#Nokia 5 – Short camera test
Nokia 5 is a midrange priced smartphone that targets (Young) people which are not so tech savvy, but need a great looking and capable phone. Well, for sure Nokia 5 is great looking, and it is capable but the camera could be better. If you are like me and don’t want to carry your camera on the vacation, but capture memories with mobile phones, maybe Nokia 5 isn’t for you. Well, it can take great shots in daylight and well light spaces, but low light and night shots are a bit hard on the camera. HMD has installed a 13 MP sensor with aperture of f/2.0, which is quite well for €189 phone. I found that camera has problems with focusing, actually after it focuses, I noticed that the details are not sharp. With 13 MP sensor inside, photos should be, or could be a bit sharper. Problem with focusing gets bigger during night or low light shots, but I would try to refocus two times after the automatic one, and would get better shots. Another thing bothering me is that the focus sign doesn’t change colour (green for good or red/unchanged for bad) so you don’t know if the shot is focused or not. Also, I got to say that night shots are often underexposed and thus turn darker.
Check some photos and for the full resolution go to the Nokiamob Flickr profile!
Daylight shots gallery *Resolution of the shots has been reduced to save server space*
But, as I said, with enough light and steady hands, 13MP main camera can give you impressive results. Considering the price, I think that shots made by Nokia 5 are generally OK. You will need a steady hand, but with software updates, I believe this camera can be even better.
Macro shots
Macro shots are great, but forget those astounding close-ups since the focusing distance is not close as in more expensive phones, but is enough to take great shots of flowers and other objects. I compared the shots of Nokia 5 camera with the shots of Lumia 830 and LG G3 and you can see the difference between ZEISS lenses and unnamed ones. Check out the comparison between those 3 phones.
Night shots
Night shots are not so fine. Actually, you need a lot of focusing and steady hands to get nice photo. Photos turn often grainy, underexposed and LED gives white blueish tone to the objects. Again, this can be improved a bit with software updates. Maybe, HMD should consider and raise the exposition in the settings while taking night or low light shots. You can raise the exposition in manual mode but then sensor shows a lot of noise.
Video
Videos were shot quickly, like most of us do. I took the device out of my pocket and started shooting. I experienced some focusing problem with shooting videos. Nokia 5 camera focuses great on close shots, but it has trouble focusing on the long distance. Anyway, in well-lit rooms videos are going to be ok, but take care to have a steady hand which I unfortunately don’t have. Also, by enabling manual mode you can raise the exposition while shooting video.
Front facing shots
Front facing camera is 8MP in size and can give great shots and videos in daylight and well-lit rooms. Nigh shots can be a bit grainy but there is display flash that can help a bit, and sometimes make your face burnt. Be careful to focus the object you are shooting before you take the shot. Anyway, it is nice to have 8MP FFC for decent selfies in this price range.
At the end, I just want to say that Nokia 5 has a great camera for its price point, that can be improved with some slight adjustments to enable users to get instant sharp and focused shots. If HMD does that, Nokia 5 could be the best camera phone for its price range.
Tell us what do you think about the photo and video quality?
