yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Xperia Z5 General] TheWarKeeper:
Ok, let me tell you what i know from my OWN experience using samsung galaxy s6 and xperia z5.

Xperia Z5 photos when used proper configuration in daylight outshines galaxy s6 and any other phone without a single problem!

It has much bigger resolution than galaxy s6, much better color fidelity and way more sharp image details

The ONLY downside of Xperia Z5 in daylight compared to galaxy S6 is that it cannot capture textured details very easelly like grass for example.

But putting both side by side Xperia Z5 camera quality is vastly superior to galaxy S6 (Again when choosing the right settings manually)

At night on 8mp mode, Xperia Z5 takes some impressive photos with little tweak needed, ofc it will not be as sharp as galaxy S6 but remember that its a F2.0 vs F1.9 lens, and frankly i much prefer the Xperia Z5 wide lens to galaxy s6 lens anyday.

Galaxy S6 wins in software post processing, as noise reduction is excelent at the cost of slightly blurring the overall image, its also very good overall when it comes to color fidelity and details preservations.
[Xperia Z5 General] EQ2000:
I would say it does capture finegrain detail equal or better than the S6. It's just that for sharpening method the radius used by S6 is higher which brings out these small details at the cost of image integrity beyond a certain range. I would guestimate a radius of more than 2 for the unsharp mask while the Z5 and previous Z1+ phones keep it at around 1 which also is standard and considered fairly neutral. What higher radius does is enhance the mask contours which makes for base image contours being highlighted by a dark tone which brings out the edge contrast color aswell as sharpen. This can make for a better image but can also make for a photo that looks gritty, looses depth, artificial or a combo. An "intelligent" algorithm will fail in some situations while do it good in others and why the S6 photos are a mixed bag depeding on scene, lighting conditions and contrasts in given scene. It's interesting though and a good "cheating" method for some kind of photo comparisions.

For example the GSM arena 2D photo comparision boards are kinda worthless aswell (except the legacy photo ones excluding the black and white one) as their new comparision boards has the base in a single bright color (light gray or white) while the markings and objects are of colors and creates sharp contours against the base. This makes for fantastic detail with such kind of "intelligent" algorithm and a radius of higher than 2. But this does not translate to photos where there is depth and uncontrollable contrasts between edges aswell as texture detail with smooth transition. If you look at their new test boards the Nexus 5x crushes the S6, LG4 and Z5. As you understand such test as they have is grossly misleading.

Also the S6 tops out at ISO 1000 and LG4 at ISO 2700. The Z3-5 tops out at ISO 12800 (Z1 and Z2 at ISO 6400). I believe some of it might be interpolated but atleast up to ISO 3200 it is hardware capability (might be up to ISO 6400 now that I think about it regarding hardware capability). Why the Z1+ line can take much better low light photos in the aspect of litting the scene up compared to S6 and G4. The slightly larger aperture for S6 is nowhere near enough for compensating and the G4 can do better but still not enough.

G4 will generally produce more detailed in low light photos but also got tons of color noise which the Z1+ line eliminates with automatic post-processing. If you apply CNR to the G4 images to remove the color noise you will loose quite some detail and sharpness. Especially if using mobilephone hardware friendly algorithms and not say Topaz Labs CNR algorithms or Photoshops that can take minutes on faster hardware.

Also the S6 seems to top out at 1/4 shutter speed while the G4 allows several seconds and the Z1+ line upto 1s but seems capped at 0,8 by camera framework software.

Here are some low light samples with the ISO ranges on the Z1. Really highlights the Z1+ lines low light capabilities that puts the lineup in it's own category.

http://xdaforums.com/showpost.php?p=64071595&postcount=8
[Xperia Z5 General] TLHS:
I wouldn't use my snapshots as any sort of reference on the quality of one cameraphone vs another, as on both evenings I did have several martinis.... Gin of course. But thank you for your visit to Flickr, no doubt you could do better and kind regards.
[Xperia Z5 General] TheWarKeeper:
I believe youre right, except that Z1 series (at least Z1 Compact can only do up to 3200iso), still more than enough to snap photos in very badly lit conditions. it was my favourite sony phone at the time as its construction build was amazing in every aspect (except for the plastic back which didnt bother me much anyways).

