Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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182 of 186 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great little camera with some really neat features, June 22, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Length:: 9:10 Mins
If you are like me you prefer to see a camera in person and to hold it in your own hands before you purchase it. I made this video review hoping that it could serve as a "virtual" hands-on demo. I go through some of the Samsung's major features and even demonstrate a few in the field. I hope that this review helps you in your decision making process.
Lowerpro Ridge 30 Digital Camera Bag (Artic Blue)
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42 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Versatile Super-Zoom Digital Camera, May 29, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
PROS
HDMI connection terminal
In-camera cropping
In-camera trimming of video clips
10x optical zoom
Lightweight
Crisp viewing from LCD
CONS
No dedicated battery charger
Unusual placement of flash adjacent to grip
Short charging cable (2 feet)
Average sound quality for a camera but below average for someone looking for a camcorder
INTRODUCTION
I am a casual user who prefers size, convenience and function over versatility of SLR cameras. I have been using digital cameras since the 1.2 MP era in the late 1990s. My most recent camera prior to this model was the Panasonic Lumix TZ-5 with 9 MP and 10x optical zoom.
WHAT IS IN THE BOX?
Camera
User manual
AC adapter
Rechargeable battery
Audio Video Cable
Carrying Strap
CONSTRUCTION
The metallic body has a black matte finish with a grip on the right side. The grip is textured which decreases the chance of slipping from my hand. It is slightly heavier than my TZ-5 and really requires two handed operation to keep it steady.
On the top of the camera, there is a power button, speaker, zoom lever, and mode dial. The flash is on the same side as the grip which is something that you need to be congnisant of when using flash. In the bottom of the unit, there is a centrally placed tripod unit which is more stable than eccentric placement that I have had on other cameras. The Battery chamber holds the battery and memory card. The back of the camera has a nice vivid color screen, a multidirectional keypad, command lever, function/delete key, play button and effect button. On the right side of the unit a USB, AV and DC terminal are located towards the top.
The command lever allows for custom exposure control, ISO/white balance and Aperture/shutter speed.
The unit has 21 MB of internal memory and is guaranteed to work with up to 8 GB. The built in memory does not allow for more than 5 photos at the highest resolution.
OPERATION
Setup of the camera is easy and intuitive. You initially set up the camera by entering your language (English, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Italian) and the Time and date.
I set my command lever for white balance but you can also set it for exposure levels.
Operation of the camera includes full automatic mode, program mode, manual mode, Scene, beauty shot , movie and smart auto. There are a few scene modes including landscape, self shot, children, beach/snow, and fireworks, just to name a few. The mode is set by using the control dial at the top of the unit. What I like about this camera over my Panasonic Lumix TZ-5 is that the dial actually locks into place, as opposed to inadvertently switching me to another mode (big advantage in my opinion). Beauty shot mode allows you to clear facial imperfections (this is the first that I have experienced something like this).
This camera has good low light sensitivity with both video and photographs.
This camera uses an SDHC card up to 32 GB. With a 1 GB card, you can take 404 pictures at the highest resolution or 780 photos at 5 MP. At the highest quality movie, you can record 8 minutes 20 seconds at 1280 HQ, 30 Frames per second.
Battery life by the manufacturer is about 140 minutes for stills only and 125 minutes for movie mode, so I recommend a second battery for backup when travelling or taking videos of your child's rehearsal, for example. Unfortunately, this has no supplied battery charger, so you have to plug the camera into the wall.
The glossy LCD screen is comprehensive showing icons for remaining battery life, shots remaining on camera, metering, ISO, color saturation, date/time, flash status, zoom level, and histogram (there are other functions revealed but I mentioned what I feel are important). The quality of the images viewed on the LCD is vivid and crisp.
The camera can take 1.5 frames per second in high speed mode or one picture at a time, aside from the continuous and motion capture mode (6 shots per second for 5 seconds).
Image stabilization is good but there are times that I would still get motion blur.
There seems to be a long refractory time between photographs when flash is being used. Shutter lag is average to other point and shoot cameras that I have used.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Photographs are stored in JPEG, EXIF, DPOF. Color effects include normal, black and white, sepia, red, green, blue, negative and custom color.
