Sony Xperia 5 II Camera-Review - I expected more... By Damir Franc

Okay, so let's do this whole thing all over again, but in English, and since I have made a video like this in English for quite a while anymore, I have to explain a few things. First, I will pack photos and videos into one thing: you can use the time codes for comparison?s sake, I'm using the OnePlus 7 pro just because that's the next best thing that I have, and this way you can see well how much has happened in about two years or roughly about that, and I actually have to tell you that I expected there to be a bigger difference, especially since this is a brand-new photo that got quite a lot of hype, and therefore I will have to zoom in a lot, and that is just because to show you these smaller little differences, which you otherwise wouldn't be able to tell. I would say the first thing that I want to show, which is something that I actually didn't do in the last time, is the camera apps, because we have to talk a little about them. First, you have here the different modes. So you have the wide angle: you have the zoom and the normal one, but for example, in video once the video is running, you can't switch this anymore. You have to do it beforehand.

This is a minor inconvenience, just as, for example, getting to the portrait mode. If you want to make a selfie and now make a portrait, you have to go to modes and then portrait selfie, and it actually feels like it's launching a different camera app which is odd to see, and you don't really have a quick access where most of them just list them. Here you have the last app which you can use to get to that and get back, but there are a few things that are a little less convenient, especially if you're going to the settings now you only have the options for the photos. You have to go into the camera mode for video to see those options which is a little odd, and then we don't have 4k 60, even though the camera supports it. This is only available in the cinema pro app here we are limited to 4k 30.

We have stabilization, and we have all those typical other settings which we don't have to go into for photos. We have, of course, the portrait mode or the kind of both mode and all this kind of other options which we don't have to go into, but I want to go into the pro apps. Furthermore, we have the photopro app and this actually resembles the Sony cameras quite a lot with the different options here with different modes where you can switch between order. You can just use auto and if you use auto by the way, then the results are pretty much exactly the same as we have with the normal camera app. But here you can switch between autofocus and where it kind of focuses on, and you have a lot more options.

But this takes quite a lot of time and yeah. You have to be a manual fan to get this same as, for example, with the cinema pro app. You have the options to here, use now 60 or 120. If you want to have a slow motion, you can change the resolution from 4k to 2.7 k, but you also have to change. Quite often the per the project here, for example, we have the presets for different colors.

Here we can switch, and here now you have to create a new project, so you can actually switch those difference, those different modes. You can't use it because you have the three cameras, but now, since I'm using 60 frames, I can't switch it. Then you have the option to use the ISO. You can use it auto, but this only sets it once it's not like permanently same also for the shutter. So this is actually one thing that I have a little of an issue with, because if you start recording now you can't do anything but change the focus.

You can set an point if you want to go from one point smoothly to the other one, but you can change the eyes or anything else. So this is really for people that come along with patience. So it's maybe not super kind of easy to get a few things around. But let's actually look at the results and let me show you something: okay, the OnePlus 7 pro is on the left. The Sony on the right- and this is actually what I'm already talking about for such a long time, if you look at them fully zoomed out at both, they look nice, and you don't really see a difference.

You see a little something a little different in terms of colors, maybe in brightness and so on. Exposure, but just in terms of sheer quality we have to zoom in and even then the difference isn't as big as I thought, because if we look at this yes, we have definitely generally that's the thing on the OnePlus 7 pro a little more saturation, a little more contrast, but what we also get, which is not quite as visible here when something is very far apart, and it gets like, like an oil painting, look which looks a little odd, and it definitely tends to over sharpen which the Sony doesn't. So it generally looks also a little softer, but the details are usually there, but in this picture I have a hard time telling, which one would be better. Colors are a little different, like I said, but general quality is pretty much the same. Also, the next picture just look at it, not really a difference.

Tiles look pretty much the same, as I said a little too bland the one, the Sony. This is, for example, also a thing if I would use, for example, Instagram I could use the OnePlus 7 pro pictures, but usually I even use a filter. There add some saturation or maybe something else, but on the Sony you pretty much have to do it because those pictures just aren't appealing. If you want accurate ones absolutely, then you can go for it because generally they tend to be a little more realistic here, major difference, the Sony is much sharper, but I also think I didn't get it quite right. Maybe I was moving a little with the OnePlus, because otherwise it should be closer because you can see how close they are.

All the time usually throughout here obviously contrast more on the OnePlus a little more sharpness, but you don't really get much more. Maybe you lose some details here, because it tries to put a little too much emphasis on the contrast. But if you look at the far back side, the tiles are the same. The windows, the font here from the wide angle. They are pretty much identical besides, obviously the coloration.

This is the normal picture, sharpness. Also, here pretty much the same. You can see that the OnePlus does some odd little things here. Some textures a little missing here. The oil painting look again but generally from this distance, yeah marginal, if not even useless- to talk about this also normal view, yeah, not much else to say, let's check, dynamic range, let's go into clouds where I'm there, but what you can see a little of some artifacts going on the OnePlus, which is something that I don't usually see there.

