Samsung WB500

We’ll need a wide-shooting camera. Since the world is in recession, we’ll prefer an inexpensive one, thank you. Samsung’s new WB500 digital compact camera fits into this mould like how Play-Doh would in crevices.

Armed with a 24mm ultra wide-angle lens, the camera can capture more on the sides of every picture you snap. It’s an ideal feature to snap family photos when it’s a lot harder to fit in all the uncles, aunties, nieces and nephews. Picturesque sceneries can also be better frozen in time compared to what non ultra wide-angle cameras can do. The more you can put into a picture, the better the depth representation for landscapes. For cosier framing though, the camera’s 10x optical zoom will come in handy.

The WB500 isn’t purely a starter camera as it has a manual mode that allows adjustments of shutter and aperture speed. While numerous adjustments can be made to shutter speed, aperture settings are only limited to two steps no matter what the zoom is. There isn’t much playroom for depth-of-field shots.

For beginners, there’s always an Auto mode which does its job brilliantly in well lit areas. Pictures will be sharp and in focus. In that setting, exposure levels and Photo Style effects are available. Shots taken in low-lighting environments will have noise that’s still bearable for quick web publishing.

The only anomaly we find on the WB500 is its placement of the flash unit. Owing to its distance from the handgrip, it’s really easy to partially cover the flash in a comfortable hold.

Verdict
Wrapped in a solid body, the WB500 is worth its price and will prove to be a good camera for beginners to amateurs.

MARKETING SPEAK
The WB500 is peppered with marketing lingo, here’s what they mean, really.

Record HD-quality movies!
This is straightforward. The WB500 can capture 720p videos at 30fps. Videos are compressed in H.264 format which takes up lesser space without sacrificing quality.

Dual IS
Don’t ever get a compact camera without Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) technology as it greatly reduces the chances of blurry pictures due to shaky hands. For the WB500 however, there’s also Digital Image Stabilisation (DIS), which they claim to works better together with OIS.

Smart Album
Browsing photos on the WB500 is colour coded. Well almost. Pictures can be sorted by date, colour tones or event theme! Samsung calls this feature  the Smart Album.

Frame Guide
It’s the coolest Scene feature in the WB500. With it, a picture can be pre-framed by the camera’s owner by clicking the shutter release button. The camera can then be handed over to another person with guides on-screen so that the owner can waltz right into the scene and be added in it the way he/she wants it.

QUICK SPECS
SIZE/WEIGHT: 105 x 36.5 x 61.4mm. 219g (without battery)
SENSOR: 10.2 megapixels
ZOOM: 10x optical. 24 (W) mm
to 240 (T) mm.
DISPLAY: 2.7-inch, 230,000 pixels.
FILE FORMATS: JPEG, MP4.
STORAGE: 10MB internal.
SD external.

Samsung WB500
SGD599 - www.samsung.com/sg