DxOMark Mobile
Overview
Our industry-standard tests evaluate performance and image quality across a range of categories, including exposure, color, autofocus, and others. Scoring consistently well in all photo categories, the G5 is a solid and reliable smartphone for photography enthusiasts. Its best scores were achieved for exposure and contrast, thanks to its well-balanced and pleasant target exposures, which produce excellent results in both outdoor and low-light conditions.
Autofocus was also a strong point for stills, thanks to its fast and accurate performance, together with face detection and stabilization features. The G5’s 16Mp sensor, wide-angle lens, HDR mode, and geo-tagging capabilities also commend it to photographers interested in landscape, architecture, and street photography. What’s more, the high-resolution chip captures excellent levels of texture and detail, which will be appreciated by photographers interested in recording intricate and complex scenes with low levels of noise and good edge preservation.
For videographers, the G5 boasts a 2160p/30fps Ultra HD resolution module to meet the demand for watching mobile videos on larger high-resolution screens. Category scores for video vary a little more than for stills, and it’s fair to say that the G5 captures its best motion pictures in bright-light conditions, where the video stabilization is at its most effective. Video exposure is a strong point, however, achieving the best score in our video tests, and video autofocus remains fast in all conditions.
Attractive, well-balanced outdoor exposures with strong color
Shooting outdoors and in bright light, the LG G5 delivers many well-balanced exposures which feature good contrast and wide dynamic range, and which have an attractive overall feel. We did observe a few exposure failures, but generally these were limited to very high-contrast scenes, where details in the darker areas started to block out. This often resulted in a slightly under-exposed image overall, but with good detail recorded in the brighter regions, such as the sky. (A bit of post-production lightening up of the shadows is all that’s needed in these cases.)
White balance is generally accurate when shooting outdoors, too, and on good target exposures, the G5 renders strong and bold color. A slightly cool or blue colorcast was observed in some outdoor images shot in shady conditions, but it wasn’t offensive and is easily corrected with a photo filter. In bright-light conditions, noise is well-controlled, with only a fine luminance noise visible in areas of uniform color. It’s very mild in nature, however, and is really noticeable only when viewing images at 100%.
We observed slightly more problematic chromatic noise in the darker areas of some high-contrast scenes, which is likely to be caused by the G5’s HDR processing algorithm lighting the shadows. Edge preservation is excellent in bright light, with well-defined contrast edges that show only very minor signs of chromatic aberration or halo effects.
Outdoors, the LG G5 delivers many accurate target exposures that boast pleasant overall brightness, a good range of tones, and strong color
TIP: On exposures with a good sky but slightly underexposed foreground (top), use selective tone adjustments to brighten the darker regions without losing detail in the sky for a brighter overall exposure (bottom)
Excellent brightness and good detail in low light
The LG G5 produces excellent exposures in low-light conditions, with good brightness and bold color. Using a light source between 10 and 500 lux, image brightness is very good, and although results at 5 lux are a little on the dark side, the exposures are still exploitable and color saturation remains strong. Shooting handheld in very low light requires excellent handling technique, or ideally some camera support, however, due to the slow 1/9 second exposure time that the G5 employs under 5, 10 and 20 lux lighting conditions. At 100 and 500 lux, the faster 1/30 second exposure time, together with the G5’s wide-angle lens and therefore minimal magnification, allows for more easily achieved handheld shots in these brighter conditions.
On the whole, noise and texture results are excellent in low light, too, with good detail preservation and only a fine luminance noise visible in many shots. Noise and texture can be a little inconsistent in low light, however, with variable results observed on consecutive 20 lux exposures. Interestingly, more noise and loss of detail was observed on 100 lux exposures compared to 20 lux, which is probably due to slightly more aggressive lighting by the G5’s image processing engine (required by the faster shutter speed for 100 lux exposures).
Exposure tests using a light source between 5 and 500 lux produced good brightness, although shutter speeds at 5 and 10 lux were a little slow at 1/9 second, which caused some visible camera shake in some handheld shots.
We observed excellent texture and detail in many low-light images, although results could be a little inconsistent between consecutive frames, and more noise was visible in images shot under a 100 lux light source compared to those at 20 lux
TIP: Handheld exposures in extreme low light can suffer from camera shake due to slow shutter speeds (above). For sharper shots, try using a smartphone mount
Details: Explaining the scores
Exposure and Contrast (90)
One of the best category scores — up there with some of the best we’ve tested, the LG G5 delivers great exposures, scoring 90 in both bright and low light. It’s not perfect, with some HDR failures in very high-contrast situations, but good target exposures produce well-balanced results, with pleasing tones and contrast in many situations.
Shooting medium-contrast scenes, the LG G5 produces subtle and well-balanced exposures that capture a good range of tones and are pleasing to the eye
