Samsung A52 Camera Review: Impressive Camera Performance

Samsung Nepal recently launched its 2021 lineup of A-series phones consisting of A72, A32, and A12. Among, them the A52 is a solid mid-range smartphone.

Though it does not have a telephoto lens or a 108MP sensor, it manages to take really impressive pictures and videos. So, let’s take a look at its camera performance.

Samsung A52 Camera Review

Quad Camera Setup

Samsung Galaxy A52 is rocking a quad-camera setup on the rear. It has a 64MP main sensor, a 12MP ultrawide angle sensor, a 5MP depth sensor, and a 5MP macro camera. On the front, it has a 32MP sensor for selfies.

ALSO READ: Samsung A52 Review: A Fantastic Mid-Range Smartphone

The main sensor has a wide f/1.8 aperture but Samsung hasn’t provided more info about the actual sensor used on the A52. Anyway, the main sensor now has OIS (Optical lmage Stabilization), which is a very good addition. But, it misses out on the optical zoom sensor which we can find on the A72. Instead of the telephoto lens, it gets a 5MP macro sensor.

64MP, Ultrawide, and Normal Photos

The 64MP sensor is a Quad-Bayer sensor that takes 16MP photos by default. And, the results are really good to be fair. The images captured in daylight have nice details with good exposure and balanced colors. The colors do not look overboard and the dynamic range is also pretty wide.

Surprisingly, the 64MP also provides visible improvement in details. But, these high res pictures lose out on contrast and dynamic range.

It is still better than most of the 64MP mid-range sensors out there.

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Moving on, it uses a 12MP ultrawide camera sensor just like the A72. But, A52’s ultrawide camera is not as good as the A72. The pictures look a bit noisier and the dynamic range is not as wide. However, it is a very good ultrawide sensor that has a similar color profile as the main sensor.

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The distortion correction on the A52 also does a fine job and doesn’t affect the overall photo quality, especially on the edges.

Low Light Performance

The main sensor of the A52 does pretty well in low light as well. I would say it is above average when it comes to low-light photography.

Even without the night mode, it can preserve a good amount of detail in the picture and the dynamic range is also good. Ofcourse, the night photos are noisier but A52 manages to keep it on the lower side.

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With Night Mode, the picture is brighter and the noise is reduced as well. But, it comes at a cost as it creates a matte painting effect, especially on the skies. And, like most smartphones, A52 captures a cropped picture in Night mode.

Also, the Night mode has the tendency to oversaturate the colors. Overall, the Night Mode is not as good as I had hoped for.

Portrait & Macro

On to the portrait mode, A52 captures really good photos with a bokeh effect. The subject separation and background blur effect are more than good enough. However, the face of the subject might look a bit softer in some photos.

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As for the Macro mode, the 5MP sensor provides decent detail and it is one of the good macro sensors that you will find on a mid-ranger.

Selfies

A52 and A72 share the same 32MP selfie camera. The 32MP snapper captures really impressive photos with lots of details and good color.

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HDR also helps to keep the backlight under control and overall selfies look good. If you want more detail, you can also capture photos in 32MP mode. But it loses HDR in this mode.

It can also take good portrait selfies with not-so-perfect edge detection and decent background blur.

Videos

In terms of videos, the A52 can capture up to 4k 30fps videos from the main sensor and ultrawide angle sensor. The main camera captures nice 4k videos with crisp details and a decent dynamic range. The noise is pretty much non-evident and the color reproduction is almost neutral.

The ultrawide sensor also captures good 4k videos but it does introduce some noise which is fine for an ultrawide sensor.

Moving on to 1080p videos, the footage looks a bit softer and noisier. But, 1080p videos come with OIS. So, the OIS handles the jitters and pan to capture stabilized videos. However, I did notice a noisy bulge effect in 1080p videos.

The stabilization on the A52 is good but it can be better. I don’t think the OIS is working at 100% on the A52.

Last but not the least, the 4k footages from the front camera are also admirable. The 4k footages have good sharpness and a fair amount of detail.

A52 brings some new camera features like the FUN MODE that basically gives you various filters to play with. There’s the Single-Take mode which we saw on the A72 and it gets Pro Mode for both Photos and Videos.

Final Thoughts

Samsung Galaxy A52 is one of the best camera smartphones in the mid-range segment.

READ NEXT: Samsung A72 Camera Review: A Top-notch Quad Camera Smartphone

For Rs. 41,999, it just might be the best camera phone with OIS-enabled videos. While the availability of OIS is one of its key selling points, the overall picture quality of the Samsung A52 is very impressive.

Not just the main sensor but it actually has a good ultrawide angle camera. On top of that, it has a 5MP macro sensor while other phones only include a 2MP macro sensor at this price range.

Overall, Samsung Galaxy A52 has one of the best camera setups for the price.

What’s your take on the Samsung Galaxy A52? Let us know in the comments below!