Recharging time for the battery is about 5 seconds when freshly charged.
Viewing photos by normal display or thumbnails is intuitive. I like the ability to crop the photo within the camera - it's like having a built in photo-editor. You can also view photos by slide show, which I use to play back when we go on trips.
Shutter speed on automatic mode runs from 1/8 to 1/1,500, on program mode from 1 to 1/1,500, manual from 16 to 1/1,500. ISO equivalents are from 80 to 3200.
VIDEO
The video mode allows for zooming while filming. Zoom is smooth in transition.
Video is stored in MP4 (H.264(MPEG4.AVC). Audio is saved as a WAV file.
Video clips are set by determining your image size from 1280x720 HQ to640x480 to 320x240. Maximum recording time per clip is 29 minutes. Frame rate can be set based upon resolution. Videos can be recorded with or without sound.
Sound quality from the microphone is decent but not as sensitive as a conventional camcorder.
A nice feature of the movie playback is the ability to trim clips, if they are longer than 10 seconds. So in-camera processing is relatively painless.
PLAYBACK ON TELEVISION
Image size for playback includes 1080i, 720p, 480p, and 576p.
SOFTWARE
System recommendations for the USB support on Windows:
Pentium III 800 Mhz
Windows 2000/XP/Vista
Greater than 1 GB
MS Direct X 9.0 C
The recommendations for USB support on Mac:
Power Mac G3 or later
Mac OS 10.3 or later
110 MB hard drive space
>512 MB RAM
The software is rudimentary allowing for photo organization, inserting text, effects, narrations, and music files to a movie clip. It is not quite a full featured program like iMovie on my Mac.
CONCLUSION
Overall, this is a powerful camera for its relatively compact size. Its limitations for video include low sensitivity for the microphone and just an average shutter lag.
Highly recommend for an all purpose camera and casual videography.
UPDATE June 13, 2009
I was at the beach last weekend and I took a picture of the clouds. With the 12 Megapixel resolution, I was able to zoom into the picture and see very good detail of people (who were in the distance). So even though you probably would not print a 30x40" picture, you can zoom in and crop small details of your photograph. I have also found that using the in-camera crop feature, that I can edit out 'bystanders' in photos without having to resort to Photoshop Elements.
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49 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A mediocre camera, and beware the megapixel hype!, June 16, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
For those starting out looking for a point-and-shoot camera that's a jack of all trades, here's, at the time of writing, the latest effort by Samsung. One of its biggest selling points is also something buyers should be wary of: More megapixels does NOT necessarily mean better image quality. There's a reason why a Nikon D300 has 12MP and costs the better part of two thousand dollars, while this 12MP camera only costs around three hundred dollars... The sensor on a proper Digital SLR can resolve a great deal more detail than this Samsung could ever hope to achieve.
With that out of the way, let's see how well this camera does.
Build quality:
The camera's build quality is decent, though by no means perfect. It feels a little too plasticky to weigh so much, and if you dropped it from any handheld height, chances are it's dead. Plain and simple. Get a case. Overall, it's nothing special in terms of build, but for its class, it's acceptable. There is a noticeable rattle from the lens area when you point the camera up or down, but again, this is probably just the design.
Usability:
This is where the camera loses points. I think the menu system is hopeless. Nothing is particularly intuitive. The one area where the camera excels, though, is in its wheel on the top of the camera. When you turn it, it shows an image on the 3" LCD of the wheel's position, and what the position means. Very nice. However, it's just not very easy to enter into the menus. Do you hit the Menu button of the Function button? Do you use the 4-way button or the little micro-adjust black buttons to make the changes? Do you hit Enter to select something, or do you hit the right-directional button to go into the menu? Too muddled.
I consider myself quite technically savvy, but the menu system on this camera just plain frustrated me. Definitely do not buy this for your aging father/mother.
And other problems:
1.) Samsung advertises this camera has having HDMI, but you're going to need to buy the less common mini-HDMI to full-size HDMI cable to take advantage.