Xperia Z5 vastly improved over its predecessors as pictures are now very sharp and less noisy than previous models, infact its the sharpest image quality ive seen so far in any phone camera and its wide less is very impressive having only blurr near the edges of the picture in 20mp 16:9, for daylight usage its unrivaled even by galaxy s6 sony sensor, the dxomark review is spot on, people who take alot of noisy pictures need to learn to work with manual settings, daylight max resolution is perfectly fine, low light, reduce to 8mp and much more control will be offered, on top of that, having a camera button is so convenient when taking pictures that its actually a big bonus over the competition.

All in all no phone in the world is perfect, but Xperia Z5 comes really close to that in the camera departament.
[Xperia Z5 General] corallus:
I had the S6 edge before my premium, and if you look back through my posts you'll probably find me telling a few people pre-release how the z5 camera was not as good, I was wrong.

I feel it could do better in lower light, where it makes the blue edges appear as it ramps up the iso, but in daylight this camera is a beast, and reproduces colour fantastically.

I still need to get used to working the Sony camera again, the S6 point and hope method has made me lazy when using the Sony ui, not playing around enough and just clicking does not end well.
[Xperia Z5 General] doministry:
Regarding the camera:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP3WXITQwOU
[Xperia Z5 General] Snaqejack:
I'm a big fan of shooting Photospheres with my phone but i just noticed that if i use Google Camera to shoot the picture, i cannot display the picture after.

Anyone succeeded with doing this with this phone and Google Camera or is there a Mode available for the stock camera that let's me do this?

Sent from my Sony Xperia Z5
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
Hi everyone

Every one is criticising the camera quality of sony z5. Plz check the image taken at night as well as randomly

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Not able to post pictures due to permission issues

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Will post few pics shortly
[Xperia Z5 General] Katsigaros:
Does anyone know if after the latest Z5 Camera 2.0.0 update can you manualy adjust the ISO at 23mp??
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
No only 8mp have manual settings...but not truly manual
[Xperia Z5 General] Katsigaros:
Thanks for the answer! I hope this will change after the Marshmallow update.
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
Yes, waiting for Android m...
[Xperia Z5 General] Fuiru:
Do you think Sony will allow RAW files to be accessed or will I just get a camera that already has this feature?
[Xperia Z5 General] TheWarKeeper:
I understand the need for RAW for phones like galaxy S6 where the post processing is very exagerated in some cases, but raw for xperia z5? its post processing is beautifully made, only removing chroma noise, why would you want to remove the chroma noise yourself? i believe no software will work as good as the sony bionz for that problem, ive tried it with xperia z1 with dissapointing results. The only way to have that at the moment is by unlocking your bootloader (no drm keys = no post processing) but unlocking bootloader for that specific purpose will render many other software you have unusuable, like the screen color mode, some walkman features, some playstation features and more, also, once the DRM keys are lost they are lost forever and no hard format can do the job, not even Sony service center has access to them.
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
Any news on Sony z5 camera software updates!!!???
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
Post image processing of z5 is bad as compared to s6, g4....
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
Some pictures of sony z5

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/136248571@N02/shares/4yof65
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
Plz the check the quality of pictures. Night mode pictures are excellent.
[Xperia Z5 General] chrisully:
It could have been a pre realise model.
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
I am using camera version 2.0.0....expecting more improvements in future..:)
[Xperia Z5 General] Oemenia:
I read through the GMS Arena comparison and it seems the Z5 got trumped in just about every test and was a distant third in most too. Now for me the expandable storage was the game-changer but is there any hope that some of these short-comings can be fixed by software updates. There really is no excuse for the battery being this bad when the capacity is so high.

Even the much lauded camera seems to get readily beaten by the S6, I really don't know what DXOMark were testing when they declared it the best.
[Xperia Z5 General] TheWarKeeper:
The camera isnt beaten by S6, i had both and took pictures with both, trust me when i say that the xperia z5 camera has a crystal clear photo while the S6 has too much post processing resulting in a slight blurr on the entire image, what i mean by blurr is that the contours are a bit less defined, even by looking at the gsmarena photos you can see that, they are 2 different types of camera, galaxy s6 camera is supposedly a great looking normal camera which evidently means more post processing, xperia z5 post processing is minimal, mostly removing the annoying chroma noise and keeping the picture intact, which results in a very sharp looking photo.

