Customer Reviews

Samsung Digimax S850 8.1MP Digital Camera with 5x Advance Shake Reduction Optical Zoom (Black)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I am pretty much a point and shooter but I have owned 3 other digital cameras (Fuji and Canon) before this one. My most recent one was Canon A75 so my review is pretty much based on my prior experience with these cameras.

Pros:
- Good image quality overall. Auto focus works well most of the time.

- the AF assist lamp and flash are powerful making low-light images come out very clear and, somehow, both the subject and background are balanced. I can see the background that is like 10 foot behind the subject clearly. Canon was very poor in this area. The Canon's AF lamp was very weak and almost useless. Canon's flash was also bad and pictures with flash often had subjects very bright but background dark.

- 5X and 8MP work as advertised.

Cons:
- battery life is not so good. I initially used a pair of old (but still good) 2300mAh Sony. It lasted only a few hours of testing. I probably took about 40-50 shots and 10 video clips. The video mode drained more battery and would report that the batteries were dead and shut down after a few seconds of taking video. The batteries however still had a lot of juice in it and I could still take a lot of pictures. I switched to a brand new pair of 2500mAh Energizers and the video mode then lasted a lot longer. So, make sure you get good batteries and bring spares with you.

- microphone strength is poor.

- when switched to video mode, it has a pre-zoom of 1.5X or so. This is bad because it forced me to have to step away from the subject (usually my children) and make the sound even weaker.

- performance is below average. Camera turns on quick enough. There is a noticeable shutter lag but still acceptable once you get used to it. However, flash charging time is very slow - about 3 secs or so.

- burst mode is useless because it's very slow. no difference than taking consecutive shots manually.

- ASR mode is slow. It takes 1 sec from press shutter to LCD black out to shutter sound play, then another 1.5 to 2 sec for post processing. I don't consider it useless as most other reviewers say. It works. I had some better pictures using ASR when the subjects are far and in shade or low light. In an indoor situation, it is better going with flash. Also, because of the shutter lag and slow shutter speed, ASR is not good with moving subjects (but I think Image Stabilizer in other manufacturers can't handle this either).

-The size is bigger than expected. "1 inch thick" is misleading. The slimest part of the camera is 1 inch! The side that you hold the camera is about 1.3 inch thick and beware that the len is thick. If you're concerned about the size, check out the 3D image at Samsung website first.

Goods and Bads for VIDEO mode:
- Now the MPEG4 feature, which is the feature that got me to buy this camera. Because of the compression advantage, I could use normal SD card (non-high-speed) to record highest resolution video fine. The video quality was somewhat a mixed feeling and I need to do furthur research on this. I used DivX Codec and Windows Media Player to play this, did not try the attached software. I didn't expect the media player to make a difference. The avi file was actually indicating it's Xvid but I wasn't able to use Xvid codec to play it for some reason. When played at its native resolution, the videos look OK. When enlarged to 2X or full screen, the compression artifects become very visible and the video look pretty bad i.e. moving subjects will have clear noise around the edges, low light videos will have noise all over. Sure I understand the fact that the quality is lower when I enlarge it. My point is the noise I get when I enlarge a M-JPEG video or a DivX movie is far less disturbing than what I get from this camera.
320x160 mode is useless as it's small and you always have to enlarge the video when viewed. 640x320 is acceptable when viewed at its native resolution.

- I tried to play some 640x320 files with my MPEG4-capable DVD player on my 21inch TV and the videos look decent enough. The fast moving subjects look a little jerky sometimes but not bad and the noise is much less noticeable.

- I found 20fps very useful for saving storage as the quality is good enough for slow moving subjects (most other cameras only support 15fps or 10fps for slow mode).

- Optical zoom works in video mode. Sound is mute only while the len is moving.

