Samsung Digimax Pro 815

4.0 stars

"Great Camera with some minor flaws." on November 20, 2005 by dezgraphics

Pros: Great Lens, Super Fast, Excellent picture detail and quality, Great construction.

Cons: Image stabilzation method does not work, Shadowing with pop up flash at close range, 3.5 LCD screen resolution too low.

Summary: Before we start let me say this first off if you are easily frustrated and/or do not have at least a basic working knowledge of photography DO NOT buy this camera. When Samsung said "Pro" They definitely meant it! I'll get into why later. Samsung? Panasonic? What the heck is up with these blender compainies putting out these monster cameras!I have to say that had Panasonic not realeased the FZ-30 this would have been a strong contender for the top of the mega-zoom catagory. So do I place this number 2 to the Z-30? No- more like 3 or 4 but definitelty in the top 5 or 6. This first reason being is that this camera has no image stabilizer, wich is suicide in terms of good low light and ambient light photography. Samsung's trick of speeding up the shutter and boosting the ISO works at best occasionally and when it does the images are in dire need of retouching work! Bottom line the method the camera uses to restrict movement called "High Speed Shutter Mode" Does not work. But, remember that thing you hang your baseball hat on, in your closet? That Uh...Tripod! Well if you use that with the 815 in low and ambient light, the camera works rather nicely! You may also want to fine tune your shots depending on the effect you want using the camera's shutter and apature settings(point and shoot not spoken here!) If you use the camera like we used to before they invented image stabilization you'll be just fine. Makes you wonder if Samsung knew that all along! So you say what the heck!
Samsung is buddy buddy with Kodak, why didn't they slap one of thier Stabilizers in there? The answer to that one is easy...Power consumption. See, the 815 has a 3.5 inch rear LCD screen, wich sucks power at an amazing rate, combine that with the two other displays on the camera, the flash, etc. etc. there was no way to use a stabilizer and provide enough power for all those goodies.(so much for 1900mwh battery) So Samsung figured if they were gonna break new ground they would have an easier time doing it with an 3.5 LCD screen rather than a 15X optical zoom stabilized camera.I think they missed something, because while that 3.5 LCD is nice- it has the same image resolution as a screen that is 1 inch smaller, so what happens?(ever blow up a digital image to 200% or more?)You lose definition. So while the screen is great for reference, or for a aging bozo like me it in fact does not produce that great of an image. In fact I have found that the worse a picture looks on that screen, the better it is on my PC!!Resolution in the EVF is not much better, but the best resolution (of course) is in the little waist shooting screen. As long as we're talking design... the 815 is one of the coolest looking cameras out there (I think) It is about the same size as the Canon EOS 20D, and a good bit heavier. Yessss!!
The body is solid as are all the buttons and other controls wich are finished in gun metal(Cool). The greatist thing is the Schneider lens with its 3 focus rings. The main ring is your zoom. The second is your fine focus. And the third allows you to fly thru the aperture settings on the fly when you are shooting in manual mode!! The 815 has one of the best feeling and most responsive manual focus modes of any fixed lens camera I've tested. It feels as good and as accurate as my digital Olympus lenses. Above the lens is the hot shoe and the pop up flash. Be careful here, one foopa with the 815 is that the pop up flash is not high enough to prevent shadowing at close range. And I found that the on board flash is way too bright, but thankfully its adjustable. Shot to shot speed is average better provided you turn down or off the review option. With the burst mode set at high quality the camera shoots faster than the Rebel XT, almost as fast as the D70 (no kidding, I was surprised too!)Besides the LCD the next most obvious ground breaker here is that 15X optical zoom! It goes all the way from an incredibly wide 28mm to a whopping 428mm!! All in one lens!All the shots I took (once I got used to the camera) were all well exposed with little or no barrel distortion at the wide angle. Now talking images, I do not like the auto WB setting on this camera it tends to make images appear to have a blue tint. I have gotten much better results setting the WB myself. ISO settings go from 50 to 400, 400 is tolerable if you plan on reworking the image in photoshop, But I got the best results at 50 and 100.For the most part to date all the images I've taken with the 815 have had very good detail, and good saturation of color sometimes its a little too much, But that doesn't bother me, I tend to be artistic about things like that. The 815 also features FX such as Black and white, sephia, and Reverse exposure. It will do video clips in the usual resolutions, and allow you to zoom and record in stereo sound (Kicked Canons Butt on that one!!)It ships with all the standard adjustment controls you would want in a camera of this caliber: Contrast, sharpness, saturation, Color space. It also has a place where you can save three of your favorite shooting configurations and the assign it to a space on the mode dial. The camera ships with a very detailed and easy to use manual,Lens adapter ring, Lens Hood, Video & UsB Cables. I have not used the software yet.The last ground breaking feature of the 815 is its 1900Mwh battery, wich it needs, because of all those LCD Screens! as a result its battery life is about average for a camera this size despite its pumped up power pack.
So lets wrap this up shall we?
The pro 815 in my opinion is an impressive first showing for Samsung as they move into the upper levels of camera design, There are problems, the camera is a Pain in the butt when using low light, No close range flash capability, Resolution on the 3.5 LCD should have been about 150,000 pixels higher(Again where was Kodak with thier HiDef LCD?), And I found the program mode to be a trifle inconsistant in shot to shot exposure reading, It tended to leave my shots with a blue tint at times.And the method to stabilize the lens just does not work.
The pro's of the pro 815? with a tripod and that zoom lens a whole world of possibilities opens up(you just need a cool head and know how), Great construction, design, and menu system, Fantastic lens quality, Astounding burst capability, If you are an outdoor or nature photographer this camera is the bomb! Great fx, Over all quality of the pictures I've taken so far I would rate on a scale from 1-10, at around 8.5 or 9. Color reproduction is vivid sometimes a little too much depending on the shot (I don't see that as a bad thing)I've posted some shots on ********** chack them out and you can see why I say this camera takes great pictures. Great Video mode (Not that I use it but-) I would not reccomend the Pro 815 as your Main camera. Mostly because of the trying times shooting in low light, and the over exposure from the built in flash. I would however strongly reccomend it to anyone looking for a great second or back up camera, It is a well built, versitile photographic weapon, But be warned... you need to know your shutter and aperture relations and settings to get the most out of it, otherwise you could be in for hours of frustration. When Samsung called it Pro they meant it. This is not a point and shoot camera by any means. Had this camera shipped with a 2.5 inch LCD and Kodak (or any for that matter) Image stabilization system, this camera would have been an absolute DEMON.Maybe next time? Until then I have mine, and have plans for using it alot more. I really wanted to give it a 9 but the whole lowlight thing really erks me!That and putting such a big beautiful lens on a camera with no stabilizer is just irresponsible!!