The camera is the first thing I look when I plan to buy a new phone, I love photography and I was really excited the first time I've read about the Xperia XZ camera, but after some further inspection, I actually was disappointed with it. I want to talk more about the Xperia XZ sensor, but I also going to spread some more detailed information about the its video capabilities as well, just to give you a more better overview of how the use of this sensor and other technologies implemented in this camera influence the overall performance of the XZ camera as a whole.

The Xperia XZ utilizes various Sony technologies but it's all start with the custom-made Sony IMX300, a 25MP 1/2.3" Exmor RS that was initially released in September 2015. There was a debate between users who didn't like Sony choosing the IMX300 and not going with the 12.3MP sensor which suppose to offer much better low-light capabilities, but it seems that the IMX300 which is also a newer sensor, will give much more detailed image when shooting in ideal lighting conditions, which I think Sony preferred this to make the XZ stand apart from the rest. This is the same sensor used in the Xperia Z5 and the Z5 compact, which was exclusive those this phone until the XZ arrived. That being said, as you'll soon see, even such a relatively large-sensor, can't really perform well with such a huge resolution, which in my opinion should reside on a full frame sensor, not a tiny mobile phone sensor.

This sensor features 1.1-micron pixels, which is obviously relatively very small pixels compared to many phones out there. You can get good results up to areound ISO 1250, but from that point on images will not look as sharp and appear blurry and soft and I personally recommend shooting below ISO 400. Even at ISO 400, when you look at the image at 100% scale, image details looks smudgy due to the heavy noise reduction image processing, but when scaled down it still looks very good and you barely notice this artifacts. At ISO 1250 you can still get a good small scaled image, but there is a great lose of fine details in the image as you can see in this image (ISO1250, 1/16 sec) shot by dpreview.

The good thing about the Xperia XZ is that it allows you to use very high ISO sensitivity levels up to ISO 12800 if you don't mind sharing the image in lower resolution later on. Second, the camera packs some really good features that will make it less needed for you to shoot at very high ISO sensitivities, including a fast f/2.0 aperture lens, ability to manually adjust the shutter speed (in case you put the phone on a stable surface to capture an image) - but the Xperia XZ lacks an optical image stabilization. The camera does feature a 5-axis electronic video stabilization, but it's for videos not for stills. An optical image stabilization could really help in low-light, as you could have capture images with slower shutter speeds which wouldn't require you to use very high ISO settings, or even with a high ISO, you could have captured images at even more restricted lighting conditions.

The Sony Xperia XZ also sports a Predictive Hybrid Autofocus technology which predicts a particular object moving direction and try to keep it in focus. The camera still uses on-sensor phase-detection autofocus technology, but the the use of a Motion prediction engine plus the hardware object tracking technologies should improve the AF performance. This is the same technology used in the Sony Xperia X. It's like a having a face-detection tracking but instead of Faces, it's tailored towards moving objects in general. He is a video by ePrice HK that demonstrates this feature on the Xperia X.

The image quality is very good in general when shooting in daylight, but I was disappointed to see noise and image articts even in ISO 40 images, which is definitely due to the small pixels of this sensor. No sensor can beat physics, and this is one reason why I am very disappointed that Sony has chosen to go with this sensor. Some say that Sony just wanted to keep its better sensor for its higher-end devices, and in 2017 I assume that its flagship and high-end smartphone will feature a sensor which much lower resolution.

Noise aside, the Sony Xperia XZ produces beautiful looking images with amazing color and contrast. The XZ produces vivid but natural looking images. It just make you wonder how this sensor would have performed with a 12MP resolution? If you intend to just share your images on the web like on Facebook and Twitter, it really doesn't matter and you'll love the image quality at reduced resolution. I'm just a pixel peeper and slightly tend to over analyze images and hate seeing noise in images. I am used to shoot with a DSLR camera, that's why :)

As an enthusiast photographer, I was very disappointed to see that there is no Raw image format support. I'm sure it far from being an issue for most people, but for people like me it's a very important feature and when I search for a phone, I search for a phone that can shoot in Raw format.

The Sony Xperia XZ can shoot at 4K UHD resolution the video quality is very good with great color, sharp and with good contrast.and the video stabilization works amazingly well - check out this video by XperiaTips guy that compared the stabilization of the Xperia XZ vs the Samsung Galaxy S7 one, and you can see that the Xperia XZ produces much more stabilized videos due to its 5-axis electronic stabilization. I did find the white balance to be inconsistent compared to other phones like the Apple iPhone 7.

So overall, the Sony XZ camera produces good results, but if you love to shoot stills and care about image quality, I would stay away from this phone. The video quality is very good and the video stabilization works amazingly well, but I'm sure that for many people the image noise at low ISO might break the whole deal apart and they would prefer getting another phone instead.

DxOMark tested the Sony Xperia XZ and gave it an overall score of 87, which positions the Xperia XZ at the third place as for 1/1/2017, alongside the Moto Z Force Droid, Samsung Galaxy S7 edge plus and Sony Xperia Z5, but below the Google Pixel (1st place), HTC 10, Samsung Galaxy S7 and Sony Xperia X Performance. DxOMark test also showed high amount of noise in stills but I tend to disagree with the detail preservation in low-light, which in my observation, it wasn't that good even at base ISO and in optimal lighting conditions.

Above all that, you can also shoot with it in the rain due to its water resistant build. So a good camera that can produce marvelous still shots when shooting in proper lighting conditions and when you resize the image, but for everyone who really care about image quality, I wouldn't recommend it if you intend to shoot in low-light situations and to be completely honest I am really disappointed to see so much noise and heavy processing in low ISO images.

So although the camera as its pros and cons, I wouldn't recommend this phone for photography enthusiasts who care about image quality and want a good low-light performance.