Camera

To test out the 16MP rear facing camera I ran through my standard comparison photos. I first took a shot outside in midday lighting to see how the camera looks in the best possible situations. I took a photo of our tree outside that is in desperate need of a trim. While most of the picture looks good, I felt like parts of the tree that are in direct sunlight are a little to washed out, much more so than it looked in person. Moving inside I normally try to get an action picture of our cat but as you can see the cat was being especially lazy. It did give me a chance to test out the flash on an indoor low light photo. Being mid-day I was worried that the flash would wash things out, especially after the outside photo, but the picture couldn’t have come out much better. The third and fourth photos are of a small palm sized quadcopter. I like to use this for photos because the bright LEDs can sometimes bring out color issues and the size of the device is a good way to check focus in low light as well as with lighting turned on. So what came from the photos? Well the low light photo looked a little darker than in person due to the bright LEDs. In that photo the camera struggled to get a good focus as well. The lit photo is MUCH better on focus. The lighting was again a little brighter in person than it showed in the photo, but overall the shot wasn’t too bad.

Overall the Note 5’s camera performed well but there were large issues with the photos being washed out in outdoor shots and a little darker than they should in indoor shots. Most of that should be able to be tuned out by digging into the camera settings, but don’t expect it to take perfect photos in tough situations. As always the Android camera software was easy to use and with Samsung letting you use a physical button for the camera it makes things even easier.

Outside

Obligatory lazy cat photo w/Flash

No backlighting or flash

Inside lighting on