Christmas is almost here! Wow! And I thought November is too early to start decorating for Christmas. I meant to do a Christmas home tour but thanks to this thing called “where did time go” that I haven’t been able to get to primp up my bedroom at all. I have a window of about 20 minutes in the morning to show you what’s happening in Trumatter’s insignificant life, and setting up the DSLR with tripod takes away of about 10 from those precious two o. Then there is setting it, focusing it, keeping the hand still if no tripod: At the brink of 30, with several slave like responsbilities on my bones I really thought I could use something less bulky for everyday shoot. When ASUS India sent this phone over, I thought I’d give it a try…see if it could be my next trustworthy.
Not many appreciate the power of a good phone camera when it comes to photography but I do. Yes, I am a DSLR fan because it gives you the opportunity to emulate your actual vision into photos but sometimes it helps when your gadget is light, handy, super fast and comes with manual adjusting feature as in the DSLR in a compact and intuitive interface. I am not a tech-girl {and by that I actually hint on I am rubbish when it comes to technology or all of that jazz} but I am a photographer. And I know my photo tools like I know how to cook rice. Believe me when I tell you the Asus Zenfone Laser 2 packs some cool photo aids for a phone of its segment. It’s 13k man!
Say hi to Oreo, the stuffed dog and the only form on dog allowed in this apartment.
Coming back, the Asus Zenfone Laser 2 comes with 18 pre-installed-photo & video modes that help you choose from auto to manual, super resolution for extreme closeups, city and buildings, beautification for portraits, lowlight, panorama, gif, timelapse, time rewind and of course depth of field: Not many phones incorporate this and this is extremely helpful in shooting closeups. Depth of Field feature lets you shoot close objects and blur the background for maximum visual impact. You can increase and decrease the depth of field with an easy swipe scale. IMHO- neat!
And it’s all very simple! You don’t need to really read the manual to figure things out. You open a filter, you mess around with the setting and there you have it! Everything on display! If you’d want to click a subject in bright light- simply touch the screen where you want the focus to be and the camera adjusts light itself. So basically, if you want to click a face against light- which often becomes a silhoutte- you don’t have to put on the flash for negating that. Just touch the point where you want the photo to focus and it will adjust the light to make the subject brighter. BUT, this do not balance the light out. Makes the bright area a bit brighter.
Another fab feature of the Asus Zenfone Laser 2 is its ZERO SHUTTER LAG!!! Which means you can click your running rabbit or a butterfly without making them look like blurred lines! Moreover, the setting option in autofocus gives you a great range of features to choose from: 2 MP to 13 MP camera, with choices in saturation, exposure, shake control, metering mode, focus mode and optimization controls.
The company claims that its 2 times faster than traditional contrast focus or as fast as 0.2 seconds. I am not claiming this but its pretty darn fast.
Talking of simplicity, it’s manual mode is as simple to use as its autofocus mode and it’s all out there on the display. Choose your filter, start shooting.
With 5 important functions covered: Focus adjustment (a ring feature but on a flat screen), white balance, ISO (50 – 800), f-speed (ranging 1/2 to 1/1000) and exposure (-2 – +2) on display, the manual mode lets you take pretty sharp pictures. Unlike a DSLR, this lets you modify everything on screen while shooting. You will also find a balance control (left and right of the focus ring on display) which tells you whether your photo is straight or tilted. This photo is clicked in manual mode, 1/30 shutter speed, ISO 200.
And this sharp baby owes its fabulousness to the Depth of Field mode which lets you shoot subjects with precision. Seriously! If I didn’t tell you, you wouldn’t believe this is a photo from a phone which is not an iPhone and is about 1/3rd of its price.
I am yet to check out the rest of the features (oh wait- I am on a sabbatical from work till the end of January so hopefully all of that will happen) and hopefully will be able to show you the outputs but for now I am super happy with the photo features Asus Zenfone Laser 2 has to offer. Thank you guys for sending the phone over. You have been very kind to this blogger. Indeed, a Merry Christmas!