You can see a little more details here on the roof compared to the plus. If you look at the back here, one plus this time looks a little softer, but here, for example, there is a difference here. There are a few details missing. I would say- and it's a little too kind of grayed out where you can still see things on the OnePlus- the next picture- normal picture. Nothing really else to tell so.

I'm actually going to skip a few, because it's pretty much throughout the whole thing visible, what's happening more saturation, more contrast, a little over sharpening on the OnePlus a little more realistic, but also a little sometimes pictures that lack not really sharpness, but definitely contrast a little saturation, but you have a little more uh lean way to actually maybe fix that in post, especially if you maybe use raw or something okay. The next thing that I wanted to show is this: if you look at this, it looks like it over exposed or clipped here quite a lot, but in reality due to harsh sunlight, it actually did, but what most people would actually want to, I guess would be to see those details and the OnePlus definitely did it better on it. If you want it as it actually looked like you, you take the Sony, but if you want to get those highlights back on the Sony, I think it's possible because they are just yeah gone. Unless you maybe used raw, and then it depends on the rest, what you mean, but if we go closer, this is definitely where the Sony has a little of an upper hand, because here, for example, we zoom in you definitely see more sharpness on the Sony. You see more details, you see more structure, and you actually see more both already earlier in the background.

So that is definitely quite nice to see here, for example, also wait. This one shows it pretty obvious of how much more sharpness, how much more detailed without actually over sharpening the Sony achieved with even a little more both. So that's where it definitely shows yeah a little of an improvement over yeah almost two years, normal picture just so because you have a reference if we check the sharpness here, both very, very similar, a little better in terms of the fonts here, but a little more structure, which looks a little fake. The old painting effect once again on the OnePlus, and if we take a look at the three times zoom I mean everyone. I guess in this term would say the OnePlus did a better job, because this looks very smooth.

If you look at the textures, we have a little more actually contrast and saturation texture here on the Sony, but generally not a huge difference after all- and I didn't actually see that pitch in here yeah now, let's take a look at low light, the Sony actually doesn't have a low light mode dedicated one, but what it can do in the gallery improve those pictures, and I'm going to show you how that looks like. But these are both in normal mode, yeah a little a more little bit better here or sharpness in terms of also details on the Sony in terms of the stones pretty much the same, but here's the thing, the OnePlus. If you look at this picture and then the low-light picture here now gets definitely more structure in the leaves, and also definitely in the stones where the Sony due to just being able to use it in post with the gallery. App just does this, so it just brightens up the picture, but it doesn't change the details. It doesn't change the sharp sharpness which the OnePlus does, and if you compare these, you can definitely see an improvement on the OnePlus, even though it looks a little fake.

If you look a little closer. The next thing here also look at these two pictures pretty similar. If you use them normally, if you go a little closer you'll see a few little more details on the Sony and if you took it, take a look at the night mode. Yeah, Sony overdid it with the post-processing with the sharp, because I mean it didn't go sharper, I mean just brighter, but both look a little unrealistic. I actually like what they are doing, but normally because look at this Sony super dark, but this is how it actually looked like I didn't see anything here.

The OnePlus gets a little more details back in here and actually has better structure on the road which is nice to see. If you go closer, it actually looks even better, but if you use, for example, now the low light mode on the one plus the whole sky gets purple, there was no hint of purple. I don't know why the OnePlus does that and tries to achieve details in the background that just simply were invisible with the naked eye, and I don't have to see those and then look at the street. It completely loses structure where, if you just use this, this is actually a usable photo on the Sony because it just brightens it up. It makes it a little more pleasing.

Okay, let's take a look at a few. Other pictures here are selfies. It's a typical selfie shooter. Don't expect anything particularly amazing. Here, sharpness is fine.

Colors, look fine, also a little bland a little flat, but yeah, nothing we haven't seen like in two years, then we have the both mode for the main camera, which works a little odd, because look at this picture colors are completely off from the original photo, and it didn't even make a great job in terms of cutouts, so it didn't really get it everywhere. Right and in my opinion, this is not usable use the normal one. It's way nicer, then another picture pretty nice I mean generally, it is a pretty nice shoot, especially if you want to maybe use the manual mode where you have more flexibility. If you want to use it, but I always say if you use already an UI that looks like on a camera, and you take longer to take a picture, then just take a camera with you. Okay, these are a few more selfies wide angle, nice, and this is an issue that I noticed if you go all very close to an object.

Even though the autofocus actually seized because there was a bug, and it sees the object, and it wanted to focus on it- just couldn't focus on it, and I tried to tap on the display it just simply didn't, and I have like 20 of those pictures. This is another leaf there. It worked out yeah, and this is the portrait mode on the front. Forget it. The cutout is very bad, pretty much unusable in my opinion, but now I would say, let's take a look at a few videos.

This is 4k 30 and what actually happened during this video or after this video I made this in 4k30 changed. Something I mean, I'm not quite sure what exactly maybe just the most, but definitely not the resolution of the frame rate and what it did it switched to 1080p 30. So I'm not sure, and if it didn't warn me or anything at all- and I actually made a quite a couple of videos until I've noticed the issue yeah. But that's that, let's take a look at the next one, this 1080p 30. I actually expected it to be 4k 40, but here actually I have to say that the stabilization looks a little smoother just look at the whopping from the foot when I, when I put it on the ground, it looks a little smoother, but the quality definitely doesn't.

