Sony Xperia Z5 Premium Review

The Xperia Z5 Premium is a smartphone from Sony which features a 23 million pixel sensor camera. It’s a variation on the Xperia Z5 - the premium tag signifies that you get a larger screen with a 4K display. The camera is the same across all of the Z5 range though.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium Features

The camera’s sensor is a 1/2.3 inch CMOS device, which is pretty standard for mobile phones. It has a fixed lens, but there’s up to 8x digital zoom available.

As well as an automatic mode, there’s a manual mode which gives you some control over different camera settings, such as white balance. Unlike some other Android cameras though, it’s not possible to shoot in raw format with the Xperia Z5 Premium.

The Xperia Z5’s screen is 5.5 inches and has a 4K UHD (3840 x 2160) display, which is designed to really make your pictures and videos stand out. You can also record 4K video, too.

Other features of the phone which aren’t directly related to the camera, but are helpful to photographers include a two day battery life, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810, 64-bit Octa-core processor and the fact that it is waterproof and dust tight. The Z5 Premium uses the Android operating system, of which the Marshmallow operating system can be installed on the phone.

As well as internal memory, you can add a micro SD card of up to 200GB to the Z5 Premium for additional storage. 

Key Features

• 23MP 1/2.3 inch Exmor RS for mobile sensor (main camera)
• 24mm (equivalent) f/2.0 G lens
• SteadyShot with Intelligent Active Mode
• 5.5 inch touch sensitive 4K UHD Display (3840 x 2160)
• Waterproof, dust tight
• 4K Video Recording
• ISO up to ISO12800
• 5x Clear Image Zoom
• 8x Digital Zoom, Camera Apps including Sweep Panorama
• Available in chrome, black and gold 

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium Handling

The Z5 Premium, as is the trend for most current smartphones is quite a minimalist affair. In terms of physical buttons, you’ll find only three on the right hand side of the phone. There’s a power on/off (and sleep on/off) button, a volume rocker and a dedicated button to use with the camera.

If you hold down the camera button when the camera’s display is switched on, the camera app will launch automatically. You can then use this button to half press to acquire focus, and press all the way down to take the shot. Meanwhile, the volume rocker switch can be used to extend and retract the (digital) zoom.

The phone is on the larger size for smartphones, but the dedicated camera button is in a good place so you can hold it just like you would a compact camera - albeit without a grip on the phone to help keep it steady in your hand.

Android Marshmallow is available for the Z5 Premium, which brings with it some changes to the camera app when compared to the previous version. In essence, you still have the same functionality, but the app is slightly more streamlined.

You can swipe across the screen when in the camera app to move between the different shooting options available to you. By default, the camera will launch in superior auto mode, which is a good choice if you just want to concentrate on getting your shot, and composing the image, rather than altering settings.

Despite the name, manual mode doesn’t actually offer that much manual control. You can set the ISO and the white balance, but you can’t control aperture or shutter speed, which seems like a bit of an oversight. In order to access the settings that you can change, there, are two on-screen buttons, one which accesses white balance settings, and another which accesses a group of settings, which includes HDR, Resolution, and more. You can only control ISO if you shoot at the 8MP resolution, rather than the full 23MP resolution the camera offers.

Another swipe on the screen takes you to video mode. In this mode you can record full HD, so if you want to record in the advertised 4K instead, then you’ll need to swipe again to go to the “camera apps” section, where you’ll find 4K video recording, along with other apps such as Sweep Panorama and Creative Effect. If you record a video in 4K, you’ll be able to save stills from the footage in camera using the “photo capture” button which appears when playing back video.

Overall, the inbuilt camera app is pretty simple and easy to understand, with just a few oddities appearing in the manual setting that may take you some time to get to know.

The 4K screen is excellent, and almost gives the impression that shots in playback are “hyper real” because the clarity is so good. It also doesn’t suffer too badly from glare and reflections, aside from if you are using it in very direct, very bright sunlight.

