16MP camera
The Samsung Galaxy S5 Active has a 16MP camera, Samsung is nut in terms of exact specs, but from the photos produced we'd say it's the same large ISOCELL sensor as inside the Galaxy S5 .
It's a 16:9 sensor, so widescreen photos use the full sensor. Again, we suspect there's a phase-detection autofocus sensor in the Galaxy S5 Active.
The interface is the same as the S5. On the left is a column of shortcuts, the middle two of which are customizable. All settings are collected in a grid of shortcuts to make everything easier to access.
The new camera interface • all settings
The mode button has also been simplified, it's now just a scrollable list at the bottom. Several options have been combined into Shot & more - Best Photo, Best Face, Drama Shot, Eraser and Pan Shot.
Mode selection • Color effects
The virtual tour recording mode is similar to panoramas, except you can move forward, turn left or right, and more. The result is an animation of your camera movement, the phone even draws a map with your path. Other modes can also be downloaded will.
Selective focus is another cool mode. It takes two shots and processes them, so you can shoot a close-up subject and keep the background out of focus, or the subject out of focus and the background in focus.
A quick note about Virtual Tour and Selective Focus recording - they produce a single JPG file that can be easily shared. When viewed, it will appear as a single photo, but you will need a compatible Galaxy device to view the additional View features (refocus or play virtual tour). As a result, file sizes are also quite large.
We'd like Samsung to enable an option to export virtual tours to videos so they're much easier to share.
picture quality
The Samsung Galaxy S5 Active camera is an excellent all-rounder. Photos taken in daylight have a commendable level of detail and while the processing is a bit heavy, it shouldn't be visible unless you're viewing photos at 100%.
Samsung Galaxy S5 Active 16MP camera examples
Samsung Galaxy S5 Active Low Light example: Flash off • Flash on
Samsung Galaxy S5 Active HDR mode: Off • On •
Photo quality comparison
The Samsung Galaxy S5 Active camera produces great photos for the 16MP league - follow the links to our tool to compare the device to the other smartphones we've tested.
Samsung Galaxy S5 Active in our photo comparison tool
Video quality is incredible
The Samsung Galaxy S5 Active can record 2160p video at 30fps (some features are disabled in this mode), 1080p at 30fps and 60fps. There is also a slow motion mode at 120fps at 720p.
Videos are saved in MP4 files, with the bitrate varying depending on the mode. 1080p @ 30fps videos are still recorded at 17Mpbs, 60fps mode goes up to 28Mbps, while 2160p videos are a whopping 48Mbps. This means that a short 30-second video grows to 180 MB. Keep this in mind when recording a video that you plan to share later.
In any case, the audio is recorded in stereo with a bit rate of 128 Kbps and a sample rate of 48 kHz.
The video camera doesn't have as many fancy recording modes as the still camera, but Dual Shot is available and you can record time-lapse videos. The time-lapse videos can speed up to 8x while keeping the resolution and frame rate at 1080p@30fps.
Touch focus is available before and during video recording and you can switch back to continuous autofocus if needed. There's also digital zoom up to 4x and the quality is pretty good even at the highest level.
Videos recorded with the Samsung Galaxy S5 Active offer stunning detail, especially when you record them at 2160p. Noise is low, color accuracy is good and there are hardly any traces of aggressive post-processing (unlike the still camera).
The same goes for the 1080p video mode too - obviously you don't get as much detail, but the much smaller file size and better compatibility (many computers can't play 2160p properly, especially when it's in a Flash container) make us think about this one mode is the most commonly used.
Here too is a pristine
2160p@30fps video
ready for you to download.
Comparison of video quality
The Samsung Galaxy S5 Active is a 2160p-capable camera phone. The resolution chart (third) shows picture quality that gives 8MP still cameras a run for their money. Picture quality in good light is great, although compression artifacts are starting to creep into the shadows .In low light most of the fine details are gone, we'd go at 1080p in the dark.
Samsung Galaxy S5 Active 2160p in our video comparison tool
Samsung Galaxy S5 Active 1080p in our video comparison tool