Look amazing, not a lot of detail. It's not really sharp. So if you're going to 4k 30 now it already got a little more detail than on, but now you can see when I'm going to walk it feels a little abrupt. It feels a little hard. The whole moving should be smoother and other cameras.

Do this better, especially also the main quality? It's nothing particularly amazing. It's not super sharp. Furthermore, it's not really stable. Like I said it's really all the detail, so this is a pretty typical camera, but we have seen this kind of quality already for a long time. This is now wide angle.

I'm not a fan of that stabilization. It doesn't look like a gimbals at all, and I know Sony can do this because they did it already in the past normal one again. Yeah, I'm not sure this. With the focus I mean you can't use the zoom to zoom the three times. It's way too wobbly and here's another picture, I mean we had good weather.

I think, with this kind of weather, the video should have looked even better but yeah. It is what it is and then the front camera all right already once again, a little, it's overexposed a little flat contrast is missing. Otherwise, colors look fine, but also the general issue, 1080p 30 and like a lot of other phones, the crop is just way too heavy to be actually to use this, like, for example, for maybe something like vlogging or so on, but yeah. That is that let me go back and tell you a few things that I've noticed throughout the whole review. If you go very close, like I said, the autofocus doesn't quite sometimes get it, and you have no chance autofocus, no matter what doesn't work out in these, then the portrait mode.

You can't really access it quite as conveniently and forget that, just because of the color, it's pretty bad anyway, so yeah front camera that that's nothing special three times. Zoom is good, but nothing more than life. Unless you have seen sometimes the one plus was actually better. Sometimes the Sony was better so neck to neck, and this with almost two euro phones, a little sad to see pictures get generally a little flat, a little less contrast, but they also tend to overexpose things that if you use the manual mode- and I know a lot of people will mention this- you can get it right, but it takes time and not everyone wants to do that. At least I don't, and if you actually take pictures generally, I've noticed that it takes its time.

So the software is like on all those previous Sony phones still pretty slow in terms of post pressing. Once you want to take that picture, it just needs a little longer other than that for video, like I said it switched from 4k to 180 without a good reason. I didn't see it then. The standard app does only use 4k further, where you can access 4k60 in the pro app, which has stabilization, but it actually looks worse than on the normal ones, which is also a little odd to see, then the video stabilization itself, like I said, a little jerky, it doesn't feel smooth. It doesn't feel natural, especially if you hit the ground with your floor and the video quality on its own.

By these days, then that is nothing particularly special. The pro apps are nice, especially if you know what to do with them. If you take the time, but I mean being fixed with one aperture and one ISO, once you hit the record button and then have slightly differentiating situations, video gets useless because I tried it. I set it all up, did it and once I moved the sun was completely different, then those had to be changeable. In my opinion, and then you can only change the manual focus and manually.

You can achieve quite a lot. If you want to then, like I said once you record the video, you can't change the camera angle anymore, front, video, 1080p, 30, and it's also too close, and though one thing, the the microphone was very good okay. So, let's summarize this whole thing once again: low light pictures pretty good, but nothing out of the ordinary, especially since you don't have a dedicated, um low light mode that can improve the photos, actually really better. If you just use a normal photo at night and do it with another camera, it looks a little better, but those have the low light mode and can achieve something after all better. So this is a lot of thing normal.

If you use the wide angle typical, wide angle, camera typical, normal camera, typical zoom camera, not really a huge jump over the OnePlus, which is something that I'm still a little surprised by, because, especially due to the hype that I saw on the review of the Sony, Xperia 1 2 from someone that said, it's such an amazing camera I mean after two years more should happen. I guess also video pretty disappointing. Nothing special at all. The stabilization isn't great. The quality itself isn't great limited in terms of frame rates and so on.

We don't have to talk about the front camera, but as a whole, it's a pretty nice camera, but it's not for people who want to shoot a lot of videos. There are definitely better video cameras there on phones and better selfie cameras. This is pretty much just for the main cameras. If it's the wide angle, if it's the zoom, but mostly for the main camera, and if you use what, if you want to take the time to use manual mode, then it's a very good camera, but also in that regard you have more options, but the end result, I guess, won't be really much better than anyone else. So I'm not sure why it got so much hype.

It's a nice camera. It's once again, not the fastest one. Furthermore, it's not the most convenient one, it's not the most impressive one for sure it is solid, and I guess that's maybe enough, but it's the end of 2020 and the one plus is one and a half years old and most people don't zoom in 500 times or five times into the picture to see those minor differences. So if I would use any photo of the OnePlus 7 pro and say it's a Sony phone besides the colors or anything like that exposure, you wouldn't be able to tell if you would just look at the details and the sharpness and so on, but yeah not want to get too much into that. It is a nice camera.

It's a nice camera! That's pretty much it! Okay! Let's finish this here and yeah until next time. Bye.

Source : Damir Franc