Samsung Galaxy ON5 Camera Review with Sample Photos

The South Korean giant, Samsung, offers one of the best camera modules on their devices, especially when it comes to their high-end smartphones. Though, in the past we have seen some of the great camera modules by brand in their mid-range as well. And it is also admirable that Samsung placed the same camera on its Galaxy A8 that they have used on many premium handsets this year. Such as Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+ and the Note 5. We have played with all those cameras and now in our hands is the latest Galaxy ON5, which was recently launched in the country. Below is our detailed camera review, read on to find how the camera sensor on new mid-ranger performs.

The device houses an 8-megapixel camera module on the rear alongside the single LED Flash. The sensor has the support of f/2.1 lens, which should be good enough and apparently it’s larger lens than what Apple offered on the iPhone 6, which has an aperture number of f/2.2. The aperture number means that camera would absorb a good amount of light if the lens is large. Theoretically, the low light captures should have a good amount of details.

Artificial Light – Gallery

The camera app on the device would be pretty familiar if you have used any Samsung device prior to this handset. Though, it is not complicated as it used to be and we are quite happy for that. Getting to know the interface is pretty simple, you have a shutter button, below that is camera switch button and further down on the left side is the mode button. You get quite a good number of modes to play with apart from Auto mode. Switch to Pro mode, if you know your way around the camera stats like exposure, white balance and ISO sensitivity. Other interesting modes on the ON5 camera setup include Continuous Shot, Panorama and Beauty face. While the Continuous shot is for when you’re capturing fast moments, the Panorama would allow you to take successive shots either in horizontal and vertical, and the Beauty face is when you need to airbrush effect in your portrait scene.

Natural Light – Gallery

The broad daylight and artificial light captures are particularly impressive; the color reproduction is good, and it can be easily stated that it’s better than most of the other 8MP smartphone cameras on the market. The camera allows zoom up to 4X, and we really liked the outputs it showed us. Of course, it was little grainy, but the job was admirable.

Now moving with the talk of the low-light capabilities of the camera, they came out to be not as impressive as we thought so. There were grains all over the images while as the details were not visible, but I would admit that the images were much brighter when compared to any other similar module. It was all thanks to the Samsung’s software optimization. Though, if you give a little bit of lighting (i.e. LED Flash) in the low light conditions, it would give enough details, which is a good thing, whereas most of the devices won’t be able to do that. But then again, only one color would rule the outputs as you can notice in our low light images captures.

Low Light – Gallery

You can’t expect a high quality content from an 8-megapixel resolution camera, but the 1080p resolution it records was pretty average. We tried recording Full HD contents indoors and outdoors as well, but what impressed us was the timelapse we took with it. By default, it doesn’t support that feature in the camera app, although, we used the framelapse app to try out. And it panned out pretty great.

Now about that 5-megapixel front facing camera Samsung has placed on the ON5. It is definitely a wide-angle lens module. We played with the selfie cam and noticed a lot of things when we compared it with other selfie cams we have in our office. The ON5 surely won when it comes to fitting as many members in one selfie. The interesting thing was that the other front camera had the 8MP resolution and the 5MP output on ON5 captured wider scene. But note that, the wide angle lens won’t do any good if you’re taking captures in low light because the sensor brings bad output when it comes to that.

Verdict

The cameras on the ON5 isn’t the best quality package you’ll be getting for Rs 8,990. Since there are tons of options in sub 10K price range that offers better camera resolutions than it, we suggest you look other way. The only thing that should convince you to get the ON5 is not the cameras, to know you have to read our detailed review of the device. If you’re looking to get camera phone in this price range, I would suggest you go with Honor 4X, Gionee F103 or either Xiaomi Redmi 2 Prime.