Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 review

Portrait mode

The Portrait mode on Fold5 gives you options to shoot at 1x, 2x, and 3x zoom levels. The 1x and 2x are shot on the main camera, while the 3x photos come from the zoom camera.

All three types of portraits are great - the detail is plentiful, the subject looks excellent with popping colors, and the background blur is convincing. The separation is also proficient unless you have a really complex haircut.

Portraits, 1x zoom

Portraits, 2x zoom

Portraits, 3x zoom

Low-light photo quality

The Galaxy Z Fold5 supports Auto Night Shot and it often chooses to use it. It is indicated by a crescent icon in the viewfinder. You can enable and disable it on a per-scene basis. There is a dedicated Night Mode, too.

The Night Shot triggered in all seven scenes we shot and it usually took about a second or two for it to finish processing. The images are excellent with good detail, expertly cleaned of noise, vivid colors and wide dynamic range. Those are bit brighter than reality, but that is usually the case with any Night Mode.

It was quite a windy night here and this is why you may spot some smeared foliage.

Main camera, Auto

And here are the same scenes taken without Night Mode. The photos look nicely realistic with accurate colors and exposure, high level of detail, and good contrast and dynamic range. The noise is kept low and the minor visible amount doesn't get in the way at all.

Main camera, Night OFF

The Night Shot works very well on the telephoto camera as well. The photos are bright, with lively colors, good contrast, wide enough dynamic range, and low noise. The detail is average if you look at them at pixel level, but still passable.

Tele 3x, Auto

The telephoto photos without Night Mode are noisy and underexposed, though still usable. The Night Shot on this camera should be turned off only when moving objects are in the frame, otherwise we do not recommend it.

Tele 3x, Night OFF

The ultrawide camera with Night Shot offers good photos with popping colors, wide dynamic range and bright exposure. Their detail is poor though as the noise reduction destroys a lot of the fine detail.

Ultrawide, Auto

In contrast, the ultrawide photos without Night Shot are poor - soft, dark, and noisy.

Ultrawide, Night OFF

And here's how the main camera stacks up against the competition in our extensive Photo compare database.

Galaxy Z Fold5 against the Oppo Find N2 and the vivo X Fold2 in our Photo compare tool

Video capturing

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 supports video recording up to 8K@30fps with its primary camera, up from 24fps on Fold4. Both the main and the telephoto can do 4K at 30fps and 60fps, while the ultrawide maxes out at 4K at 30fps.

The inner selfie camera supports 1080p recording at 30fps and 60fps, though we can't see why you'd be using that particular unit for recording video. The outer selfie camera, makes slightly more sense as a recording device and supports 4K at 30fps and 60fps.

Video stabilization is available in all modes on all cameras, and it can be disabled if you have your own means to stabilize your footage. There's an option to use the h.265 codec, as opposed to the default h.264, and 8K footage is only encoded using h.265. Audio is always recorded in stereo at 256kbps.

The 8K daylight footage is very good - the frame rate is steady and the sound is excellent, the colors are lively and accurate, the dynamic range is wide, and the contrast is superb. There is no visible noise either.

On a per-pixel level the detail is average, though it still reveals intricate bit (like license plates and text) that were previously impossible to make out in 4K resolution.

Unfortunately, the 8K low-light video is horrible - it has extremely poor detail, everything is soft and smeared. It looks even worse than upscaled 4K footage. You should just stay away from 8K at nighttime.

The 4K day videos from the main camera are superb - they are detailed, with accurate colors, high contrast and wide enough dynamic range. The overall processing is balanced, there is no over-sharpening.

We think Samsung could have extracted a bit more detail here with gentler noise reduction, but even as is the video is great.

The 4K low-light clip from the main camera is alright - the detail levels are adequate, the noise is tolerable, the color saturation is great and the dynamic range is decent. It's not the best low-light footage we've seen, but far from the worst, too.

The telephoto camera captured excellent 4K videos. The detail there is abundant, colors are consistently accurate, and the dynamic range and the contrast are great. Absolutely no complaints here.

The zoomed night videos are mediocre - they are soft and with poor detail, even if they are well exposed and with lively colors.

The ultrawide camera also records likable 4K videos. They have the same good color rendition and contrast, wide dynamic range and low noise. The resolved detail is somewhat average, though.

The 4K night videos from the ultrawide camera are underexpoed and poor across the board - low detail, high noise, narrow dynamic range. The only thing that is okay here is the color saturation.

The (stabilized) 4K videos from the Cover selfie camera are very good - we can praise the always well-exposed subject, the wide dynamic range, the lively colors, and the overall smooth and well stabilized video (we shot with Video Stabilization enabled). The resolved detail may not be best in class, but it's still enough and the footage has good sharpness.

The under-display camera offers 1080p videos that are just this side of usable - just like the photos, the videos appear hazy and not that contrasty, but otherwise they do offer good colors and dynamic range. These will certainly do for video calls.

Finally, here is a test of the video stabilization. It works equally great on all cameras.

Here's how the Galaxy Z Fold5 compares to other devices in our vast video compare database.

Galaxy Z Fold5 against the Oppo Find N2 and the vivo X Fold2 in our Video compare tool