From using my older digital camera it makes me really appreciate this high quality and specified camera that was brought to the consumer by the reliable name Samsung!
Help, my pictures are so terrible - well that was until I invested in this great little camera!
Instructions for the Samsung - Digimax A5, available in English & French
The Samsung camera's user's manual has been easily laid out for even the newest of newbie's to the world of digital photo taking. With an in-depth "Getting to know your camera" guide, I found this particularly useful when coming to using my new adult toy for the first time. The guide will take you through all the do's and don'ts of handling your new camera, to an in-depth knowledge and guide of using all the special features such as the recording mode, play modes and how to install the superb software that is included with your purchase. It also offers a quick set-up guide to those who may be more familiar with digital cameras. It also has at the back of the guide a trouble-shooter for any common problems you may come across and there is also a whole page of contact information for the various Samsung divisions across Asia, Europe and the USA in case you need to contact them also supplied, is the website addresses presumably for contacting Samsung via the internet.
Warranty This camera comes with a full warranty for a full 1 year from the date of purchasing - you will have to send off for the warranty to become valid. The warranty covers all defects in relations to workmanship and materials used.
Dimensions & Weight The dimensions of the camera are as follows. 5.7cm Height, x11.0cm Width, x 3.4 cm Depth. It weighs in at a mere 166 grams (excluding batteries) so it is light to carry. Obviously once you have added the batteries, case and memory card to it, it will weigh slightly more.
Powering the Camera
There are 2 methods of power for this camera. The first method being 2 x AA Alkaline batteries, if you are using this method all the time you may find it worth while in investing in a Samsung
I-pack, this is a rechargeable battery specifically for this model of camera. I have found that you do get up to 250 pictures out of a set of fully charged batteries. There is also the option to use an AC adaptor (SAC-32, 3.3v) I have not used this method so cannot comment. Battery life can be greatly reduced by several features. Obviously if you use the LCD screen all the time you will find that battery life is greatly reduced than if you were to simply use the viewfinder. There are power saving functions that you can enable to preserve additional battery life. I for one, always set the display to power save, so it will automatically turn the LCD off when not in use.
Picture Quality Measuring in at 5.0 mega pixels, this camera is nearer the top end of the scale when it comes to a budget camera. The higher the number of mega pixels a digital camera has, the better and sharper the image quality will be and the more you can increase the size of your photo before losing picture quality. The qualities of the pictures that I have taken with my Samsung A5 are outstanding. Zoom: Sporting an outstanding 12 x Zoom, 3 x optical - Makes the subject appear closer, whilst retaining high image quality and 4 x digital zoom. This is more than ample to zoom in on those far away scenes and objects. You really do get good quality with this zoom.
Effect: With 4 different colour effects you can set the camera to displays a picture in Normal, Black and White, Sepia or RGB modes.
Sharpness: The sharpness of each picture can be set as default or per a picture taken. Sharpness levels are preset to either, soft, normal or vivid.
White Balance: White balance settings include Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent_H, Flurescent_L, Tungsten and custom.
Flash: The flash can be set to several modes, Auto, Auto & red eye reduction, fill-in flash, slow sync and flash off. And it has a range of 0.25~3.0m wide and 0.25~2.0(Tele). The flash takes around 6 seconds to recharge itself.
Viewfinder & LCD Screen
The viewfinder sports a real image optical viewfinder along with a 1.8 inch colour TFT LCD screen. It is so easy to view your pictures using the TFT LCD screen. You can display them as a single image, thumbnails, slide show or as a movie clip. What I find extra useful, that most cameras don't have is the internal editing features. You can trim, rotate and resize your pictures without even needing to transfer them from the camera.
LCD Monitor Indicator: The LCD screen displays icons to indicate each and every function such as when the flash is on/off, what recording mode it is in, the image quality/size, the optical/digital zoom rate, the sharpness, the white balance, macro icon - which allows filming close up without loss of focus, a card inserted indicator icon, auto focus frame icon, camera shake warning is displayed, the date/time icon, exposure compensation icon, battery indicator icon, continuous shot mode - which means the camera will continue to take photographs whilst the shutter button is depressed particularly ideal for capturing sports events like I do, the number of available shots remaining icon, voice memo and self timer icons.
Again, the manual will have a key/guide to advise of which icon means what. So you can really get to know how to use your camera.
To navigate through the various settings, screens, functions and icons, there is a 5 way function button that is situated at the rear of the body and to the right side of the LCD screen - making the various menus very easy to navigate. I find it ever so simple.
Mode Dial
The picture/video modes can be changed using the mode dial to any of the 8 specified mode types; this is situated on the top of the camera's body. For instance if you would like to move to night scene mode, you would click the dial to the night mode icon. With the mode dial I find it very easy to switch between all the various modes, which seem to offer me much more ease of use.