2.) For those with big hands, your index finger might cover the poorly-placed flash...
3.) No separate charger included, so you have to charge the battery in the camera. Madness.
4.) You can quite easily hear the zoom mechanism when playing back video where you were changing the focal length.
5.) The "crop" feature for editing photos in-camera should offer the option of keeping the original file. Once you've cropped an image in the camera, that's it. The original is gone forever.
LCD Screen:
The LCD on this unit is quite nice. Nothing special, though, and since the resolution isn't great on it, there's a tendency to lose details, especially on distant objects. Also, Samsung touts this LCD as being tremendous, even in direct sunlight. Well, I can tell you that either the Samsung marketing team are smoking something, or I have a defective camera! In direct sunlight, like most (if not all) LCD screens, details are lost, and the whole display washes out. It's definitely usable outside, but don't expect anything Samsung boasts.
Image quality:
This is, realistically, where the camera must excel. Unfortunately, it does not. Again, Samsung has put a 12 megapixel sensor into this camera, and honestly, it's one big waste of time. The sensor in this camera simply CANNOT resolve the details. In fact, at the 12mp size (4000x3000), the image is truly appalling, with so much compression to make your eyes bleed; it's simply embarrassing. So you're left with a 12mp camera which isn't even close to taking advantage of the resolution. I was actually taken aback by how poorly the camera fared: For comparison, my Canon SD700 (6mp) and my Canon SD1100 (8mp) took far less compressed images of the EXACT SAME objects.
Yes, you read that correctly: My 6 megapixel and 8 megapixel point-and-shoot cameras take cleaner pictures than Samsung's latest 12 megapixel shooter.
However, there's more to it than just that, and some of these features my Canons don't have..
1.) Manual focus mode. This works great for the macro work, allowing you to micro-manage exactly where you want to focus. This works really well I found.
2.) "Superior" face detection. A nice feature, in theory, is that the Samsung can take a picture automatically when it detects a smile (not just the face!). The theory behind this is that you set up the camera, perhaps on a tripod, and then you can get into the picture, without the use of a timer. Then you all smile, and WHAM! The camera takes the shot! OR, for example, you don't have to be so quick on the draw to take the picture when your grumpy son/daughter/wife/mistress etc actually does crack a smile - the camera does it for you. Unfortunately for all of us, this feature needs work. I tested it on my wife, and, well... She had to be grinning like Heath Ledger's Joker character for the camera to take the shot. Not particularly fool proof then...
3.) ISO picture quality isn't bad actually. The noise isn't awful until around ISO 800, as expected. Again, if you want to print full 12mp images, FORGET THIS CAMERA. You won't be doing that at ANY ISO level. For smaller shots, in the realms of 4-6mp, this camera performs OK up to ISO 400-800. Interestingly, at ISO 3200 (unusable), the camera limits your image-taking to 3mp! You can not take 12mp ISO 3200 shots! Why? Because Samsung is probably embarrassed by the atrocious quality even in 3mp mode, and in 12mp any buyers might have a heart attack! Honestly, I've no idea why this camera even included ISO 3200...
4.) 720p movie mode is decent. Nothing fantastic, but it works. Heck, it works a bit better than picture mode, because at least you don't get the chance to be appalled by the compression!
5.) The overall lens quality is fairly decent, covering a wide range of focal lengths. Unfortunately, there's quite a bit of barrel distortion at the wide end. For those not camera-minded, this means keep any straight objects away from the edges of your image, because they will be slightly curvy at the widest focal length (24mm).
Overall:
This camera really does nothing particularly well. From a frustrating menu system to sub-par image quality with long processing delays after each shot before you can take the next one (due to the 12mp image size). It's pretty sad when you can look at a point-and-shoot camera and the best thing you can say about it is that its video capabilities are decent...
2/5
For your information, my pictures and video were manipulated using the following software/hardware:
MacBook Pro unibody 17" connected to calibrated Apple Cinema Display 24"
OS X 10.5.7, using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 (for pictures) and Final Cut Studio (for movies).
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