Samsung Digimax S500 5.1MP is a full featured digital camera designed to deliver maximum value, style and performance for digital photographers of all skill and experience levels. Offering features useful to the entire family, the camera offers a crystal-clear 2.4-inch LCD and a 3x optical zoom in both still and movie modes. In addition to its optical zoom, the S500 provides a 5x digital zoom, achieving a total zoom of 15x when used together.
For recording movies while on the go, the S500 supports MJPEG video recording, enabling users to take advantage of the 3x optical zoom even while in the movie recording mode. This model also features robust movie clip editing functions, which allow users to be more creative with their images than ever before. For example, “S” series owners can select and save a portion of a movie clip during playback and/or select part of a movie clip to be saved as a still image. All of this can be done right on the camera, without the aid of a computer or third party editing software. Also included is Samsung’s unique successive video function that allows shooters to pause and resume video recording at any time and merge multiple video files into one single file.
For crystal-clear images under many lighting conditions, the S500 features seven scene modes including: Landscape, Close-Up, Sunset, Dawn, Backlight, Fireworks, and Beach & Snow. And, for the ultimate in creative control the camera also features a Special Effects Hot Key, putting several special effects at the user’s fingertips. These effects include: Color Effect, offering a variety of colors, including black and white, sepia, blue, red, green or Negative depending on your photographic settings; Highlight, which keeps the subject in sharp focus while putting the rest of the image into soft focus; Photo Frame, allowing the shooter to choose from nine different types of photo frames to shoot their subjects in; and Composite Shot that allows the user to take two to four images and save them into a single file.
For further convenience, all Samsung digital still cameras feature a built-in image editing function allowing users to edit a variety of images without the use of a PC. The Trimming function can be used to cut an undesired part of an image and save only the required part. When short of memory, shooters can use the Resizing function to recover some of the memory space, by resizing and saving images in a smaller size. The Rotating function allows users to rotate an image in the desired direction and save it.
Helpful consumer’s review
My Samsung Digimax S500 camera arrived this morning, and I’ve been spending the entire day testing it out.
I’ve never owned a good digital camera before (my previous cameras were all $20-or-less cameras of poor quality), and so far, I’m glad that I chose this camera to be my first. It has an attractive design, is easy to hold, and is easy to use.
This morning, I quickly opened the box and inserted the batteries that came with it, wanting impatiently to test out the camera. I took a few pictures of myself, which came out disappointingly blurry. I realized that my arm was too unsteady when I took the picture, and after switching the camera mode from “auto” to “children,” I solved my blurriness problem. (The “children” mode is meant for taking pictures of moving objects.)
I spent a few minutes figuring out the controls, which weren’t too difficult to get used to. The user’s manual was explanative enough for me to understand any features I wasn’t too sure on, such as how the different modes worked and how to get the flash working.
At the highest setting (5MP with Super Fine Quality), I was only able to take about 6 pictures total. After inserting my 128MB SD memory card, however, that count increased to 46. I was tempted to insert my 1GB SD memory card, but my 128MB card is sufficient enough for my needs. Unless I wanted to store hundreds of pictures or capture nearly an hour of video, I don’t need to use my 1GB card.
Taking my digital camera out for a walk around the city was a fun experience. After uploading the pictures to my computer and witnessing the great quality of the pictures I had taken, I was convinced that I had bought the right camera.
The LCD screen is much darker in daylight than it is indoors, and so the display fooled me into thinking some of my pictures were too dark when I took them. After viewing them on my computer, I realized that the quality of the pictures was better and brighter than what I had thought when viewing them from the LCD screen.
After about 4-5 hours of usage, I noticed the battery started to get low, which means I’ll need to replace the batteries soon. I recommend buying rechargeable batteries, or else you’ll most likely be buying AA batteries frequently if you like taking lots of pictures.
I noticed many extra features the camera has, including its special effects and its various scene modes. I haven’t experimented with these features yet, because I’m comfortable with just using the “auto,” “children,” and “manual” modes.
Since I’ve never owned a decent camera before, I was afraid that the controls might be too confusing, but that thankfully wasn’t the case. Pressing the lightning bolt arrow next to the Menu/OK button toggles what type of flash I want, and the top ‘W’ and ‘T’ buttons let me zoom in or out to my liking. I click the button next to the “trash can” symbol to delete pictures, and I press the ‘E’ button if I want to use some extra effects. The controls seem pretty self-explanatory.
