God awful camera on Z5 premium...

[Alienangie]

Ok. So "upgraded" from my Note 3 to is piece of crap, because of all the marketing calling this the best camera phone on the market. And I use my phone camera a lot. 

On 23mp, manual and auto mode I cannot focus. Close up or macro images are blurry. All images have a soft edge and lack definition when enlarged. It looks like I've downgraded rather than upgraded! I have reset the cache and cleared it. Even done a factory reset. There is no case or dirt over the lens. No camera wobble. I have the latest software update.

if I can't resolve this, I'm selling it and waiting for the Note 5, which the only reason I didn't go with was the lack of SD card. With the Z5 I feel I've taken a MASSIVE step backward in tech. The UI isn't as friendly as Samsung, it's not as pretty, and the camera is just plain crap. 2 days of ownership and so far I hate it. 

I need some redeeming features for this phone, so please tell me how to fix it. I'm an amateur photographer and I e won competitions with pictures taken on the Note. This, so far, is useless to me.

[Uliwooly]

@Alienangie

I'm sorry to hear that, do you have the latest camera update? 

[SebastianD]

In my experience, Close up or macro images are not good in the Z5 camera, speciallly with mid light. (And I really love close ups). 

They're not bad when you have a lot of light. But when you see them in a computer monitor you can still notice a lot of noise at the "real size" of the photo (compared to the competence). 

Videos are excellent, specially at 60fps with Sony software stabilization. 

And daylight photos to landscape (no close ups or macro images, unless you have a lot of sunlight) are good too!

Anyway I hope Sony improves the definition of the photo (at real size) in a future firmware update with camera2 api or something like that because, at the moment, the camera is just an upgrade for the users that come from an older Xperia phone but not from users that come from another flagship, like from LG, Samsung or Google (excluding N4 and older phones).  

[Alienangie]

Oh for God's...if I'd have known the camera was so.limited I never would have chosen the phone. I tried to take a picture of my dog. Not macro close. But face portrait. In good light and there is no definition. Soft edges and poor detail. I had far better results with my 16mp note 3.
Definitely the worst photos I've taken on a phone in a very long time. Extremely disappointed

[Lord_viridis]

I had S6 edge before this and I rate this camera better in good light, slightly worse in low light due to the lack of control.
But in good light it's far superior imo

[Alienangie]

Yep, have checked the updates. All up to date software wise

[Uliwooly]

@Alienangie

Do you have this new camera UI?

http://www.xperiablog.net/2015/11/16/new-sony-camera-app-with-refreshed-ui-rolling-for-xperia-z5-ser...

[Alienangie]

Yes, still producing pictures which are almost identical in quality to the 5mp camera on my dad's E3
Soft edges, pixelated and/or blurry edges when enlarged, even though set to highest quality options. Just a really really bad camera.
Is this software or hardware issue. If it can be improved via software updates I'll keep the phone. If not, it's being sold asap. Because it doesn't do what it said it could.

[Uliwooly]

@Alienangie

You probably have a defective Xperia Z5

[Shardlake · Accepted solution]

Did you take the back protector off when you took it out the box?