Samsung HZ Series HZ25W Digital Point & Shoot Camera, 12.47 Megapixel, 24x Optical Zoom, 3.0" LCD Screen, Black

by Samsung

Product Details

• Item Weight: 2 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 8 pounds
• ASIN: B002UPTJVE
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 28, 2009

Product Description

The Samsung HZ25W combines the compact size of a Point & Shoot camera with an extremely long zoom range. You can photograph interiors and large groups when the lens is in the 26mm wide-angle position. Then capture sports, wildlife, or other subjects in the distance when the lens is zoomed to the remarkable 624mm telephoto. You can even use the zoom when shooting HD video.The camera has other features normally found on larger and more expensive DSLR cameras. Besides shooting in auto mode, you have complete manual control over the camera. The camera also shoots RAW files, so your control continues after you push the shutter release. Other advanced features include Dual Image Stabilization, high ISO of 6400, Scene Recognition and Smart Album making this sleek, stylish camera a pleasure to use.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Camera Overall (better than the P90), December 9, 2009

By 

C. Georgandis (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Samsung HZ Series HZ25W Digital Point & Shoot Camera, 12.47 Megapixel, 24x Optical Zoom, 3.0" LCD Screen, Black (Electronics)

I'm excited to be the first person to review this camera. I've had it for a few days, and I've taken hundreds of photos to test it out. I'm extremely impressed so far. The quality of the photos is astonishing. They are so crisp and clear that sometimes I'm shocked that it was me who took the picture. I'm a purely recreational photographer so I was looking for a basic point and shoot camera, and I wanted the extra zoom. When you enter the 20X zoom range, there are only a few camera choices. Only a couple offer 24X zoom, most use AA batteries (I prefer rechargeable), and only a couple use an SD card. I immediately went for a Nikon P90, and returned it the next day. The photos were all grainy. Out of 20 photos, maybe one would come out well. This is the complete opposite. No grain to speak of, and out of 20 photos only 1 might turn out poorly. Taking photos in low light conditions is literally impossible on the P90, but this manages to do pretty well. I'll update again if my opinion changes, but between this and the P90, you're better off with this. Hands down.

Pros: -It's lightweight.
-Feels comfortable in my hands.
-Rechargeable lithium battery.
-24X zoom
-Crisp photos
-Easy to use scroll wheel for playback of photos
-Beautiful 3 inch screen

Cons: -The sound of the autofocus. It's surprisingly loud, and you can constantly feel it. But it's not really a big deal.
-If you don't know much about cameras, you'll need to read the manual to decipher all the icons on the screen.
-Amazon doesn't carry this themselves.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars My Review - Finally Samsung HZ25W, January 23, 2010

By 

Rex Biggers (Utah, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Samsung HZ Series HZ25W Digital Point & Shoot Camera, 12.47 Megapixel, 24x Optical Zoom, 3.0" LCD Screen, Black (Electronics)

Well, I think I'm finally ready to review this camera. I am familiar with most of it's settings and capabilities as well as shortcomings.

Overall, it is a bargain for the price, I picked mine up for $322, but have since seen it listed as low as $299. First, let's talk about the strengths. Zoom yes, super-zoom. I took a pic of the moon at 24x full zoom during the day and the craters even showed up. Anyway, on to the many features...

Basically, you have 10 different modes which are accessible by twisting the circular knob on top of the camera. These modes are: manual, user 1, user 2, night time, portrait, scene, movie, smart auto, program, and aperture shutter priority. Quick run down on each of these...

Manual allows you to adjust white balance (daylight, cloudy, fluorescent H, fluorescent_L, measure shutter, and K -which manually set color temp to match hue of specific light source), additional white balance fine tuning, ISO 64-3200, 6 face detection modes, Photo size settings ranging from 12-1Mb, 4 RAW modes, and 3 jpg modes, d-range exposure settings, 3 metering settings, AEB area adjustment, 4 focus modes, 4 flash brightness settings, 7 photo "style" selections (ex. "retro" which is sepia, "classic" which is black and white, "custom" -meaning you adjust the colors, etc.), seperate contrast/sharpness/saturation controls, 4 image stabilization modes (dual stabilization is disabled in RAW), 4 "keymapping" modes, 3 voice modes, save for user 1 or 2.

Anyway, those are the main things you have control over, in general, less of these options can be set in some of the other modes since they are pre-programmed or auto-calculated by the camera.

One feature I like is the ability to manually re-adjust the exposure level by a great degree in the user 1 & 2 modes. I also like the ultra-macro mode for really close-up micro-work. Manual focus is another option. A fews limitations are that in RAW mode some of the above mentioned adjustments are disabled. I find the menus to be very intuitive, it's easier to learn than my cell phone,lol.

Let's talk about video capability for a moment. The actual image quality of the film is good, but the zoom makes some noise, even though you do have the option of the muted zoom setting. The camera works ok in low light but not great, low-light videos are not as sharp.

Another shortcoming, as others have mentioned, you can't really use the 3200 ISO. Instead, you'll need to limit yourself to ISO 400 for good picture quality. Buy two lithium batteries, the camera does use up quite a bit of juice on the bright screen setting. I also recommend at least an 8Gb card for about $20 or so if you are shooting video. I shot a 7 minute mpg4 video at the highest screen resolution setting and it ate up 466Mb. Don't use the smart auto mode, I find it isn't so smart. Note, the lens distortion control seems to be grayed-out for manual mode.

One other note, there is a glamor shot mode that will smooth out skin in facial shots (haven't tried that one yet since I use Photoshop). One final item, I had zero problems reading the RAW format in Photoshop CS4. There is even a RAW file converter program that comes with the HZ25W, but again, I have not used it since Photoshop accepts the format just fine.

Handheld, overhead shot of the moon at 24x zoom, lightly edited in Photoshop: [...]

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding zoom, December 31, 2009

By 

Jaymis (Eastern USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Samsung HZ Series HZ25W Digital Point & Shoot Camera, 12.47 Megapixel, 24x Optical Zoom, 3.0" LCD Screen, Black (Electronics)

Understanding how zoom ratios are determined on digital cameras, I would like to correct the individual that rated this camera as two stars, mainly because of his error on how he interprets zoom ratio. To begin with, the zoom of this digital camera or any other digital camera that advertises "optical" zoom is probably quite correct with the manufactures specs. The reviewer implied that to obtain 24X with the Samsung (or Nikon p-90 on any optical zoom) it would have to be "digital" zoom, which is not true. Optical zoom rates for digital cameras are based on what it would be when compared to a 35mm camera with the same lens. The Schneider-Kreuznach Lens f = 4.6 ~ 110.4mm is indeed printed on the Samsung lens, however, the zoom ratio is 624mm(35mm film equivalent : 26mm~624mm), 24X Zoom. If you look at the Nikon P-90 lens, you'll notice the same thing. This is the optical rate one needs to look at not the "digital" zoom rate. If you added the digital zoom rate, it would then be five to 12 times higher than the max (24X) optical zoom rate, depending on the image but then you lose considerable resolution when using it (I think digital zoom is worthless feature). Digital zoom is similar to zooming in on an image in software like Photoshop. The higher you zoom the more resolution you lose, not so with optical (sharpness and clairty does vary from manufactureres when fully zoomed out). Camera sensor size also plays a huge part in determining "optical" zoom ratio. For example, on a 8mp Canon 20D I believe the zoom factor for a lens is 1.6 of that to a 35mm equivalent however the cmos sensor is larger.