My FanCam is missing: what to check

• Look at the video, not the camera. The Galaxy AI icon appears when you open a video in Gallery.
• Check your One UI version. Open Settings, tap About phone, then Software information, and read One UI version. See how to update an Android phone.
• Install updates. Open Settings, tap Software update, then Download and install. Updates can arrive in stages.
• Sign in to your Samsung account. Samsung's page says you need one.
• Check the video size. Anything under 720x720p is not supported.
• Accept that your phone may not have it yet. Samsung's page names only three foldables.

Another new One UI 9 feature, Samsung Call Brief, has the same story, with a short phone list on Samsung's page and a longer one in the news.

An example: wide concert clip to a vertical clip of one singer

Say you filmed a stage with five performers in landscape and you want a vertical clip of the one in the middle. Open the video in Gallery, tap the Galaxy AI icon and choose My FanCam. When the people appear, tap the plus sign on your singer, pick a vertical aspect ratio and tap Follow. Preview the result. If the tracker drifts to a performer in a similar outfit, go back and pick the person again. When you are happy, tap Save copy and share the new clip.

How is it different from cropping by hand?

A manual crop is one fixed frame for the whole clip, so a moving person leaves it. My FanCam moves the frame to follow the person, which is the whole point. The price is that the tool can lose the person, and the result is only as good as the tracking. Samsung says accuracy is not guaranteed.

What we could not confirm

Samsung's page leaves several practical questions open, and we would rather list them than guess.

• How long a video can be. The page states no maximum length.
• Whether your original file stays untouched after Save copy.
• Which aspect ratios are offered. The page only says to choose one.
• Whether the processing happens on the phone or in the cloud.
• Which other Galaxy phones will get the feature, and when.

If processing is slow or fails

This is general advice, not from Samsung's page. A video edit needs free storage for the new copy, so check that your phone has space. Keep the phone charged, since AI processing can use a lot of power. If a long clip fails, try a shorter one to see whether length is the problem. And if the tracker keeps picking the wrong person, trim the video in Gallery so that the person you want is clear in the first frames, then try again.

Where My FanCam helps, and where it does not

It suits a single clear subject in a busy scene: a performer on a stage, a player on a pitch, a child in a school concert filmed from the back of the room. It is a weaker choice when everyone wears a uniform, when the person is a tiny figure in a wide shot, or when people cross in front of each other. Those are the cases Samsung's own list of failures describes. It also needs a decent starting video. If the original is shaky or very dark, a reframed copy will be too.

Privacy and etiquette

My FanCam processes people's faces and bodies to follow them. Samsung's page says you need a Samsung account, but it does not describe how the processing is done in the pages we read, so we cannot say where it runs. If you film other people, such as a child on a stage or a crowd, ask before you post the clip, and check the rules of the platform you share it on.