Review : Asus PixelMaster Technology for the ZenFone 5 Camera

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In the smartphone range priced below $200, the Asus ZenFone 5 is surely one of the best devices although it faces some tough competition. One of the reasons why one would look at Asus and its smartphone, rather than the others is the 8-megapixel camera that has done an exceptionally good job, and it is well over other smartphone cameras in this price range. The credit for that, goes to the new PixelMaster technology that Asus incorporate in this new Zenfone series.

In this technology, Asus has combined the software, hardware and optical design and when we talk of the device itself, the company has been sending frequent updates to clear off any issues reported by users. Let’s talk about the camera, in specific. In the current market, smartphone cameras are made with some or the other compromise in the feature, and that largely is because of the strict budget and thus, even some decent 5-megapixel camera phones have no focus control, white balance control and such. But Asus has done all the efforts to include every basic setting, combining all of them to bring out a perfect capture in almost every light condition.

Out of all the smartphones in the price range, Asus Zenfone 5 is the one powered with an Intel Atom processor, and I’m sure this is what contributes a lot to the performance of the camera.

There are few modes and features one has to take a note of, and try out if you are using the Asus ZenFone 5 and wondering how the captures can be different from a regular smartphone camera capture.

Low-light capture

In the recent times, there have been several smartphones launched with good low-light capturing capability as claimed by the companies, but not even a handful number in them could actually do something good. Most of the devices failed to give clarity to what the object is, when captured in low light conditions. The Auto mode in the ZenFone 5 triggers the flash as soon as you are trying to capture something in low light, and that is quite understandable. You don’t want to have a black picture in the end. But, what the device also does is – suggests you to switch to “Low light mode”, which is indicated with an Owl icon below the shutter button on the screen.

Do that, and you’ll see the magic. There is indeed some noise, but what one is able to achieve here, is the details of the object. We didn’t have such scenario here, but you might want to capture a picture of your little kid sleeping, and don’t want to disturb by turning the light on, or using the flashlight. Just turn the low-light mode on, and you’ll be able to do it very neatly. Check the examples below.

In the example below, I chose not to focus anywhere. It did brighten a few parts more than it should have, but some manual focusing by tapping on particular object makes it better. For those interested in numbers, the PixelMaster technology increases the light sensitivity by 400%, reduces noise and boosts the colors by up to 200%.

The resolution in low light mode is not the same as in a normal capture, as it gets down to 1600 x 900 pixels from standard 3264 x 1836 pixels, but should that matter?

Depth-of-field / Bokeh

The PixelMaster has this as a mode in the Asus Zenfone camera, where the depth-of-field mode captures two pictures simultaneously to come up with a single capture, blurring everything that is out of focus, and highlighting only the object in focus. Comes out pretty well in the end, but it is better to define and focus on the object you want to highlight, before hitting the shutter button. On one try, it actually blurred the main object and focused on the background, and one cannot really blame the camera app for that.

HDR capture

Green should look perfectly green, or what’s the point of the capture when you cannot show off the original colors? sometimes, the Auto mode doesn’t get the exact color reproduction, but the HDR (High-dynamic-range) mode makes the picture look brilliant, and you can check the example below where the best difference is seen with the sky, overall picture brightness, and the natural green on the trees & plants.

Time Rewind

This is a feature where the camera is memorizing whatever it sees, two seconds before you press the shutter button, and continues to do so one second after the button press. Thus, in total you get to see 31 pictures in a frame where you can select the best one to keep. Sometimes, your kid might be having the best expressions there and you missed that a moment before you clicked the shutter button. On a normal capture, it’s gone. But Time Rewind kept it safe and you could go that one second behind and save that particular picture.

GIF Animation

One can easily create GIF animations from the live scene, by using the GIF animation mode in the Zenfone 5. There’s no need of any external software for the same, because the device would capture a total of 30 pictures when you press and hold the shutter button, and then there are options for speeding up or slowing down the animation, reverse the animation and rotate it. Obvious, that it saves the animation in .gif format.

Note: The capture is shrunk and thus, a little more noise than in original picture.

The resolution of capture is 1280 x 720 pixels, and the picture is large enough in size (30 frames combined, makes it 19MB and for 11 frames, it is around 6.5MB).

The two features above, i.e. Time Rewind and GIF Animation are something many would love, if they are always concerned about the moments they might miss if trying to capture a single click.

Selfies with the rear camera

Both, theoretically and practically, an 8-megapixel camera with f/2.0 lens does a better capture than the 2-megapixel camera on the front. And with the Selfies mode, there is one good thing – you can use the better 8MP rear camera to capture a selfie, without having to touch the shutter button at all.

Specifying the number of faces is good enough for the camera app to recognize when you point the camera towards a face (or the group of faces) and there is a countdown that starts and it then takes three pictures in succession. Even better, one can try the beautification feature to make the capture even better. The front facing camera tries to make the picture brighter, knowing that it is mostly selfies taken with it. But the rear camera doesn’t do that, thus the natural color and brightness are preserved, with the resolution too being higher.

Apart from these, the other modes include Night mode, Beautification, Miniature, Smart Remove and All smiles. The “Smart Remove” mode removes any unwanted moving objects from the pictures, thus no photobombing. “All Smiles” is yet another good mode for the expression lovers. With this mode turned on, the app takes five photos and lets you select the best expression from each photo and combines to make a single capture. There is a Panorama mode as well, which does a great job by combining pictures not just in a single horizontal line, but sections above and below it too.

Asus has tried to keep the clarity at its best in the bright light, when the object is zoomed in. We tried that with very distant objects, and it was good until you take it to the maximum zoom where steady hand is needed for a good capture.

Zooming in

Speak of the camera features, you don’t really see so many useful capture modes, and the good clarity of smartphones that are available in this price range. The camera does try to retain the natural colors, enhances the brightness of objects in the low light conditions, and this is one of the very impressive smartphone cameras that can do a good low-light magic. Overall, it is not just the 8MP camera with the f/2.0 lens that is doing all this, but the PixelMaster technology Asus has included, is to be credited.

Check out the infographic to know more about the Asus Zenfone 5 (click on the picture to open the full Infographic):