A powerful triple camera setup
The Magic V5 has a very potent triple rear camera setup. Perhaps, one of the best on a current foldable. This is pretty evident even from the large camera island.
The main camera is a 50MP snapper. It is based on the Sony IMX906 sensor, which is a pretty big 1/1.56″ sensor with 1.0µm individual pixels. The Magic V5 includes Laser autofocus. The main camera has OIS and gyro-based EIS. It can capture 10-bit HDR 4K@60fps video.
Up next, there is a high-resolution 64MP, 3x (70mm) optical periscope telephoto camera. It is based on the Omnivision OV64B sensor with a 1/2″ size and 0.7µm individual pixels. It has autofocus, but can’t focus particularly up close. That need is covered by the autofocusing ultrawide.
Wide (main): 50 MP Sony IMX906, f/1.6, 23mm, 1/1.56″, 1.0µm, Laser AF, OIS gyro-EIS; 2160p@60fps.
Ultra wide angle: 50 MP, f/2.0, 13mm, AF, OIS; 2160p@60fps.
Telephoto: 64 MP Omnivision OV64B, f/2.5, 1/2″, 0.7µm, PDAF, OIS; 2160p@60fps.
Front cameras: 20 MP, f/2.2; 2160p@30fps
The third camera on the rear is a high-resolution 50MP ultrawide. We aren’t sure exactly which sensor this cam uses, and our review unit is not particularly talkative when it comes to sharing identifiable information in software. In any case, we do know that this camera has autofocus as well and can double as a macro shooter.
Unfortunately, we don’t know any particulars about the two selfie cameras either. Both appear to be identical at 20MP with an f/2.2 lens. Both are also capable of 4K video capture. Unfortunately, these lack autofocus.
There is nothing particularly interesting or strange when it comes to the camera interface. Everything is well laid out and logical. There are plenty of advanced options to dig through.
Of course, the interesting bits start showing up when you open the phone and use the cameras that way. The over display can be used as a viewfinder, which allows for selfies with the rear cameras. Alternatively, your subjects can see themselves, and you can even trigger some fun animations on the display to get them to smile. Neat stuff.
Daylight photo quality
Main camera
The main camera captures binned photos at around 12.5MP by default. These look pretty good overall with nice and true-to-life colors, good dynamic range and contrast. Details is decent, but not particularly impressive on a pixel-peeping level.
Honor Magic V5: 12.5MP main camera samples
You can force the main camera to capture in its full 50MP resolution. This produces pretty large photos, which are a bit of a hassle to deal with. However, the pixel-level detail is perhaps a bit better. Though that said, sharpness is lacking, and most things seem “painted over” with less artificial sharpening applied. On the flip side, one could say that this is a more natural rendition. But even if we decide to be charitable in our assessment in this way, there are other obvious problems in these 50MP stills, such as color shifting, shimmering, and some fringing.
Honor Magic V5: 50MP main camera samples
At 2x digital zoom, photos look very similar, perhaps just a bit softer and with more traces of sharpening on a pixel level, but nothing major.
Honor Magic V5: 12.5MP main camera 2x zoom samples
Telephoto camera
The telephoto camera captures binned 16MP photos by default. Quality here is again a bit of a mixed bag, but generally pretty good. Detail is good but not necessarily always clean on most uniform surfaces like grass, skies or buildings. There can be plenty of noise on those. But wherever the camera algorithms detect an object, they recognize it like a person or often even objects like cars, benches and the like, they apply strategic sharpening and processing to those parts of the image. At times, it can almost look like these objects are implanted into the image when pixel-peeping, but that is hardly noticeable without very close inspection.
Honor Magic V5: 16MP telephoto camera 3x samples
Colors are good, and so are contrast and dynamic range.
Digital zoom 6x photos from the telephoto look pretty good. They still have most of the shortcomings of the 3x shots, but again, most of those are just us nitpicking. In a more general sense, these are some great shots.
Honor Magic V5: 16MP telephoto camera 6x zoom samples
Portrait shots
Before we move on, let’s talk portraits for a bit. The Magic V5 will happily shoot portraits with its main and telephoto cameras. Both look great with natural facial features and skin tones, and a lot of detail comes through.
Honor Magic V5: main and telephoto cameras portrait samples
Subject detection and separation are quite spot on, and the quality of the background blur is excellent. You can check portraits from the two rear cameras at different focal lengths above.
Ultrawide camera
There seems to be a bit of cropping happening with the ultrawide camera since it captures stills in closer to 12MP in its default binned mode and closer to 49MP in its full resolution mode. That’s just interesting to point out and not something to focus on.
Quality-wise, the ultrawide does a decent-enough job in its default mode. The colors are good, and so is the dynamic range. Detail is alright when looking at photos in 1:1. But zooming in quickly reveals a very pixelated, oversharpened, and overprocessed image.