PS: also by buying a galaxy s6 you are in risk of getting the galaxy s5 camera sensor (which is of slightly inferior quality) instead of the sony imx240 sensor that is in all reviews.
[Xperia Z5 General] EQ2000:
No but it can be a bit sharp and the smart noise reduction algorithm seems as basic as the Z1 one was once launched which they improved greatly with updates. The S6 has often horrible post-processing really going overboard with sharpening, noise reduction smoothening and the worst, using a high radius with unsharp mask algorithm which makes for a 'cheap digital camera look' and lack of depth apart from having an medium en camera module from Sony (or worse the Isocell from Galaxy S5). A good way to hide flaws of a sub par camera module as average joe wont notice or understand. G4 has quite good but gains more detail by reducing color noise less aggressively as it is evident in darker areas that color noise is present on G4 and really in your face when taking night photos. Once you apply CNR you will loose detail especially if done via mobile photo editor. You could of course do it via PC/Mac to get really high quality CNR but then you are talking about minutes to process a 16MP image.
[Xperia Z5 General] BR4DOKYBrazil:
Night Scene in Automatic Mode. 23Mp.
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
Great night shot:)

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Did the camera showed tripod sign while shooting
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
Night shot from my apartment
[Xperia Z5 General] EQ2000:
I noticed something interesting on the stock Z1 camera app which might be same for all Xperia Z mobiles.

Two photos taken with back camera at 21MP in exactly the same angle but with the difference being one taken with the front cameras "Beautify" enabled and the other with it off. Now this should only affect the front camera but when on the back cameras photos are roughly 50% bigger in filesize yet I see no smoothening effect being applied..

Also interesting that the "Beautify" effect resets itself to enabled when camera app is restarted (emptied from RAM/cache).

Something to check out perhaps?
[Xperia Z5 General] dawen:
I did some night shot between 23mp and 8mp superior auto, 23mp s auto give me very bad photo with purple all around edges of the photo, and I try 8mp superior mode quality was decent no purple around the photo
[Xperia Z5 General] dfavefenix:
Ehmmm...
[Xperia Z5 General] raymondtong94:
my share of Xperia Z5 Premium shots. overall it's a good phone except that, night scene is a hit and miss.

nevertheless, still loving Sony.

https://flic.kr/s/aHskpEeW4s
[Xperia Z5 General] FYLin21:
Lots of lens blur on the side :(
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
Good shots overall...but night shots needs more colors accuracy. Hopefully sony will update it's camera software in future..
[Xperia Z5 General] jkaart:
Your camera lens have crack?
[Xperia Z5 General] dfavefenix:
Crack?
[Xperia Z5 General] pressytcn:
It looks like it maybe it's PowerLines or maybe a piece of hair on his lens
[Xperia Z5 General] dfavefenix:
Power lines LOL
[Xperia Z5 General] fbloise:
Good old Big Ben
[Xperia Z5 General] fbloise:
London Santa playing bagpipes
[Xperia Z5 General] fbloise:
Oxford street, night photo sample
[Xperia Z5 General] doministry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddCytOLWC_E
[Xperia Z5 General] Andrewtst:
Comparison of 4 flagship phone camera. Z5 simply getting the worst output. All photo edge is blur, far scenery shoot is washed out and not sharp, low light shoot is terrible.

http://www.soyacincau.com/2015/12/08/camera-shootout-the-nexus-6p-meets-the-competition/3/

My rank :

1st - Note5

2nd - Nexus 6P

3rd - iPhone 6s Plus

4th - Z5
[Xperia Z5 General] EQ2000:
Sounds like it went for high ISO and tried to correct colors to aggressively and or "smooth skin effect". IMO best settings for stock camera app is auto WB, multi-focus (works good both when dark and bright unlike single-focus which can have problems in low light, high background contrast scenario/infinity scenario), multi-segment metering or centered (point metering for macro) and ISO as you wish. Front camera all off and no "smooth skin effect" enabled as this softens the highlights way to much and seems this is auto applied when face-recognition focus is used or face-metering is enabled which makes for softer than normal photos where it detects skin tones or alike scene tones in either camera.

