Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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: [...]

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.

Unbelievable camera for the price. The dual image stabilization allows for rock steady photos, even at full zoom. I just took a photo of the moon in broad daylight at 24X zoom without a tripod, and it came out perfect! The camera is easy to use and takes flawless photos in any light. I love this camera!

I've been doing research for ages wondering which camera I will like and be happy with.

I am a 3d artist so that means I need to take outstanding pictures of texture such as wood or metal. And I'm also a VFX artist shooting in motion is a must.

So that ruled out the DSLR's I was actually pretty disappointed that I would have to move on to a digital. But then I came across the Samsung 25w.... to make it short I wish there was a 6 star function.

Shooting with this rivals some DSLRs. You can manually select everything. The lens will go to f/8 with outstanding quality. And shooting in RAW makes it all the better. Samsung includes there bit of software for the raw but I just use Photoshop.

The 720p HD shooting is HUGE plus. Grab at least a 4gig card if you plan on shooting motion all the time. The sound is decent as well.

Really I have zero issues with this camera. It looks good. It looks professional. It shoots with amazing quality. I was so anxious I picked up a refurb one for 240$.

You will not regret this buy.

Okay, I have only had the camera for a day. So far, I love it.

The flash on it is amazing. I took a picture in my living room in complete darkness, and it looks great. The "Smart Auto" mode is amazing. Every picture I took using Smart Auto mode looked fantastic. I am a novice camera user, but my pictures and movies still came out great.

The camera comes with a lens cap, tether, neck strap, power/USB and AV cable. I purchaed an 8 gig, class 6 memory card for storage. I have also ordered a third party battery charger and extra battery on Ebay for $13.

I will post more to this review after I use the camera for a few weeks, but so far, it's a keeper.

I purchased my HZ25W through Amazon, and it is an amazing camera by any standard.

DON'T BUY THIS CAMERA, BECAUSE IT HAS A BIG PROBLEM:

The camera came bundled with Samsung Master - a video editing software product.

However, that software cannot recognize the files produced by the HZ25W camera: When you shoot in the HDTV resolution (1,280 X 720) this camera's output are files in the MPEG-4 format, and guess what - Samsung Master video editing software doesn't recognize this format!

I would have never expected a world-class company such as Samsung to goof like this.

Furthermore, I contacted Samsung's online support service, and asked to be directed somewhere where I could download some software product that does support the MPEG-4 format.

Samsung emailed me back, telling me I could use Windows Movie Maker to edit those MPEG-4 files, and that all Windows OS came with that software.

The problem with their answer is that it's flat wrong: Windows Movie Maker does not recognize MPEG-4, and therefore cannot edit them.

Again, I was surprised to get such a low-quality response from Samsung.

Overall this camera is impressive, great picture quality, ease of use and full featured. Only cons I've found so far are:

- Battery duration (specially in smart mode since it's continuosly focusing, use P mode instead)

- The AE lock and +/- buttons lose their imprints very easily

Other than that you get excelent zoom, quick response (for this type of camera), lot's of settings and a SLR like effect with the viewfinder, this is great for shooting in bright light.

Another great feature is to switch from picture taking to start movie recording with a single button press.

Overall, an excelent camera.

The Samsung HZ25W 12.5MP Digital Camera w/24x Optical Zoom ....

My husband purchased this camera for my birthday to replace a Fuji FinePix S5100 I had for years. I wanted to upgrade to more pixels and I was looking at cameras with long zoom range.

Before the Fuji he had purchased a Samsung 2 megapixal camera and for that time it was a great camera took superb clear crisp clean colored pictures. So on that we placed our trust in another Samsung camera.

Perhaps we should have paid more attention to the other Samsung products we recently purchased that turned out to be very poor quality products such as a blu-ray player that is now dead after one years use. And a washer and dryer we are replacing. Samsung what happened to you!? Our mistake won't happen again.

When I opened the box I was thrilled. Loved the features, until after we could not get any good picture results. My 4 mega pixel 10x optical zoom Fuji was far better on every level.

On top of that and the most important reason for returning the camera was that our 2 year old grandson after the very first picture was taken of him would scream `no no picture' and bury his face either in his hands or any thing near by and it would be even worse if the flash was on. I have several pictures like this. We were unable to get any good shots of him or his little friends.

It was the blinding sensor button. Even adults complained of the light.

This did not happen with the fugi or my daughters point and shoot cameras such as the Panasonic lumix. Or our friends Kodak.

Highly disappointed in Samsung.

Only good thing I can say about this camera is I loved the features and ease of use, that's why the one star rating, otherwise I'd give it a zero. What good is it with poor picture quality especially in low light conditions and if everyone you want to take a picture of hides their face because the cameras sensor light hurts their eyes!

We just received the RA# and camera was sent back for a refund. Worried now about sensor lights on other cameras of this style. So much for so called improved technology.

Good features with many user options. The screen is nice as well. The video is not too bad (for a point and shoot), oh and battery life is decent. I can't think of many other positives for this thing. A camera like (in this price range), should take decent photos. It produces subpar images. My old 6MP Panasonic takes much better photos (in all conditions) compared to the Samsung. I tried all lighting conditions, and the camera excelled at none. Low light is ridiculous-don't try it. Any indoor shots are amazingly poor for that matter. Outside overcast = passable. Outside sunny = less than passable. Noise is prevalent in EVERY shot, no matter what iso you are using. I understand smaller cameras = smaller sensors = more noise, but come on. Also, no matter what light you have or where you are shooting, the camera insists on popping up the flash. Ughhhh.

If you are use to an SLR and are considering a smaller, walkabout camera, I think you will be disappointed. There are much better "image quality" cameras available for less money. Mine was returned.