This Bad Photo Was Captured By Verizon Samsung Galaxy S5 Camera?

Rumors and speculations of Samsung’s next generation Galaxy S5 flagship Android smartphone are now at an all time high and now we may have just seen a photo that was reportedly taken using that device’s rear-facing camera. Unfortunately, however, it appears that the photo is very non-descript and does little to show us how good the camera sensor, optics, and resulting image quality are.

From the image posted by famed leaker @evleaks on Twitter, it looks like someone’s finger may have been placed over the camera lens when the image was captured. The image was posted to Flipboard, a social and news app that Samsung has been bundling with its recent phones, and @evleaks says that the full image resolution is 16 megapixels.

The photo EXIF file shows that the camera was from a device with a model number of SM-G900V, with the V suggesting that this is the Galaxy S5 variant that supports Verizon Wireless’ 4G LTE network in the U.S.

Given that the current Galaxy Note 3 and the Galaxy S4 both sport a 13-megapixel camera, a 16-megapixel camera on the Galaxy S5 would pack more resolution, which should allow the camera to retain more details from the resulting shot. However, megapixel count isn’t the only factor that makes for a good image, and often times it’s about the optics and software. It’s still unclear if the camera will have optical image stabilization, which would help the Galaxy S5 capture images under low light conditions without requiring the use of an artificial flash light.

As the image was captured in a wide screen 16:9 format, it’s unclear if the aspect ratio would result in the camera sensor being cropped. If this is the case, the overall camera could have an even higher megapixel count. For instance, on the Galaxy Note 3’s 13-megapixel camera, capturing images in a 16:9 aspect ratio would result in a maximum 9.6-megapixel resolution while the top resolution for a 4:3 crop would be 13-megapixel.

We’ll have to wait for Samsung to announce the device, which could come as early as February or March if prior rumors are accurate.