samsung s860 digital camera

the samsung is an entry level digital camera

main features include eight point one mega pixels colours, three times focus, Face Detection, image stabilisation, a two point four inch Display, a menu screen for navigation.

regarding the design, it must must be said that the design in good being silver in colour, the buttons on the camera being small the and lens focus makes the camera really easy to use and do its job as a camera. There is a circle dial that enables the user to move between different settings of the camera.

an automatic feature enables the user to reduce on the need for adjusting the camera's settings to enable fast and convenient pictures.

a movie setting feature is also included. This is very good in terms of quality as when I placed the camera against the desktop monitor it displayed the moving frames of the desktop monitor. This is of course not what I see when I watch the desktop screen. Movie clips can be recorded on this camera, along with capturing audio voice.

the length of the movie clip taken is all dependant on the size of the memory card that can be purchased separately. Thirty frames per second, fifteen frames per second are stated in the manual. A voice mute button is also included along with the camera's three times optical zoom facility. Still images can also be made.

the camera also has a indicator when the battery is low, and also when the level of the light in the room or area the picture is being taken is low.

---main advantages--

what I like about this camera most is that when the room light is low, or too bright the camera has nice settings that can be used to adjust the light of the focus area. A dark wall with not much natural light can be all made to look bright in appearance using this camera. Also a picture taken can be made to look so different.

the Optical zoom is easy to use, there is a W button that moves the zoom back, and a T button that focuses in on the object or person. This is very easy to use. The level of zoom available here is not the greatest by professionals though three times optical zoom for a amateur photo shooter is by far plenty enough.

their is a exposure setting E.V which can be moved, where the more positive the E.V the brighter the photos. Conversely the user can adjust the E.V to a negative position resulting in more darker results.

the main focus of the photo focus can be altered from a normal colour scene, to black and white, green, sepia, blue and negative image settings. A negative setting would naturally make a white piece of paper turn into a black/grey x-ray type appearance.

pictures can be re sized and rotated at ninety degree angles, both to the left and right, horizontally and vertically. In the budget entry level camera market, I have noticed that most other brand's do not have this capability to rotate images.

also included is a option which allows the user to take more clearer pictures compared to using the Automatic setting. Voice and Movie clips also can be taken.

for downloading images the product contains a Universal Serial Bus cable that is plugged from the camera to the desktop. Or alternatively, the memory card can be inserted inside the desktop memory card reader.

their is a Playback button that is incorporated to allow users to review the pictures taken. This feature is most useful to assess the quality of the pictures taken. From here it is easy to keep the good pictures and delete the unwanted ones.

---limitations of this camera---

the camera only contains an small eleven mega byte Internal flash memory, so again a external memory card is a necessity. Eleven mega byte memory Size would achieve less than thirty pictures. With an external card, depending on size would mean hundreds of pictures taken are possible.

powering the camera requires two double a duracell style batteries. There are two batteries included in the box at purchase from a reputable store. Drawbacks here is that I have used the camera for approximately three hours life and the battery is now low, so the replacement costs of batteries is a severe drawback.

the lens Focus shuts itself off, after thirty seconds of idle use. So if a person is waiting for something to happen, the camera does sometimes turns itself off. As a user this causes some frustration.

the camera's silver color can scratch and the fingerprint marks against the camera's Liquid Crystal Display screen can show. From the factory settings I noticed that when using the camera, when pressing the shutter button to take a photo, the noise of the button made was a bit unnecessarily loud. The built in menu screen and help guide within the camera enables users to adjust the settings accordingly.

----extra information----

their is a two year manufacturers warranty contained in the box which I bought from a Argos high street store which is important to have as it guarantees the product for two years from the date of purchase. I have so far owned this product for two months with no hassles. This part of the product is a very useful bonus.

the instruction manual included in the product is eleven pages long available for british, italian, french, german, dutch consumers. These languages are supported. The manual is very helpful in stating the product's installation, specification, storage, downloading pictures to the desktop, recording movies. People making Telephone conversation's can record these conversation's using the camera's Voice Recording Feature.

---value for money---

the camera certainly makes other cameras in the low cost Electronics camera market look silly. The compactness, range of features, the low price are all positives. I feel strongly that the quality of the pictures that are generated by the camera now and in the future would not require buying a replacement camera.

recommended:
yes

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