What’s up everyone Case you guys don’t know me, In specific the cameras I’m going to give you like the camera walkthrough or a camera review, but first I want to show you some sample images and some video clips. That way you know what this camera is capable of capturing some make sure all of the samples get through if you want the walkthrough in the review, so let’s not waste more time and dive straight into it.
Oh by the way, this was shot on the a 51 in 4k using the front facing camera so let me know what you think of the quality down below. Alright, so first things first, let’s go ahead and discuss the hardware. I guess if you own the phone then you probably already know that the consists of a 48 megapixel main camera, it’s a half inch sensor with a pixel size of Point 8 microns has an aperture of F two and it uses PDF or phase detection autofocusing just like the s 20 Ultra. The other camera is an ultra wide at 12 millimeters with an aperture f 2.2. Next up is a five megapixel macro camera with the pixel size of 1.12 microns and an aperture of F 2.4. Lastly, it has a dedicated depth camera which is used for life focus on the front we have a 32 megapixel wide camera.
Interesting for you, the sensor size is only a hair smaller than the Galaxy S 20 Ultra coming in at one over 2.8 inches. When I saw that I found it pretty interesting thinking the 20 Ultra has probably the best front facing camera on phone. The first thing I want to talk about is the interface you are in the main photo mode, you open up the camera app starting at the bottom, on the far left, we have access to our gallery.
So this is going to show you your most recent photo like a preview and then if you tap on it, it’s going to pull up your gallery. So then you can scroll through all the pictures that you’ve taken, we go back next to the gallery button is a shutter button if you’re in the regular photo mode, like so. And then right above that we have our different modes. Starting at the far left we have live focus, this is going to give you that portrait mode effect that you know the iPhone was really known for when it first came out.
And next to that we have our photo mode then we have Pro mode. Unfortunately Pro mode is not available in video only for photo, but it’s going to give you all of the controls that you’ve grown to love when it comes to Samsung’s implementation of a promo. Next to that we have video course self explanatory, this is going to be your video mode setting we are going to come back to that and we’re going to dive into what makes this unique. And then we have a more tab and this is going to be all the other modes available like panorama.
You guys know what that is then we have macro This is going to take advantage of that built in or dedicated macro camera. Then we have food going back to the macro real quick. I forgot to mention macro mode does not have autofocus. So keep that in mind, you have to you know work the camera a little bit getting close enough in order to get a focused image. Then we have food. So for all the foodies out there, there you go. Then we have night mode. This is going to give you like a long exposure.
So if you’re doing something in low lights, and the regular mode just isn’t working out for you use night mode. Also night mode is available on the front facing camera when it comes to the a 51 which is awesome. I believe this is at 960 frames per second. If not, it doesn’t look very good and I personally wouldn’t use it but I would use which is done in 240 frames per second I believe at 20 dP and it looks pretty good especially if you’re in good lighting. And we have hyperlapse. pretty self explanatory.
If you’re trying to do like a walking time lapse hyperlapse will come in clutch. And then let’s go ahead and go back to photo above the modes, we have the ability to switch to the regular wide and then the ultra wide. And then on the far right we have the scene optimizer which can be toggled on and off just by tapping on that. So if you notice that your colors are kind of funky, and maybe it’s doing something weird to skintones try to toggle off scene optimizer, and then retake the photo, you get better results.
The very top we have starting at the far right, the ability to assign different filters in camera. So when you take the photo with these filters turned on, it’s going to be baked into the image. And then next to that we have beauty mode and you can toggle it on and off. If you toggle it on, you have access to skin smoothness, you can do many tones for the skin, you can do jaw line improvements, I don’t know I don’t really use it. So I can’t tell you how good it works. And, we have eyes.
So if you wanted to make your eyes bigger, I guess for a selfie image or make your friend’s eyes bigger, you could do that right there in camera, just remember it will be baked in my personal recommendation is to use third party software that you want to do. Next to the beauty mode and filter toggle, you have your aspect ratios. So if you tap on that, you’re going to see an option for three by four and 48 megapixels, this is going to give you the full resolution of the sensor. However, if you want better results, just tap on three by four. And that’s going to take the 48 megapixel photo, and then compress it to 12 megapixels and ultimately compressing a lot of that noise.
And then you have nine by 16 one by one and full. Just remember all of these other aspect ratios will affect the resolution of your image. If you go to the timer, you have two seconds, five seconds and 10 seconds. And then of course you have your options for flash. Go ahead and dive into the settings. Some of the things that I want to quickly touch on on the scene optimizer which I showed you can be toggled on and off right here.
But if you want to do it the settings app, you could do which is really cool. So if I toggle that on, it’s going to put a little circle in the middle. And you align those two circles, it means that you have photo correctly and it will turn yellow. It’s it’s really neat for people that don’t know how to images or understand things like the rule of thirds, it help you out especially in like a landscape photo.
But I just usually leave it on because even for me, sometimes the images that it suggests that I take really have come up pretty good. So going back into the settings, we have the QR code scanner, you can change what happens whenever you long press the shutter button. So right now or by default, it’s usually on take a photo of me It be on burst shot, burst shot. So if you hold down the shutter, it’s going to take a bunch of shots.
But you could change that to just have it take a single photo or you can create a GIF. If we go into the Save options, we have the option to save Hei f pictures, which is high efficiency image format photos, this means that it’s going to give you better compression with smaller file sizes. The downside to that is all computers and all other smartphones or tablets may not support that image format. But if you have a modern phone or modern computer or modern tablets, chances are you’re going to be just fine. So I just leave mine on.
