DxOMark Mobile Report: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+

DxOMark Mobile Report: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+

Summary

The Galaxy S6 edge+ is an enlarged version of its smaller cousin Galaxy S6 edge and uses the same hardware in the camera department. A 1/2.6-inch 16MP CMOS sensor is combined with a fast F1.9 aperture and an optical image stabilization system. In video mode the camera is capable of recording 4K footage and the OIS is supported by a new and improved digital stabilization algorithm.

With a DxOMark Mobile score of 87 the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ achieves the same score as the Sony Xperia Z5 and takes a joint number one spot in the DxOMark smartphone rankings. During testing the DxOMark team liked the "very good detail preservation in outdoor conditions, very good white balance and the good exposure behavior and color rendering". When shooting with flash images showed "good exposure, good detail preservation and low noise levels". Without additional light sources white balance and color preservation in flash captures was good as well. On the downside, "strong ringing is visible, slight noise is noticeable in all conditions and some pictures show slight aliasing". 

In video mode the DxO team liked the "very high level of detail in bright light conditions, good exposure and color rendering, good tracking and good autofocus behavior". However, footage also showed a "visible loss of detail in lowlight condition" and "temporal luminance noise is visible on edge transitions". Testers also noted "jitter artifacts with indoor walking movement" and that the autofocus is "slightly slow at scene change detection in low light conditions".

Still Photography

Color, Exposure and Contrast

The DxOMark team found that the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ images showed "good exposure and dynamic range and very good white balance transition in bright light". Testers also noted "vivid, pleasant and realistic colors in all conditions". However, "in very bright scenes some highlights are clipped" and "very slight color shading is visible under low tungsten light".

Overall DxOMark awarded the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ scores of:

• 4.6 out of 5 for Exposure
• 4.7 out of 5 for White Balance accuracy
• 4.3 out of 5 for Color shading in low light*
• 4.5 out of 5 for Color shading in bright light*
• 3.0 out of 5 for Color Rendering in low light
• 4.5 out of 5 for Color Rendering in bright light

*Color Shading is the nasty habit cellphone cameras have of rendering different areas of the frame with different color shifts, resulting in pictures with, for example, pinkish centers and greenish corners.

Noise and Details

DxOMark's engineers reported that the Samsung Galaxy S6 edge+ images show "very good detail preservation in outdoor conditions" but there is also "some noise noticeable in all conditions".

Texture Acutance

Texture acutance is a way of measuring the ability of a camera to capture images that preserve fine details, particularly the kind of low contrast detail (such as fine foliage, hair or fur) that can be blurred away by noise reduction or obliterated by excessive sharpening.

Sharpness is an important part of the quality of an image, but while it's easy to look at an image and decide visually whether it's sharp or not, the objective measurement of sharpness is less straightforward.

An image can be defined as "sharp" if edges are sharp and if fine details are visible. In-camera processing means that it's possible to have one of these (sharp edges) but not the other (fine details). Conventional MTF measurements tell us how sharp an edge is, but have drawbacks when it comes to measuring fine detail preservation. Image processing algorithms can detect edges and enhance their sharpness, but they can also find homogeneous areas and smooth them out to reduce noise.

Texture acutance, on the other hand, can qualify sharpness in terms of preservation of fine details, without being fooled by edge enhancement algorithms.