Movie Mode
I was really impressed with the movie mode on this camera. Considering it is primarily a digital camera, it can shoot good quality video clips along with voice recording using the built in speaker. I am still yet to work out how to modify the clarity of the voice recording mode, so you would need to refer to your user manual. But from what I have seen it is capable of shooting movie clips at a rate of 30 frames per second and on the 16MB of internal memory you will manage to store about a 30 second clip. (If you were to install a memory card of up to 512 MB you would be able to record for a greater amount of time). Along with the movie mode there is a pause function and having this feature also means you can send movie clips via the internet and email.
Audio: The audio format is Mono, so for all your sound recordings please keep this in mind.
Storage/Memory
Internal: With an internal memory of 16MB, this is enough to store around 15 - 20 good quality pictures I find - tip; it would hold more is you were to lower the quality.
External: This camera supports the ever popular memory type of Secure Digital (SD) memory. This can be purchased on the high street and/or online. The Samsung A5 is capable of holding up to a 512MB SD card guaranteed. I haven't yet tried a 1MB card so it would need to be at your own risk if you were to buy one of these.
File Formats: you can capture your images or movies using several file formats, some of the ones I use in particular (Useful for when you transfer images to a PC), JPEG, DPOF 1.1 and AVI (Mpeg) for movies.
Extras One touch manual functions, 4cm macro - allows filming close up without loss of focus. , a bright pilot lamp so that you can communicate with the user, voice recording, SHD lens (Samsung High Definition), self portrait mirror on the front of camera body, date/time/logo print function (ideal for most pictures) and the Pictbridge Printing.
The manual covers every aspect of the extras and will take you to a level that you feel comfortable with.
Connectivity You will be supplied with a USB 1.1 cable that supports plug n play, so all you need do is plug the USB cable to the spare port on your PC or Mac.
Software Included with the camera are the Samsung A5 drivers, Digimax viewer - a programme to store all your viewed images, Photo Impression - image editing software and Digimax Reader - a text recognition programme. The User manual again, covers every aspect of installing and removing all the software applications mentioned below. It takes you through all processes step-by-step - so newbie's have no fear. It is very simple.
I particularly find that Digimax viewer is handy to have as you can view your stored images directly on your PC monitor. You can then go on to delete, move, enlarge or downscale you images through this programme. It is suitable for Windows only.
Photo Impression allows you to store or edit your still images that you have downloaded to your computer - again, only compatible with Windows.
Digimax Reader allows you to save an image that you captured while using the 'text' mode as a text file. Only compatible with Windows.
All software is compatible with Windows 98/98SE/2000/ME and XP.
A USB driver for the MAC is not included with the application CD. But you can use the camera with Mac OS 9.0 - 10.2.
Style, Robustness & Maintenance A very stylish, modern looking camera, it features a coloured function lamp on the front of the body that lights up when switched on, this is very sexy and is certainly one of the better housed digital cameras available on the market at the moment. A start up screen can be customised to one of your choice. This camera has been made very well by the manufacturer. I have already accidentally dropped mine and it has not been affected at all by the knock it has received. It also comes with a pouch and strap to protect it from any scratches while you are out and about. You can purchase an additional case to protect it from any camera specialist, high street retail store or on the internet.
Camera maintenance: I use a soft brush that I bought from a camera store for about £8 to gently clean the lens and LCD screen. I also clean the camera body with a soft lint free cloth to maintain the fantastically designed body of this camera. Comes with accessories, housed in,
Accessories You can buy additional accessories for this camera. These may be extra SD memory cards, cases, AC adaptor, batteries and/or charger and USB cables. If you have the money you can also buy an SD card reader which enables you to slot your memory card into the reader (Like you would a floppy disc) and it will read directly from the SD card. You can also buy printers with a card reader built in so you could print your digital images straight from the memory card. All these accessories are available from internet retailers and on the high street. A simple Ciao search would return good results as would Google.
Budget/Cost This is a very reasonably budgeted camera. It has all the features one would need for any general photography needs in the years to come. It offers great value for money in every respect. So the price of £159.99 from Comet was every penny well spent. I am sure that if you were to look around you could find a competitive price. You could search any search bot or "Ciao" for competitive results, as this camera is available on both the high street and the World Wide Web.
So my overall opinion: Easy to use, well within budget, robust, nicely designed. Easily upgradeable, cheap to maintain and has good battery-life.
A truly fantastic camera!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
An excellent first review. You've told us all we need to know in a clear, concise way.
tammyL129 23.06.2005 03:40
Wow, not read any of you earlier reviews but this is brilliant for a first attempt! I have a Samsung digital camara too, and its wicked but its not as good as this one! Tam -x-
Advantages: Small and easy to use. Disadvantages: Picture quality isn't brilliant and the memory card supplied with the camera will only store up to 5 pictures at a time!
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