Summary
The main camera on the Blu Studio 5.0 II is passable. It’ll get the job done in daylight, but don’t expect anything near top tier smartphones. The secondary camera is low resolution, more of a web cam than a selfie cam.
Rear Camera
The 5.0 MP rear camera is a bit fiddly at times and has a slight purple hue, however the images it makes can be quite acceptable. Modes like HDR and Panorama often work better than my point and shoot camera. Unfortunately the image quality is has disappears in low light.
The phone is fast to take an image, but sometimes it is out of focus. The solution to that is using tap to focus before taking the image. Most of the time this works fine.
Unfortunately, being a slow lens, this phone camera requires steady hands on darker days. This pretty much requires a professional’s touch to get clear images and unfortunately makes the camera appear to perform better in lab testing than it does in the real world. Do note that for my examples I took the clearer images I have shot with this camera phone, and in reality the images I get are about 50/50 usable.
In reality this camera phone is capable of some pretty great images, so long as the lighting conditions are bright. But outside of that they quickly lose detail to noise reduction.
Front Camera
The front camera is bloody awful. Let this sample speak for itself.
Video Quality
The video from this camera is OK for standard definition video. It lacks detail and has the same purple hue as the photos. Motion becomes blurry but it doesn’t suffer from compression blocks. It isn’t something I’d go out of the way to use all the time, but it is acceptable for casual use.
Conclusion
This is a burner phone, through and through. This is the kind of phone that will just barely get you by while your main device is being repaired. The camera is fine for social media posts during the day, but at night it degrades fast. The front camera is even worse. Read the full phone review here.