Even the Alphas have this and you need to turn off face-recognition. Seems a Bionz X quirk.

I also have the services "com.sonymobile.faceregistration" disabled and "Photo Analyzer Service". Although face detection is still running in front camera mode as you cant set focus method for it and it is looked in face-detection mode. However atleast I noticed that the damn "Smooth skin effect" when toggled off actually toggled off (or heavily reduced the effect) unlike before where it pretty much was on either way. I even remember Z3 ones having this by some reason applied on back camera to making for worse photos. Same low light scene in SA mode, one with people and one without people. See the difference as in SA mode you dont get to choose..

Also clear camera app data, camera common and camera framework data. Check and see how it does.
[Xperia Z5 General] dfavefenix:
Funny that some random users show their nice Xperia z5 sample pics and some random guy come to say that are best camera phones out there...
[Xperia Z5 General] joe_dude:
My gawd... why are people still arguing about this?

1) Understand the Z5 uses a 24mm wide-angle lens. Typical bad reviews treat it the same as the narrower lens on other phones, then pixel-zoom and claim the Z5 is "less detailed". Just because the photos were taken from the same spot, it does NOT mean it's the same image.

2) Use 23/20 MP for daylight pics, 8 MP for indoor and night shots.

3) Lack of OIS makes it more difficult to take night pics while hand-held without flash. Try using the manual modes or the tripod scene detection in SA.

4) The flash takes very nice, tone-neutral pics.

5) The closed-loop actuator allows the Z5 to take far better, far more stable videos than OIS. Take the Z5 out on a walk and see for yourself!

That's the Z5 camera basics I could think of... onto Marshmallow!

:D
[Xperia Z5 General] N0whereMan:
In the spirit of that comparison, i decided to make a similar optical resolution comparison myself.

I compared images taken with the Xperia Z5 and the Hubble Space Telescope. Both imaging devices have about the same pixel resolution, so this comparison is very fair. Right? Well , actually Hubble's WFC3 has about 17MP compared to Xperia Z5's 23MP, so Xperia Z5 does have a slight advantage in pixels. Let's keep that in mind.

I compared pictures taken of The Moon. Xpreria Z5's camera displayed The Moon with only few pixels, so there were no details to speak of. On the other hand, the Hubble Space Telescope is able to resolve objects about the size of 100 meters on the surface of The Moon.

So based on my comparison, my conclusion is that the Xperia Z5 must have the worst camera ever made in human history.

Was there something wrong with my comparison? Is my conclusion valid? Was my comparison fair? If you can spot the fundamental problem in my comparison, i am sure you can spot the fundamental problem in the comparison Andrew provided.

If you still don't understand what i am trying to say, just read the first point that joe_dude just made, right before this post.
[Xperia Z5 General] fbloise:
For me, coming from a Nokia Lumia 1020, got a bit disappointed at first but the Z5 camera has grown on me, it is not that bad after practice and wisely using different modes. I still prefer this one to few others, the only camera I would say beats the Z5 is the one present on LG G4/LG V10 after testings using one from a friend.
[Xperia Z5 General] TheWarKeeper:
I disagree with that silly review, first of all you cant expect excelent macro shots from such a wide lens, secondly post processing software already incorporated in the galaxy s6 and iphone 6s doesnt make their camera better, just the image output, but when such heavy post processing is applied ofc there are drawbacks.

Look here for a normal shot (non cropped) in daylight at the same time of the day (different days) of Xperia Z5 and Galaxy S6 (Iso cell version)

Xperia Z5 is way better in this picture when it comes to sharpness and image fidelity, everything looks crispy clear while on the galaxy s6 it looks like the colors are way off real life, also, the shadows are terrible in comparison.

