Jun 17, 2021 5:13 PM

Samsung Galaxy A52 5G Gallery

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Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
01
Samsung Galaxy A52 5G, main camera. I like this shot. It's decently detailed and well exposed. It's colorful, but it *is* over-saturated. The trees aren't that green in real life. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
02
Samsung Galaxy A52 5G, main camera. This is one of the few photos of many I captured in succession that wasn't blurry (and even then, it's not the sharpest). Still, there's good detail. And cute dogs.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
03
Samsung Galaxy A52 5G, main camera. I'm not a huge fan of how this picture came out. This area of the sidewalk was darker, so the A52 did some work to get it well-exposed, but it also took out almost all the shadows in the process that it looks really flat. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
04
Samsung Galaxy A52, main camera. It's hard to point out too many flaws here, except that if you zoom in, you'll see that Samsung's image processing does quite a bit of smoothing over to hide noise or grain. The leaves are a little too plain, for example.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
05
Samsung Galaxy A52 5G, ultrawide camera. OK, now let's start comparing this phone with its top competitor, the Google Pixel 4A 5G ($500). Samsung's ultrawide camera goes wider, but colors are a bit too saturated, and if you zoom in on the trees on the right, you'll see how undefined it looks. Compare this with the following Pixel photo. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
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Google Pixel 4A 5G, ultrawide camera. This photo is much more true to real life. It's much sharper than the Samsung photo if a bit grainy (look at the water toward the center-right).

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
07
Samsung Galaxy A52 5G, Portrait mode. Samsung fares well with Portrait mode. It did a great job of delineating the background of the subject (my dog, Tobu). And I like how the blur doesn't look too unnatural. For example, Tobu's paws are blurred out because it's not on the same plane as his face, but the effect isn't as strong as it is in the background, just like a real DSLR. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
08
Google Pixel 4A 5G, Portrait mode. The Pixel makes a few more errors here but they're not easy to notice (some edges of my dog's fur are clipped, and look between his ears). The blur effect starts immediately after his entire body, which doesn't look as natural. I do like how Google maintains the shadows and contrast as it gives the entire photo more definition.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
09
Samsung Galaxy A52 5G, Portrait Selfie. Selfies are generally a tad more in focus on the A52 over the Pixel. There's good detail here, though the blur effect doesn't do a great job with my partner's hair. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
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Google Pixel 4A 5G, Portrait Selfie. I like the Pixel's color tones a little more, but zoom in and you'll notice the focus just isn't quite right. That's because Google uses a fixed focus lens so you need to be a certain distance away to look sharp. (Samsung doesn't note whether it's using a fixed focus lens or not but to my eyes, it isn't). Google also does a slightly better job with the blur around the hair, but it's not without flaws.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
11
Samsung Galaxy A52 5G, main camera Night mode. I took this photo right before sunrise. It's not bad\! But it looks a bit off. It's very flat because the contrast has been stripped out.  
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
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Google Pixel 4A 5G, main camera, Night Sight. The much better contrast in this photo makes it look so much more natural. It's grainier, but the colors are more true to life, and it's a bit sharper.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
13
Samsung Galaxy A52 main camera Night mode. Now let's compare the same scene but at night. It wasn't this bright in real life, but Samsung's oversaturation preserve colors. If you zoom in and compare it with the Pixel, you will notice that the details look a lot more processed and unnatural, particularly the cars and the trees. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
14
Google Pixel 5, main camera Night Sight. (I used the Pixel 5 here, but it has the exact same camera specs as the Pixel 4A 5G.) There's surprisingly less grain in this shot, plus the colors are a bit more muted. Zoom in and the quality holds up really well.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
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Samsung Galaxy A52 5G, main camera Night mode. It was a dreary day, and without enough light, the A52 struggles to show off some of the finer details and colors that were present in this scene. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
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Google Pixel 5, main camera, Night Sight. Google's shot adds more colors (it really improves the light glowing out of the Oculus), and zoom in and you'll notice a ton more detail on the buildings in the far back.

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
17
Samsung Galaxy A52 5G, ultrawide camera. Compare this with the following Pixel photo. You can see how Samsung doesn't deal with the bright sky *as* well as the Pixel, plus the color saturation is cranked too high. 
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
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Google Pixel 4A 5G, ultrawide camera Night Sight. It's not as wide as the A52's photo, which I don't like, but it looks great. The sky is the correct shade of grey, and the colors look natural.