Samsung Digital Camera... .

Marty_J

David333 wrote: »

Mmm...I see... . To be honest I'm beginning to understand that the Canon is a better camera in terms of specification: it just looks quite clunky, quite bulky for carrying away with me; compared to the cool, sleek Samsung anyway. That's a really vain reason for choosing a camera isn't it...?

It's not vain; the Canon won't do you much good if you leave it at home because you can't be bothered carrying it around with you.

The Canon isn't huge, though it is about twice as thick as the Samsung.

Marty_J

David333 wrote: »

"But let's have a nice round of applause for the simple combination AC adapter/charger Samsung has included. It plugs into the wall and sends AC power to the Samsung L210 via the included USB cable to power the camera directly or just charge the battery. You don't even have to use the adapter: the Samsung L210 will charge from most any computer's standard USB port" ;-)

Well that's good news for you. :cool:

David333

grahawk wrote: »

Quite possibly but not necessarily - it all depends on the camera. The best pictures I've seen from a digital compact were from a 5.1 megapixel camera.

Here's a site that shows a 6 megapixel camera outshining higher megapixel cameras - the "sensitivity" pictures are particularly impressive.

http://6mpixel.org/en/?page_id=8

And yes the Canon is a bit bulky.

The differences are quite large aren't they? I assume some of that will be due to the lens as well though...

David333

"The L210 does redeem itself somewhat when it comes to picture quality. The lens is especially good, producing very little distortion at any focal length, with very good sharpness across most of the frame. There is a little blurring and slight chromatic aberration in the extreme corners, but not enough to cause concern. Dynamic range and colour rendition could be slightly better, with some badly burned out highlights despite the Auto Contrast Balance function, while very bright reds and yellows also lack detail. Despite these limitations the L210 produces good results under average conditions, and the very low compression at the highest quality setting produces almost no JPEG artefacts.

Noise control is also better than average, at least up to 200 ISO. Beyond that the noise reduction system gets a bit over-enthusiastic and starts smearing colours into each other, although there is still a fair amount of detail at 400 ISO."

I'm not too sure what this means. The first paragraph seems quite positive, the second equally so as long as I don't start going beyond 200 ISO :-s

£$&*"($£&(

This slim camera is available from the Comet site for £99. Looks quite good.

http://www.digicamreview.com/panasonic_lumix_dmc_fx30_review.htm

£$&*"($£&(

David333 wrote: »

"The L210 does redeem itself somewhat when it comes to picture quality. The lens is especially good, producing very little distortion at any focal length, with very good sharpness across most of the frame. There is a little blurring and slight chromatic aberration in the extreme corners, but not enough to cause concern. Dynamic range and colour rendition could be slightly better, with some badly burned out highlights despite the Auto Contrast Balance function, while very bright reds and yellows also lack detail. Despite these limitations the L210 produces good results under average conditions, and the very low compression at the highest quality setting produces almost no JPEG artefacts.

Noise control is also better than average, at least up to 200 ISO. Beyond that the noise reduction system gets a bit over-enthusiastic and starts smearing colours into each other, although there is still a fair amount of detail at 400 ISO."

I'm not too sure what this means. The first paragraph seems quite positive, the second equally so as long as I don't start going beyond 200 ISO :-s

It means in good light when the ISO will be set below 200 it's fine but in low light it's not so good - this is true of most cameras and the extent varies. I've seem many worse reviews.

On another review it says:

"We simply couldn’t get over how strongly sharpened the shots were. Edges were far too crisp, with noticeable sharpening artefacts. In our standardised Imatest testing the L201 received the highest over-sharpening score we’ve ever seen. Even turning in-camera sharpening to the lowest setting didn’t alleviate the issue much; it did lower the over-sharpening score but it was still far higher than it should be. As with many camera issues this will probably not affect novice users making standard 4x6in prints but it becomes extremely prominent at larger print sizes."

Can't say I know what this would look like.

David333

grahawk wrote: »

This slim camera is available from the Comet site for £99. Looks quite good.

http://www.digicamreview.com/panasonic_lumix_dmc_fx30_review.htm

I appreciate the link. It's slightly out of my budget unfortunately (I know I said less than £100 but I was hoping more for around the £75 mark). Thanks again though!

£$&*"($£&(

After reading the reviews and considering slim is best for you I think the Samsung would be fine. The basket I saw in Tesco was stuffed full of them.

David333

grahawk wrote: »

It means in good light when the ISO will be set below 200 it's fine but in low light it's not so good - this is true of most cameras and the extent varies. I've seem many worse reviews.

On another review it says:

"We simply couldn’t get over how strongly sharpened the shots were. Edges were far too crisp, with noticeable sharpening artefacts. In our standardised Imatest testing the L201 received the highest over-sharpening score we’ve ever seen. Even turning in-camera sharpening to the lowest setting didn’t alleviate the issue much; it did lower the over-sharpening score but it was still far higher than it should be. As with many camera issues this will probably not affect novice users making standard 4x6in prints but it becomes extremely prominent at larger print sizes."

Can't say I know what this would look like.

I'm still quite tempted by the Samsung (a little because it looks good, a little because it can be charged by USB, a little because it seems to be reduced quite significantly on the ebuyer site) and to be honest would only be using it to take pictures to put on facebook and the like. I doubt I'll be printing off large A4 images anyway... .

£75 is a lot of money though and I didn't want to be stuck with a camera which generates photos which aren't worth the money, if that makes sense... .

Marty_J

I think the Samsung would be fine for you. I'd go for the Canon myself, but I'm not interested in having a really slim camera or USB charging. There's nothing wrong with wanting those things though, so if the Samsung fits the bill, then by all means buy it.