And then the ultra wide lens correction I always leave that on. If we keep going down, we have you know ah settings for HDR, we have pictures previewed, which means if you’re taking a selfie, for example, you see yourself in your display, that’s how the image is going to come out Versus flipping it sometimes. So if you wanted the rule of thirds, always on your display, you can turn that on. And now you can see we have the rule of 3rd lines. And to wrap it up we have location tags, shooting methods, the shutter button at the very top we have the volume key.
So by default, if you press the volume down button, it’s going to either take a photo or start a video recording, but you can change it to zoom or you can change it to just you know controlling your volume. I usually leave it on take photo or record video. And then right below that we have voice control which is how you’re able to trigger the shutter using your voice. So you can say things like smile cheese capture or shoots and then it will automatically take a photo or start a video recording below that’s we have the floating shutter button so if I toggle that on and then go back to the main camera interface where you can see it puts up a second shutter button and I can drag and put it anywhere on the display to the shutter just a little bit easier.
Let’s go ahead and dive back into the Settings Scroll all the way down to shooting methods and I’m going to go ahead and toggle off the floating shutter button. And the last one is show palm if you’re big into taking selfies then show your palm is going to come in clutch specifically when using the front facing camera.
As the camera detects your palm it will the shutter so you could be further away from the camera and you can have on a tripod, if you want to get like a full body shot, honestly, there’s a lot more I could talk about when it comes to all of the different modes in this camera. But if I tried, I’d be here all day. I will put together a camera Tips and Tricks video. So let me know if that’s something that’s you know, piques your interest. For now let’s go ahead and move on with a video beginning with the interface. Moving over the video mode is simple ust swiping over to video or you can just tap on the name where it says video. Either way, they both work.
So starting at the bottom, from left to right, we have quick access to the gallery, we have our record button and then we have our toggle for the front facing camera. Then moving up we have our many modes. And then we have the ability to switch to the wide angle and to the regular wide. One thing I forgot to mention when we were talking about the macro mode is that video does not work when using the dedicated macro camera, kind of a bummer. Like I don’t know why we can’t shoot video using the macro camera, I think that’d be kind of cool. Maybe they could push it out and update I don’t know.
But at the time of this video, video does not work with macro. In Case you were wondering, going above the lens selection or the camera selection, we have our top row of icons starting at the right, we have AR doodle. So if you wanted to doodle a little bit while you are shooting some video, you can do that. Obviously you can see I never use it. Next to that we have our aspect ratios nine by 16 is the default aspect ratio. And whenever you flip it to landscape, it’s going to become 16 by nine, if you wanted to do something more Instagram friendly, one by one is always the best aspect ratio for that.
And then you have full which is going to take up the full width of the display, I usually just keep mine on nine by 16 and 16. video only works in 1080 p but if you’re looking for some silky smooth video, enable chase your kids around our T shirt dog around your goldfish, you have, it’s going to be super stable. we have our flash, so you can have it automatically turn on whenever it feels the need to turn on doesn’t really work this way in video, but for stills, you can have it like that. And then we have the ability to turn it on like a flashlight. all the time more appropriate for video, but I never use it.
So I’m gonna go ahead and toggle it off. And then let’s go ahead and dive into the settings beginning with the rear video size of resolutions. So in 16, by nine we have access to 3840 by 2160, or 4k HD, then we have 1920 by 1080. And then we have 720 P, you’ll notice that you do not have 60 frames per second in of these modes, which is kind of weird. And in Case you’re wondering, none of them are 24 frames per second. They’re all 30. So bear that in mind, then if you wanted to shoot in a different aspect ratio, like use the full width of the display, it peaks at 2400 by 1080. And if you wanted to use that Instagram friendly mode, or one by one, you’re looking at 1440 by 1440.
just shooting 4k and then crop into the aspect ratio that you need to crop into. Just make sure you shoot wide enough that you can do all that cropping without losing anything that you wanted in the frame. Let’s go ahead and back out and look at the front facing video size. So you can see it maxes out at 3840 by 2160. And all of the other resolutions are the same. And the same thing with the aspect ratios. Again, no 60 frames per second here, kind of weird, but that it has 4k on the front facing camera at this price Point is kind of cool. So let’s go ahead and backup.
We have high efficiency video codec, which is just like Hei F. But this is he I see. So it’s the same concept though, it’s going to give you better compression and smaller file sizes. The downside is all phones tablets and computers may not be compatible with this codec. So if you’re trying to share a video, they may not be able to view it depending on computer or device they’re using. But most modern phones and most modern computers are capable of viewing this type of codec.
So now you know then we have video stabilization which is turned off because it does not work in 4k. Then we have pictures previewed same thing with stills, you shoot it is how it’s going to look. In terms of perspective. Of course then we have gridlines same thing and pretty much everything else down here is the same when in stills mode day. 51 has a surprisingly great camera for the price coming in at $399. Here in the US I believe it’s one of the better smartphone cameras in range. Well it’s not iPhone SE or pixel three a quality I think it brings a nice balance of features and quality.
Having the ability to use live focus without a human face makes that mode much more usable than the iPhone SE is portrait mode. Plus having a dedicated Pro mode for photos and the ability to use night mode with the regular ultra wide in front facing cameras really add to the functionality of the a 51 even the macro camera is fun to play with. Even though it doesn’t have autofocus.
It would have been cool to see 4k 60 on a 51 but that could be a processor limitation in Case. I personally like the cameras and I think that most other people will too. So if you’re in the market for the a 51, or you’re looking at the a 51 your next phone, and cameras are the most important thing to you, I don’t think you’re going to be disappointed. Let me know what you guys think of the a 51.