The phone’s battery life is rated as lasting for two days - which is excellent by modern smartphone standards. Not only that but you can quick charge the phone to get 5.5 hours of charge in just 10 minutes. We suspect that if you were using the phone all day for picture taking, and other intensive operations, such as 4K video recording, then it wouldn’t last the full two days, but during our testing it has lasted well, certainly allowing a decent number of photos to be taken before needing a charge again.

Using the phone is pretty quick, and you can quickly activate the camera app by holding down the dedicated camera button - that means it’s ready to shoot in just a couple of seconds. Shot-to-shot times are also generally pretty speedy, but there can be a short delay if you take a lot of photos in quick succession and want to look back at them. Focusing is quick in good light, locking onto the subject with ease. As the light drops, you may find that the camera struggles a little, occasionally presenting a false confirmation of focus. If you get too close to a subject, it will still allow you to take the shot, despite the fact that the subject is clearly not in focus, so that’s something to keep an eye on.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium Performance

The performance section is where we look at the image quality performance of the camera. Additional sample photos and product shots are available in the Equipment Database, where you can add your own review, photos and product ratings.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium Sample Photos

Sample Photos - In good light, the Z5 premium can get some nice shots. Colours are well saturated, and there’s a decent amount of detail. Images look especially fantastic on the screen of the phone itself, compared with looking at images on a standard computer screen. If you look at images at 100%, you may notice that there’s some loss of detail, so that’s something to be wary of if you’re planning to print out your images at large sizes, or you want to perform some heavy cropping.

Exposure is generally good, with bright and punchy images - again when the light is good. If the light is a little dim, images are still quite good, especially if you can keep the ISO down, but if you want to take images in very dark conditions, you may be left disappointed with loss of detail and some image smudging. 

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium Lens test images

Lens Performance - At the camera’s fixed focal length of 24mm, images appear sharp and well detailed. However, the digital zoom is best avoided as images are a much lower quality, with loss of detail and a painterly effect.

You can get relatively close to subjects for macro shots, but the camera will still let you take a shot even when out of focus because you’ve got too close - this is something you learn to estimate correctly with continued usage of the camera.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium ISO test images

ISO Noise Performance - From ISO 800 upwards, images tend to lose detail, and appear a little smudgy. As the camera can’t shoot in raw format, it’s not possible to claw back lost detail. If you can, it’s best to keep the ISO speed to a lower value.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium White-balance test images

White Balance Performance - The automatic white balance setting does a better job of the specific white balance setting on this occasion. Shooting in automatic produces a reasonably accurate image, perhaps being a touch on the warm side. Meanwhile, the incandescent setting produces a shot with an inaccurate, yellow toned image.

Sony Xperia Z5 Premium Digital filters

Digital Filters - When using the digital filter effects, there are eighteen effects to choose from, along with the “normal” setting. Processed images are output at 1920 x 1080 resolution, and there’s no possibility to shoot in raw format - so that means you’ll be stuck with whatever filter you choose to shoot with. The effects are previewed as you shoot them. You can choose from: Brightness-Contrast, Hue-Saturation, Mirror, Old Film, Motion Effects, Mosaic, Motion Trail, Nostalgic, Miniature, Vivid, Tint, Fisheye, Colour Sketch, Comic, Partial Colour, Harris Shutter and Kaleidoscope. Whether you like them will be mostly down to personal preference, but it’s worth experimenting with them if you like that kind of thing.

You can use the panoramic mode too. The results are stitched together reasonably well if you pan quite slowly when creating the image, but they don’t stand up particularly well to close scrutiny if you examine at 100%, and you need to be careful to avoid any moving subjects (such as people or animals) appearing in the shot. 

Video - The camera records full HD as part of the default camera app, or 4K as one of the photo apps. Results are quite pleasing, with a good degree of image stabilisation when shooting handheld, while the inbuilt microphones pick up sound quite well. Additional videos can be found on the ePHOTOzine YouTube Channel.