Recently we posted that we wanted Digital Camera World readers to review the Sony Xperia Z5’s camera. We were given three of Sony’s brand new Xperia Z5 phones and hoped to find some tech-savvy readers to test the camera on Sony’s new smartphone over the course of three weeks.
Ray Liu, Liz Haydon-Turner and Martin Snelling stepped up to the challenge, and for the second week of their assignment we asked them to use the Xperia Z5 to shoot cityscapes. Here’s how they got on…
Martin Snelling
I love Brighton; during the summer it’s a vibrant, exciting and fun city filled to capacity with a colourful collection of inhabitants and visitors. Outside of ‘high season’, with the fine weather and the tourists gone, it takes on a different form; one still worthy of exploration, albeit for different reasons.
With the camera phone fully charged, a few hours of solid photography with some video recording using the excellent time-lapse mode would give a good indication of the Z5’s battery life.
In under three hours, the battery had drained to around 30% – not ideal given the internal battery can’t be removed/replaced the user – so there’s no chance of carrying a spare. However, I did have the USB charger with me so all wasn’t lost in the event of total battery drain.
If I was to use the phone for more lengthy stints at photography in the future, I’d pack my external USB battery pack.
It was raining in Brighton; we’re not talking monsoon rain coming down so hard it makes your head bleed, but there was a lot of it and it was wet, very wet. As it turns out, this provided a great opportunity to test the phone’s waterproof capabilities.
My first-generation Xperia Z1 has all of its ports covered by little flaps, making it incredibly resistant to water working its way inside. The Z5 however, doesn’t; with both the USB and headphone ports being exposed to the elements. This isn’t too much of a problem in a light shower or if something gets spilled on it.
While I wasn’t constantly using the phone for the three hours I was in Brighton, I did use the Z5 a lot. It didn’t get drenched, and I kept wiping the water off – but it did get wet. At some point, a drop of water had worked its way into the headphone socket as the phone went crazy, with pop-up notifications telling me I’d put my headphones in and that the Z5 was going to play some music.
After turning off the action for auto playing when headphones are inserted and switching the phone off for a bit, the problem went away.
Another thing worth mentioning with regards to water is that if you are using the fingerprint recognition feature, it won’t work if either your digit or the power button are wet.
So, with a few hours to capture Brighton in all its colourful glory, I set out to wander the streets and back lanes looking for photo opportunities.
Free as a bird and turning left instead of right led me down what I can only describe as ‘Graffiti Lane’. This backstreet of high walled gardens and business premises was wall-to-wall street art. Phone in hand, I captured some of my favourites.
All of the photos taken in ‘Graffiti Lane’ are untouched and unedited – these are straight out of the phone. As you can see, the Z5 captured the colours and details perfectly; the colours are strong and vibrant, despite it being a very dull, overcast and wet day. And when viewed on the Z5’s Full HD screen, they are outstanding.
Moving away from the backstreets, I headed towards the first of Brighton’s two world-famous piers to capture some of the life that inhabited it on a wet and windy Wednesday afternoon.
Sadly, as most of the rides had been closed for the season, the only people on the pier were a few crazy locals running towards the nearest shelter and workmen moving dodgems with little cranes.
By this time, both myself and the Xperia Z5 were well and truly soaked. While I could wipe off the rain from the Z5, it wasn’t possible to do the same for my now considerably heavier clothing. So I made one last stop further up along the beach with a quick visit to Brighton’s West Pier; now just a skeleton of twisted and rusted metal.
With the weather clearly conspiring against me, I set about capturing the power of mother nature against what is now the shell of the famous manmade landmark.
I wanted to create the impression that the pier was being claimed by the ocean waves. With the phone set to ‘Superior Auto’ I captured a few images of the waves breaking and then selected the image with them at their fiercest. When I was back home, I applied some post-processing to the image, to make the waves really powerful and dark.
Aside from the small blip with a drop of water getting inside the headphone socket, the Z5 handled itself well against the great British weather.
Ray Liu
Working in the City of London, the second challenge of cityscapes would fit right into my daily work life. Just in case you are wondering, I am not a banker or trader.
