Nubia Red Magic 5S

reviews

Photography and videos

It has become a commonplace that gaming smartphones are models that are not distinguishable when it comes to photography. Nubia Red Magic 5S is not a breakthrough in this matter, but it has nothing to be ashamed of either.

The base of the photography side of the phone is a 64-megapixel matrix, with the 1/1.72” size and 0,8 micrometre, working with an f/1.8 aperture. At the back there is an 8-megapixel wide-angle camera, with an f/2.3 aperture and a 2-megapixel eye for macro. An 8 Mpx camera with an f/2.0 aperture takes care of selfies. So we should achieve good photos, at least from the main camera.

And it is so. Photos taken with the basic matrix are all right. Colours are reflected appropriately, just like details. In a close up, along contrasted edges, we can see effects of an aggressive noises reduction, but they should not ruin our positive reception of photos. Turning on AI sometimes increases the quality of photos, and sometimes – on the contrary. We just need to test it by taking two shots. AI usually recognizes photographed objects rather fast and accurately, but it sometimes exaggerates the reality.

Though there is no telephoto lens in Red Magic 5S, the camera interface proposes three zoom levels – 3x, 5x and 10x. They are taken by framing a shot from the big matrix – and the best quality is of course realised by the 3x one.

The next one – looks like with a good, but a digital zoom. We cannot see the access to the wide-angle lens on the desktop. It is hidden in the Pro mode – which is the manual one.

This does not make much sense, but maybe because Nubia does not necessarily want to boast with this camera. Photos taken with it stand a bit from the main matrix when it comes to the quality. They are decent – but this is all.

Night time photos are not impressive. We can see a lot of noises, details representation is not as good as during the day – but, as a consolation, the colours representation is rather natural and there are not many overexposures even without using the night mode.

The mentioned mode is best to check in an urban photography, while trying to dim too bright fields and trying to extract some details from shadows. However, when it will be too dark – there is too much noise. It is best not to use the digital zoom and the wide-angle lens after dark. They are much worse.

The macro camera could have been better, but its 2-megapixel resolution is the least of its problems. The lack of autofocus is a bigger problems, it forces us to maintain an appropriate distance from a photographed object. A magnifying glass appearing in the interface might help us, but it will take some time to learn to use it.

Selfies are rather good, for an 8 Mpx camera. The skin colour is reflected naturally, the background at most times as well. The camera – which is obvious – can sometimes overexpose a too bright background, but this is a typical problem, not only in this model. In the front camera we have beautifying and background blurring modes as well – their work is decent, though not amazing. In the back camera we can find numerous other functions – like light painting, object cloning, or photographing stars. Most of them work appropriately, though in some cases we would benefit from having a manual on how to use them. Not all of them work in an “obvious” way.

Basically, the camera interface is rather clear. I will of course complain about the lack of possibility to arrange particular modes in the photography menu, that could be comfortable for us.

When it comes to video recording, Nubia Red Magic 5S comes out decently. It can even record in 8K with 30 frames per second, but videos in other resolution come out decently as well – both during the day and at night. Unfortunately, there are some problems with AF after dark. The image does not give major reasons to criticize, but the sound – does. It is weirdly distorted, especially when recording with the main camera. And this is not because of covering one of the microphones… However, it can boast with an electronic image stabilization – still, we must remember that it will result in a tighter shot – the stabilization “cuts” edges. You can find a compilation of sample videos below.

Source: GSMchoice.com

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