The Xiaomi Mi5 with its very good IMX298 is one of the hottest mobiles at the moment. For Q1 in 2016 it’s rated as the most powerful mobile by Antutu.
In this post we’ll take a look at the Xiaomi Mi5 Sony IMX298 camera using Xiaomi’s native camera app with low light enhancement turned on, against Google Camera app.
The scene
This is a very dim scene. No light on in the room, just some natural light coming through a shaded window.
In each of these sets, the picture on the left is the Google Camera pic. The image on the right is Xiaomi Camera with low light enhancement turned on.
Noise vs detail
We notice that close up the Google Camera has a huge amount of noise compared to Xiaomi Camera. However we also see that more detail is preserved in the Google Camera shots. This is because when we clean the bad stuff away (noise) away, it will invariably take some of the good with it.
Camera app matters
It also shows us that which camera app we use can make a huge difference in our images when we’re looking closely. The amount of noise we see in the Google Camera shots is common to nearly all mobile sensors, it’s just that some apps clean up the noise better than others.
The full scene
As with the crops, we notice a far cleaner shot from the Sony IMX298 using Xiaomi Mi5 Camera, and a more detailed but noisier shot coming from the Google Camera.
Viewing from a couple of feet back, the noise in the Google Camera shot blends in and has the image appearing a bit sharper. Not a significantly noticeable difference, but it’s there.
Click here for Xiaomi Mi5 full review
Conclusion
Overall, the advantage of shooting with the Xiaomi Mi5 camera with low-light enhancement turned on beats out the subtle advantage of sharpness from shooting without low-light enhancement.
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