Xperia Z5: http://postimg.org/image/g2f401cnn/

Galaxy S6 (Isocell): http://postimg.org/image/z4j72x4t3/

Tell me now that the Xperia Z5 looks soo much worse, frankly these people semms like they are trolling the device because they couldnt wait to get it and instead ended up with something else, either that or they are just terrible at taking proper photos with the xperia z1-z5 camera software.
[Xperia Z5 General] EQ2000:
Yeah it's pretty clear and it can get even better with tweaking to post-processing. To even name the Iphone 6s Plus as better.. I have the 6s Plus as job phone! The Z1 pretty much beats it to death in all regards. What 6s Plus needs 1/4, ISO 100 my Z1 achieves in 1/8 ISO 400+ and on top of that doing it better. Though I do like the desaturation filter they put for low light mode but it is a 15 second photo editor job so no biggie. The rest of the named phones from the drive by trolling are behind the Z line in most regards if not all. Next!
[Xperia Z5 General] N0whereMan:
I don't think those people are necessarily trolling.

In my experience many people have difficult time to grasp the concept of field of view. People who do not know much about photography, usually don't understand what an ultra-wide angle lens is. Z5 has the world's first (that i know of) camera with a high quality ultra-wide angle lens, that is aimed at mass markets.

Personally i am a photography enthusiast, and i especially like the angle of view that ultra-wide angle lenses provide. Z5 has the world's first high quality ultra-wide angle, that is comfortable to stow in the front pocket of jeans. That's the main reason i purchased a Z5 Premium myself. This is the first camera phone i am really excited about.

Ultra-wide angle lenses are not so good for normal everyday shooting. I really don't understand what Sony was thinking when they decided to put an ultra-wide in their flagship phones. I am personally excited and happy that Sony did this, but for most people the field of view will lead to disappointments.

Sony's camera app is also quite bad. Especially the auto mode is horrible. One really needs to use the manual mode to get good results. So it's no surprise to me that so many people are disappointed in Z5's camera. I am also disappointed in the manual mode, because it's unnecessarily difficult to use. It lacks so many basic functions.
[Xperia Z5 General] EQ2000:
When they make the same statement over and over again and proclaim how "****ty" the Z5 camera (or previous Z phones cameras where when they where out) over and over then it sure comes out as trolling or baiting. Just browse posting history.

Yeah they need a more intelligent layout aswell as allowing for more user settings. Auto mode is hit and miss but seems kinda good overall though due to not being able to force focus mode or disable certain scenery modes alt effects it detracts. The "Smooth skin effect" applied by auto mode detracts from image clarity and sharpness when detecting faces and you should be able to disable the image stabilisation in auto mode as it ramps up the ISO to maintain a fast shutter speed.

And I just cant understand why they locked the resolution setting (on the Z5) for third party aswell as metering and ISO. Yet scenery modes are available at any resolution (ProCapture, Open Camera and more)..
[Xperia Z5 General] N0whereMan:
I'm sure there are also trolls here. I'm just saying, ignoring field of view like that is very common. There are many this kind of comparisons around the internet. I don't know even one comparison where field of view would have been factored in. GSMArena and Android Authority are not trolling. The reviewers on those sites just don't have a glue about photography.

In many ways those comparisons are still important, as they do give valuable information to regular non-photography minded people. As i said, Z5 is aimed at the mass market. The camera is being used by regular people as an everyday photo snapper. Z5 just fails at that purpose, compared to the competition. I see two reasons for this: The lens is too wide and the auto mode is too inconsistent.

As a photography enthusiast, Z5 is by far the best camera phone i have ever used. I can get high quality photographs with this phone, and the best part is, it's practically always with me.

I just would never recommend Z5's camera to other non-photography minded people. There are much better alternatives for them.
[Xperia Z5 General] bplogan:
Great summary.

Outside of a few clearly bung cameras it sounds like people are going out to find fault with their cameras and not resting till they've got some pic with a blur in it.

If you need to look that hard to spot the blur, perhaps it doesn't really matter too much.
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
Uploading pictures of Nokia 1520 along with Sony z5
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
Nokia 1520 picture
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
Picture of sony z5
[Xperia Z5 General] rajkant1984:
Both zoomed, plz compare and revert back

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The only problem with Sony z5 is the post processing. What you all suggest!!!
[Xperia Z5 General] Timaustin2000:
On those two zoomed shots, the Z5 is superior. Detail is higher at the expense of sharpening halos. Colour and exposure also better.

Call me crazy but I like the Z5's digital zoom.