Samsung Galaxy Grand Camera is its Saving Grace

No matter how much Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos users – including myself – feel underwhelmed by the phone, its camera definitely redeems it somewhat. In fact, not until I used the Grand for taking everyday shots did I realize how far smartphone cameras have come. It’s as good as, or even better than most point-and-shoots I have used, plus it’s inbuilt into a touchscreen phone that I’ve on me at all times anyway. See below pics taken with this phone:

I got great bokeh (blurred background or shallow depth of field) in both these images, with the subject close and the background not to far behind. Also, the image is sharp with a lot of detail when you magnify it – the cobweb and the anthers of the flower are clearly visible.

On the left is a zoomed in image of a building almost 3 kilometres from my window, taken on a cloudy evening. Yet, you’ll see no noticeable grains in the image, even on blowing it up postcard size.

On the right is an image taken in in pitch dark, lit by a weak red LED on a spike guard, clicked on night mode. I was surprised by the amount of light the camera caught without any grains in the image.

With the Grand’s 8 megapixel camera, you can easily print an A3-size images and do plenty in terms of manual settings. It lets you set the white balance according to the ambient light you are in, the ISO, exposure value, even the metering mode. This is coupled with a wide range of automated settings – the regular portrait, landscape, sports, indoor, night, beach, sunset, and also dawn, candlelight, backlight, and fireworks. The strong LED flash on the rear lights up a subject several feet away.

If you don’t use Instagram, you can choose from three basic filters (warm, cool and normal) before you share your picture online. Talking of social sharing, forget selfies – except those reflected by mirrors – because the phone’s 2-megapixel front camera makes you look much worse than you actually do.

Overall, a good camera if you are shooting in bright light, even moderately lit indoors. In one-off special cases, when I don’t have my DSLR with me and I must click an image, I would even trust – and I have – the camera with taking pictures to go on this website (See this. The pic has lost quality upon resizing, decent I would say).