So common misconception about Foldable smartphones is that the cameras on the device are not as “great” as their flagships, and while I never had any issues and loved the camera’s on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3, let’s see how well the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 is since it comes with some great updates to their lenses.
As a recap, for the rear cameras, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 comes with a huge 50 MP, f/1.8 23mm wide with OIS for the primary lens, a 12 MP, f/2.2 Ultrawide lens with a 12mm focal length, and a 10 MP, f/2.4 66mm Telephoto lens.
Then as for the front camera, there are two; as usual, the cover display has a 10 Megapixel F2.2 24mm wide lens, and the under-display camera has a 4-megapixel F1.8 aperture 26mm wide lens.
50 Megapixel Mode
Let’s start with the high 50 Megapixel mode; as seen in these images, the photos looked very sharp and properly detailed, I just love how so much information is kept even at the dark shades area towards the boot left where the shadows of the buildings are
And since this is a 50 Megapixel Mode, you can always crop in further to re-compose the image; however, keep in mind that we are looking at an average file size of 12 to 14MB per image, depending on the environment that you are taking a shot.
Main Lens
As for the main lenses pixel binned photos, as predicted, everything from the dynamic range and overall details at the highlights and shadows very perfectly balanced when using this main photo mode on the lens.
What’s sweet is that since it has a dedicated Telephoto lens, hence you are able to optically zoom up to 3x or the 66mm focal length, and I have to say that the 10x zoom-in images looked very nice, even though it’s zooming in digitally.
And with the 50 Megapixel sensor, you can also zoom u to 30x, which is the maximum range that the phone can go digitally, but of course, you will be losing some detail, so I would advise using this ONLY if you really have to.
Ultrawide
I am always amazed by the ultrawide lenses for Samsung phones because a 12mm focal length is very wide, in actual fact. If you were to take a 12mm lens on a mirrorless camera, there might be two issues, firstly is barrel distortion at the edges, and number two would be the fact that only the centre of the image will look sharp instead of getting a tack sharp images all around and based on these images, both issues are totally eliminated because it has such a great dynamic range for the skies area and i love how there is absolutely no color shift when taking photos using the main lens to this ultrawide lenses; hence making your photographic experience even easier, especially when editing the photos in post if you really need to.
Rear Portrait Mode
The portrait mode for the rear lenses was always been one of the best on Samsung’s flagship smartphone, and that was also the case over here, and it works perfectly now with animals, as my car Luna is pretty hyper, so it’s not the easiest to do when taking a picture of her
Going up close here is where you can not only see the great edge detection but the amount of details for the blurred background area was simply flawless
So whether or not you are taking a portrait mode photo for flowers, leaves, or maybe a roadside cone, haha. Rest assured that you are looking at very, extremely useable images
Night Mode
Since we are looking at a high megapixel sensor and a faster aperture value, you will definitely get some excellent nighttime shots, whether or not you are using the main lenses or even the ultrawide lenses too.
I have to say that I do appreciate the fact that the skies are more color accurate in black instead of it being forced to become more bluish, which other smartphones tend to do. The overall balance of the shadows and highlights was also amazing, with barely any noise in the images
And if you are one of those who loves taking selfie photos at night, you will be happy to know that it also turned out really great, especially on the portrait mode, using the cover display’s selfie camera.
Day Selfies
Switching over to the daytime shots, since there are 3 different ways to take a selfie, I have decided to try all of them out
The first way would be using the cover screen’s camera, and as expected, it looked really nice with excellent skin tones and one of the best edge detection for a front camera portrait shot.
And if you are looking to step up the quality of your selfie photo game, there is also the option to use the rear cameras as a selfie. As the name suggests, i will be using the higher quality rear lens on a selfie mode; when you unfold the screen and turn the phone around and take a look at how superb these selfie images are
Then the third way of taking a selfie is through the under-display camera, and the common complaint in the previous generation is that it was too soft and blurry however, with the latest software image processing, the images turned out very usable compared to the previous Z Fold3.
Video Recording
Then finally, let’s talk about video recording, as the rear camera can record up to 8K 24 frames per second, and the front Cover screen can record up to 4k 60 frames per second, a resolution that other Android smartphones except for Google can do.
Ultrawide Video
Ultrawide video footage was excellent during the day, with great details and once again no fish eye effect during video mode, which was really nice to know and even though the ultrawide lenses doesn’t have OIS but the video footage was extremely stabilized
Main Video
Next, the video footage for the main lenses was amazing as it was on the photos produced on the main lens and a gimbal-like stabilization, even without turning on Samsung’s Super Steady Mode and if you are taking videos at night, you will find that the quality on the main lenses will perform better on the ultrawide lenses but still look very great and usable, especially on the video recording for the front cameras.
Selfie Video
Then finally, the selfie video for the front camera was amazing, especially with its 4k video footage, and the stabilization was super nice, making the phone perfect for vlogging, especially with the thinner ratio of the Galaxy Z Fold4 when it is folded using the Cover screen’s selfie.
Conclusion
So with this dedicated camera review, it shows clearly that Samsung is taking their foldable smartphones even more seriously this year, They have come up with some high-quality cameras that truly rival other foldable besides the amazing software features that I will be covering in detail very soon, and if you would like to see the video footage on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4, you can download them at the link below!
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1stJvx0csz0nDTlMgVoAIB5t6w8_s0nOC?usp=sharing
