The most frustrating camera to take great photos with
Written: Jan 17 '05
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Pros: takes high quality, printable photos and movies (given the right circumstances); durable
Cons: very slow to turn on/off; terrible at action and low-light shots; heavy; eats batteries
The Bottom Line: Although you can get some beautiful photos with this camera, it has been quickly surpassed by faster, smaller, lighter, cheaper and more high-tech cameras for everyday use.
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| Chad9976's Full Review: Samsung Digimax 350SE Digital Camera |
I consider myself something of a “professional amateur” photographer, meaning I’ve always taken my photography a lot more seriously than the average Joe. I know how to light my shots and use things such as the aperture and shutter speed (and film speed in 35MM cameras) to compose a higher quality photo than simply pointing and shooting. For people like me the Samsung Digimax 350SE is a mixed bag because it often does deliver great-looking photos, but the fact you have to work around its flaws are a major hindrance.
Samsung Digimax 350SE - The Good
PICTURE QUALITY
Obviously, this is pretty much the most important feature one looks for when shopping for a digital camera. At 3.2 megapixels the Digimax 350SE provides you with some extremely sharp and brilliant photos. It has a wide variety of size, qaulity and sharpness settings that I find impressive. If you set it to the absolute highest settings you’ll only be able to take a handful of pictures instead of 100 to 150 with the variations of the medium qualities which still come out looking good.
Being in the Navy I took this camera with me on my seven-month deployment from Virginia to the Persian Gulf and back. You can imagine how many great photo opportunities that presented me. Sunsets and sunrises were among my favorite subjects and I have a slew of photos on my PC that most people would think of being magazine quality. I have even printed out and framed several of them.
The megapixel count of this camera is just right for the amateur shutterbug looking to take high quality photos without spending tons of money on four, five and six megapixel cameras. Trust me, those ridiculously over-priced cameras are for the pros so stick with a camera between three and four megapixels.
MOVIE QUALITY
I had never used a digital camera that was capable of shooting movies WITH sound until I got my Digimax. The picture quality is surprisingly good since most digital cameras reduce their movie quality to a much lower setting to save storage space. This camera will shoot movies at a fairly high quality. It doesn’t correlate to your still photos setting but I’d say it’s between medium and high quality. It will playback at about a 5 by 7-inch area on your monitor, and when you enlarge to full-screen mode it will be only slightly choppy. Use this in conjunction with Windows Movie Maker to get full-screen movies with high quality.
ZOOM
This is a feature that will always sell me on a digital camera every time. It’s essential to be able to zoom in on your shots to compose them properly or get closer detail when you’re far away. The Digimax 350SE has a 3X optical zoom with a 2X digital zoom. I rarely use the digital zoom, which means that once you zoom in on something at 3X it will step over to the digital zoom and zoom in two more times. Photos taken at a total of 6X will usually come out blurry unless the camera is held absolutely still, and even then the quality will not be all that worthwhile. For all you stalkers out there, invest in a more technologically-advanced camera to get really close if you’re far away (concerts, sporting events, etc.).
DURABLE
I’ve dropped my camera quite a few times on both hard and soft surfaces and it still works fine for me. I even dropped it so hard as to crack the top of the camera itself and it has not effected operation at all. I got a little sand in the lens a few times but it has brushed out easily. Usually whenever I have electronic “toys” like this and I accidentally drop them they stop working immediately but the Digimax is a real trooper, surprisingly.
ALL THE LITTLE FEATURES
This little bugger has a lot of useful little features such as an on–screen battery life display; a date and time imprint option, ability to record audio over a still picture, five different flash settings, ability to delete individual photos, night scene mode, LCD brightness adjustment, a timer and a bunch of other neat little features I don’t have enough time to mention.
Samsung Digimax 350SE - The Bad
THIRTEEN SECONDS OF IMPATIENCE
Now, eight seconds doesn’t sound like a long time and five seconds sounds even shorter but that’s how long it takes for the Digimax 350SE to start up and shut down, respectively. Photography is often a blink-and-you’ll-miss artform and how many times have you been able to snap a quick picture at something with your conventional film camera without missing it?
There has been so many photo ops I have missed since owning this camera due to the fact I had the camera turned off and it wouldn’t start up fast enough. The five seconds it takes to shut down is not a whole lot either but let’s say you just hit power off and all of a sudden you see something you want to take a picture of. Well, there’s no way to stop it once it starts to turn off and then you have to wait for it to go through the whole start-up process again. That’s 13 seconds of what can be absolutely excruciating impatience for people like me that take their photography even remotely seriously.