I am using this camera for 1 month, I have to say that it is bigger and heavier than it seems on the pictures. But when I use and learn more about, I definitely like it. You have full control on every setting with really impressive video recording quality. Good battery life and user friendly menus. The only defect I found is, if you zoom during recording a video, the sound fades away. One of my friend has NV10, and its same. I think this is related with the software of Samsung camera. Whatever, you got a nice camera for a good price.

I bought this camera mainly for its MPEG-4 movie capability. Because of it's performance in this area I am greatly disappointed. I've had other cheap cameras from the likes of Aiptek and they are more or less on par in video performance with this Samsung. Given that the Samsung costs twice as much I expected more, not DVD quality mind you but video that would be acceptable on youtube.com. What you wind up with is grainy, poorly compressed video with hardly any sound at all, even in the best lighting conditions. I did all my tests at 640x480 and at that resolution the video was complete crap. If this video was scaled down it looked better but that's a small consolation.

As a still camera its performance was much better. The 5x zoom is more than most inexpensive digital cameras, its autofocus was quite good, even the digital zoom worked acceptably well and the color quality was also pretty good. One thing you should disregard in considering this model is the anti-shake feature. As Samsung implemented it, it's nearly useless. Anti-shake is available only in one special mode and the camera takes forever to capture an image in this mode. In contrast, Canon has a similar feature that is available in most shooting modes and it doesn't affect the image capture time.

All in all, it's a decent budget still camera but nearly worthless for video (like most still cameras). At $200 I'd say your money would be better spent on a Canon digital camera.

I've had this camera for almost 3 days and I've been playing with it since. I have to say, if you are a bigging photographer this is not for you, or you will struggle with the features for a while. It's pretty heavy and maybe a little too good looking. No view finder! (not that you'd need one) The setting's wheel at the top is very nice. Sometimes you just wanna turn it around for pleasure. This camera has a whole lot of settings. You can pretty much do anything you wish with this camera: change aperture, shutter speed, etc. As I said, I haven't had this camera for long but so far, I love it very much. For those who previously owned or now own a digital camera, the zoom buttons are probably right and left right? This camera's zoom buttons is up and down. It takes some time to getting used to it.

This camera takes wonderful clear pictures. Especially with the advance shake reduction you can never miss a moment. This camera over all is a great product.

I bought this camera in 2008... was just starting out with photography at the time and the longer I've had it,the more features I've discovered.
I love this camera... The images come out clean and crisp. There are so many menus and options to tweak the camera and once you know how to use it, you'll get great pictures. It's a nice point and shoot that packs a slightly professional look with a very casual layout...
I agree with others that video is not the best but if you're NOT looking for a video camera... this is it... I highly recommend this product.

This is supposed to be a good camera but I have had very little success with this camera. The seller sent me a defective product.

The camera features and operation are great. The problem is that the lens sticks out from the body, so "slipping" it into your pocket is not an option. Besides the bulky shape, its a great camera.

I purchased this camera with a lot of research in all aspects, especially as this was my second digital camera. The result was the Samsung Digimax S850, and as a second camera I was not unhappy with the purchase, infact, a year on, I can honestly say that I made the best choice for me, and can recommend it if you want a no nonsense, easy to follow, excellent picture camera. I am no expert on cameras, but this one just does what you want and even though the battery life is short, I found that with lithium batteries, it lasts a good deal longer, and I am not constantly trying to find batteries, for that moment. I would recommend this camera, I like it so much that I bought one for my mum and she LOVES it.

Well, it took 3 weeks to receive because UPS lost it. Worked for about 4 days until it wouldn't turn on (the lense is stuck in the extended position) and started making a weird beeping noise. Before that, I had trouble getting it to set to the auto mode but that seemed to go away. The pictures weren't all that great but manually adjusting the aperture and shutter speed helped. This is not a very good point and shoot camera. In short, I would save the money this thing costs and buy something more expensive, which is what I am going to have to do anyway.

The good news is that the vendor, PC Universe, was very helpful in getting the product found and delivered to me. They actually answered their phones right away the several times I called them.