Last week, I mentioned that the Xperia Z5’s camera was particularly suited towards landscape photography. Having taken the previous incarnation, the Xperia Z3 to Copenhagen and Iceland, achieving some great landscape shots, I already had an inkling of the Z5’s new 23MP camera capabilities for documenting cityscapes, especially given its wide 16:9 aspect ratio.
London now more than ever, is a changing place; blink and you will miss what was before and what has been newly built.
This is no more evident than the Barbican complex in the heart of the City, a place that looks like it was the futuristic set in a sci fi film from the 60s/70s, with its stark industrial looks, made of concrete, surrounded by what is now the future we all know of, big glass skyscrapers.
The details in both the new and the old gives the Z5’s camera plenty to capture, and I mostly captured the beauty of London using the Superior Auto mode.
In good light, you can use the 20MP mode to capture more detail (the 23MP mode would only capture in 4:3 ratio, so not as ideal for landscapes) but if you use it in 8MP mode, you can make use of the oversampling that the camera provides for even greater detail. Setting the Grid Lines on provided a guide to capture perfectly lined perspective shots.
I am not a huge fan of digital zoom, but with the camera in 8MP mode along with oversampling, the camera does yield somewhat usable results. The volume rocker does come into its own being near the shutter button, doubling up as the zoom control.
Not content with just taking photos of architecture and the city in good light, I put the Z5’s low light capabilities to test on the Heron Tower. First, I used the Night scene mode in Superior Auto mode, which, being hand held, gave me blurry, shaky results. However, switching over to Twilight (Handheld) mode provided a more stable shot; not perfect but much better.
Just like with any other camera, to really get a good night time shot would require some manual settings and a tripod, which unfortunately I was unable to test out.
However the settings are there to be overridden, and the white balance, EV compensation, ISO and the timer mode would come in handy for really still shots.
The Z5 really lends itself to great landscapes, whether it be in the Superior Auto mode or taking your time to compose the perfect shot using its manual settings.
Liz Haydon-Turner
This week’s cityscape assignment was cityscapes. To my mind that conjours images of skyscrapers lit in contrast to the night sky or perfect reflections of steel and glass edifices at the water’s edge.
I don’t live in a city with skyscrapers or even a clearly defined ‘downtown’ area, I’m in Bristol. It’s more about graffiti, urban greenery and reclaimed spaces.
It was a week of mixed weather, the changing of the seasons was apparent with a couple of gorgeous sunny days mixed with dull overcast stretches and a fair bit of rain. This gave me ample opportunity to try the camera in a range of conditions.
I experimented with the 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios, the latter being more useful for the wider angle shots the brief called for.
I had a go at night shots and trying to capture reflections. I found the camera natural and intuitive to use in landscape mode. The well placed buttons for zoom and capture make the form factor of the phone a joy to use.
My one gripe is that it is a little slippy, but it does look gorgeous and my wish for a grippier back could be fixed with a case or bumper.
I was, once again, really happy with the extent of the detail the camera managed to pick up. The dusk and night shots seem sharp and clear and certainly better than I would expect from camera with such a tiny sensor. The focusing and image processing in low light was noticeably faster than on my previous Z series phones.
I was able to pick up reflections on the water at dusk and there was pleasingly little light flare in the night scenes. These were all handheld shots so my expectations were low and far exceeded by the results. Apart from crops and minor exposure tweaks, the photos are as shot.
In bright sunlight the colours rendered were clear and natural. On the overcast days the camera still performed well but didn’t handle the flat white of the clouds brilliantly, but that may well be me needing to refine my technique (or at least the white balance), and to be realistic about the limitations of a smartphone camera.
I had a play with the Manual Mode. For those wanting to control all aspects of capture you can set the exposure value and white balance settings. The controls are self explanatory and easy to use ‘in camera’. I would have liked more time to play and to explore some of the Creative Modes on offer, which let you apply the chosen filter/effect before you shoot.
I did have a couple of incidents of odd behaviour from the phone. These were warnings that the camera needed to shut down due to overheating, the screen dimming inexplicably and the camera app shutting down when hitting the settings menu. Hopefully these are glitches on the test unit or things that Sony can resolve in a firmware update.
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DCW Reader Review: the Sony Xperia Z5 camera – Week 1 (Sponsored)
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