Honor Magic V5: 12.5MP ultrawide camera samples
Selfie cameras
Despite their different positioning, the two 20MP selfie cameras seem to offer very similar, if not identical, quality, which is great. Said quality is solid through and through. There is plenty of detail in the frame with pretty good colors and contrast.
Honor Magic V5: 20MP selfie cameras samples
The dynamic range can use some work, and we will say that the general rendition is a bit harsh if we can use that term with a bit more aggressive sharpening than we would have liked. But that’s a very small gripe to have in the grand scheme of things.
Low-light camera quality
Let’s start with the main camera. It captures very impressive low-light photos. The detail is great, the colors look very natural, and you get a wide dynamic range with both good detail in the shadows and the highlights. Light sources are well-contained. There is very little noise.
Honor Magic V5: 12.5MP main camera low-light samples
The Magic V5 has an automatic Night mode that triggers and does its job very reliably. Beyond that, you can also select Night mode manually through the dedicated mode in the camera carousel.
The quality and processing are not meaningfully different, to be honest.
Honor Magic V5: 12.5MP main camera Night mode samples
Zoom photos at 2x from the main camera are very similar in quality to 1x shots and hence solid through and through.
Honor Magic V5: 12.5MP main camera low-light 2x zoom samples
Again, it is probably not worth it to use the dedicated Night mode since it is nearly identical to the regular mode.
Honor Magic V5: 12.5MP main camera Night mode 2x zoom samples
Low-light photos from the telephoto are pretty solid, too. Perhaps a bit softer and darker than the main camera, but nothing drastic. The detail is good, and so is the dynamic range. Light sources are handled well.
Honor Magic V5: 16MP telephoto camera low-light 3x samples
Enabling Night mode manually on the telephoto camera does produce slightly different and potentially better results. On average, shots come out brighter, which is arguably a plus. You also get some more aggressive scaling.
Honor Magic V5: 16MP telephoto camera Night mode 3x samples
At 6x zoom photos remain surprisingly clean and sharp.
Honor Magic V5: 16MP telephoto camera low-light 6x samples
Again, you can arguably improve the overall quality of these images by using the dedicated Night mode.
Honor Magic V5: 16MP telephoto camera Night mode 6x samples
The ultrawide camera is pretty messy in low-light conditions. It’s not particularly noticeable without zooming in, but once you do, lines appear distorted and unnatural, with plenty of surfaces also painted over. It’s not a good showing overall.
Honor Magic V5: 12.5MP ultrawide camera low-light samples
You can get a boost to exposure by using the dedicated Night mode, but don’t expect any other major quality improvements.
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Honor Magic V5: 12.5MP ultrawide camera Night mode samples
Low-light selfies are decent, but not impressive in any particular way. Facial features mostly come through, though much of the skin texture is lost, and there is some noise. At least the colors look nice and natural.
Honor Magic V5: 20MP selfie cameras low-light samples
Again, the quality is pretty much identical across the two selfie cameras.
Video capture quality
The Magic V5 can capture 4K on all of its cameras, which is nice, but also pretty much expected from a flagship. By default, video gets saved in an AVC/H.264 video stream at around 40 Mbps and sometimes even lower, which is not ideal. There is a stereo audio AAC stream to go along, and it’s all packaged in a standard MP4 container. Alternatively, you can choose to capture in HEVC/H.265 to save space while maintaining the same quality.
Despite the relatively low video bitrate, 4K quality on the main camera is excellent throughout. There is a lot of fine detail, great colors, dynamic range and practically no noise or fringing. At 2x, videos are expected to look slightly softer and more processed, but remain solid. 4K videos from the telephoto are also quite clean, but not as detailed as their 1x counterparts. The dynamic range is not as good either, and you can get both clipped highlights and crushed shadows at times. 4K ultrawide video is flawed, but arguably better than expected given the deficiencies of the ultrawide photos. The detail is surprisingly good, and so are the colors.
You can check out the playlist below, which includes multiple video samples.
There is no dedicated video stabilization mode or toggle, as far as we can tell. Still, there is stabilization that works very well at every resolution. We will note that while in motion, a bit more noise creeps up in the main camera footage, but it’s nothing to lose sleep over.
Low-light video from the main camera is pretty good, but not perfect. There is a bit of softness on surfaces and noticeable sharpening going on around straight lines. Light sources could be handled better, too. Naturally, things only get worse at 2x. The 4K footage from the telephoto is just way too dark. We can still appreciate the level of detail in better-lit objects, but overall, the footage isn’t great. We don’t particularly like low-light ultrawide video either. It’s lacking in detail and is quite soft with blown-out light sources.