HOLD STILL, PLEASE!
Portraits are probably the most common subject of the amateur photographer, and the Digimax is pretty good at taking them for the most part. But what if you want to capture your friends and family in a candid situation? If they’re not paying attention and moving around you’ll get a blurry or slightly fuzzy picture. Or, what I consider even worse, a mostly clear picture with the movement streaks on anyone and anything that was going too fast for the default aperture setting.
Although I guess I shouldn’t knock this camera for that flaw, since most digital cameras are not equipped for taking action shots. If you take a picture at a sporting event from far enough away you won’t have any problems. But if you’re ringside, floor level, or behind the glass and want to take a Sports Illustrated-type photo, forget it.
There actually is a way to adjust the aperture but it’s a long process and also a vague setting that’s more of a gamble than anything else. To really get the feel for what setting to use for specific speeds you’d have to do a lot of experimental picture-taking. I’ve owned this camera for almost two years and I’ve never gotten around to doing that.
NIGHT SCENE MODE? OH WHATEVER!
This camera’s performance in low-lighting situations is probably what irks me more than any other aspect. Although it does have five different flash settings, it is unreliable in any situation where you can’t or don’t want to use a flash. If you take a photo outside at night the flash will white wash your subjects, robbing them of their true color and depth. Without a flash the pictures will almost always come out very blurry and unusable. This makes taking pictures indoors in low-light settings a major pain. Do you bleach everything out with the flash (and annoy people in the process), or do you gamble on no flash thinking you’ve got steady hands?
Don’t even bother using the night scene mode, it is a guaranteed blurry picture no matter how still you hold the camera or how well-lit you think the subject is. It’s a joke and shouldn’t even be here.
To Samsung’s credit they do give you the option of manually changing the shutter size, but it’s a general and vague option which would require a lot of experimentation to figure out.
I JUST BOUGHT THESE BATTERIES!
One of my biggest pet peeves is when batteries die, especially at inopportune times. If you’re going to own a digital camera you’d be wise to invest in rechargeable batteries, and with the Digimax you’ll need at least two sets.
After using this camera for so long I am still puzzled at its power usage, which I would describe as sloppy. When you turn it on you’ll almost always start off with a full battery icon, but if you leave it on for a few minutes looking at the photos you have saved it’ll dwindle down to zero rather quickly. If you shoot several photos in a row or a movie it’ll also lose all its battery power, according to the meter. What’s strange is that if you turn it off for a minute and then turn it back on the battery meter reads 100%. It is scientifically impossible for any kind of AA battery to recharge itself like that, so what is going on, Samsung?
There really is no way to cut down on the camera’s craving for fresh batteries other than leaving it turned off as much as possible (which usually causes the problem of having to wait for it to start up, naturally). You can shoot photos and movies without the LCD screen on and use the optical viewfinder, but isn’t that half the fun of having a digital camera - so you can see exactly what the picture is going to look like before you take it?
DO YOU LIKE TO READ INSTRUCTIONS?
The manual included with the Digimax is 120 pages long, I kid you not. And you’ll need to read all 120 pages to learn how to use this camera to its fullest extent. I mentioned all the little additional features as a good point, however, they’re also kind of a flaw because there’s so many of them it will take the average user a long time to memorize how to access them and use them correctly. The camera itself is not very self-explanatory nor user-friendly so the instruction manual will be something of a required reading.
BUY A PAIR OF CARGO PANTS
I love Dockers and Abercrombie cargo khakis, but I shouldn’t have to buy a pair based on the size of my digital camera. It has a volume of over 25 cubic inches and weighs over a half pound without batteries and well over a pound with them. Little consumer electronics like cameras should be described in how many OUNCES they weigh, not pounds! Hauling around the Digimax all day can be frustrating because it is so big and heavy. I always brought it with me on liberty port stops and was glad that I had it, however, it was so cumbersome given its size and weight I was always asking other people if they wanted to hold it.
FINAL THOUGHTS
As many flaws as the Digimax 350SE has, there’s still a lot going for it. It does take great pictures and has a ton of features, that when fully utilized, could make it a comparable to the latest and greatest digital cameras being released today. If you can find one on eBay for $75 or less it’d be worth your money. Personally, I don’t like it that much but it has served me well and probably will continue to do so until the higher-end digital cameras come down in price.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 150.00
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
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Chad9976
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Member: Chad Polenz
Location: Albany, New York
Reviews written: 672
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