Asus ZenFone 5Z Camera Review: Flagship-class or Casual?

Asus ZenFone 5Z (₹29,999), it’s a great smartphone on paper as it brings top-notch hardware features despite costing less than half the price of a regular flagship device. In fact, this is the first time a smartphone has been able to beat OnePlus’ offering in the affordable flagship market. However, we know that affordable flagship devices can match a flagship device in terms of performance, but these falter when it comes to camera quality. That’s why we wanted to see if the Asus ZenFone 5Z followed the norm or challenged them to match the best of the best smartphones on the market. Well, if you want to know that too, follow us as we bring you the Asus ZenFone 5Z camera review to see what its optics are made of:

• Asus ZenFone 5Z Camera Review: Features

Just like most other modern flagship devices, Asus also brings a dual camera sensor on the back. speech features, The primary camera on the back brings a 12MP f/1.8 sensor along with an 8MP f/2.0 sensor. However, unlike the others, the secondary sensor on this phone is a wide-angle lens, not a telephoto one that personally makes me happy. Also, if you prefer a telephoto lens, this phone may not be for you. Coming to the front, the phone brings an 8MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture which should easily handle all your selfie needs. Now that we know the features, let’s see how they perform in real life situations:

• Performance in Good Lighting Conditions

I’m happy to report that the cameras perform really well in good lighting conditions. So, just look at the photos below. They all look beautiful, don’t they? There’s ample exposure, good dynamic range, and photos have good detail. Even the color reproduction is spot on in most cases. So, there are times when AI detection kicks in and oversaturates photos, but depending on your preference that might not be such a bad thing. In short, apart from the AI ​​fiasco, I was quite satisfied with the phone’s performance in good lighting conditions.

Now let’s talk about the 8 MP wide-angle lens on the back. As I mentioned above, I usually prefers wide-angle lens over telephoto lens because they let me take great pictures. However, while doing this, the photo quality itself is not that good as there is a lot of noise in the photos. I mean, just see for yourself.

• Performance in Low Light Conditions

Now, let’s take a look at some low-light photos to see how the camera performs in low-light conditions. By looking at the images below, you can see that this is where the problems started for the ZenFone 5Z. I mean, camera catches a lot of light but focus is never right. It’s as if the sensor is trying so hard to brighten the images that it forgets what it was asked to capture in the first place.

Excessive brightness also caused background lights to be overexposed. The phone basically can’t distinguish between different parts of the shots and brightens everything up, which feels like applying a filter. Sure, some photos turned out well but it’s more like an accidental target. Overall, camera performance in low-light conditions is just disappointing.

• Portrait Shooting Performance

Portrait shooting performance repeats what we’ve seen so far. This means that in daylight or good lighting conditions, the shots came out fine. The footage isn’t anything exceptional, but it’s also not that bad. So, they’re not bad for your social media sharing needs, but you won’t be getting them inside Photoshop for extensive retouching.

However, performance drops exponentially when ambient lighting conditions are not that good. Every low light issue we discussed in normal mode is amplified here. Because the phone forgot where to focus in low light, edge detection is totally broken and background blur is really unnatural. Before I say you can adjust the blur, I would say we tried this and the problem persists. As a result, portrait shots don’t work in low light.

• Video Recording Performance

At the front of the video ZenFone 5Z comes with EIS plus OIS with the ability to shoot video up to 4K@60FPS. While the video quality was good enough, the camera showed some issues with focusing. Videos are very stable at 1080p, but focusing issues persist. So, all pretty average. You may be noticing a pattern here. The main problem the cameras have is with the focal point. I hope this issue has nothing to do with the sensors used in the phone.

• Selfie Camera Performance

I was hoping the selfie camera on this phone would be better than its main camera, but unfortunately that’s not the case. The rear camera’s issues persist on the front as well, meaning daytime selfies are pretty good. However, when you switch to low light and portrait shots, the phone starts to deteriorate again. The main problem with the selfie camera was not the focusing problem, but the general lack of detail.. The details just aren’t there, and the selfies also showed more noise than usual. If you’re a selfie lover, you’ll either have to take them in good light or look for other phones.

SEE ALSO: Asus ZenFone 5Z FAQ: Everything You Need To Know

Asus ZenFone 5Z Camera Review: Disappointing in the Hands

I truly supported Asus to achieve something that no smartphone has ever done. Unfortunately, the Asus ZenFone 5Z completely disappointed us instead of breaking the trend. In fact, when I compared the OnePlus 6’s camera performance, I found the OnePlus 6 to be a superior camera phone than the ZenFone 5Z. Overall, the ZenFone 5Z has pretty average cameras and it certainly doesn’t struggle too much against the OnePlus 6. With the exception of daytime photos, the ZenFone 5Z’s cameras failed to impress us. If camera quality is important to you, this is not the phone I can recommend. I hope Asus can fix these issues with a software update, as if the company fails to do so it will lose some of its potential customers.