Olympus XZ-1 compact digital camera

The Olympus XZ-1 is positively fun to use. It's one of those cameras that makes you want to go out and take photos. A lot of that has to do with its size, which is compact; yet despite its small dimensions, it also contains relatively easy to use manual controls. It's reminiscent of the Canon PowerShot S95 and it definitely gives it good competition when it comes to ease of use and image quality.

The Olympus XZ-1 has a 10-megapixel CCD sensor and a 4x optical zoom with a range of 28-112mm. It's a fast lens with a wide f/1.8 aperture, and this is even wider than the lens found on the Canon PowerShot S95 (f/2.0). It allows the XZ-1 to be used in low-light situations and combined with built-in optical image stabilisation, the camera can capture handheld shots clearly even when a shutter speed as low as 1/10 is used.

We think the Olympus XZ-1 is great for both enthusiasts and professional users who want a high-quality compact on those days when they can't (or are too lazy to) carry the old digital SLR. The manual features of the camera allow for custom exposure settings to be tuned in; the ring around the lens can be used to manipulate the aperture and the rotational thumb control on the rear can be used to change the shutter.

There a couple of things about the control scheme that we would change: we'd put in a dedicated ISO button and we'd also make it easier to change focus modes. As it stands, to change focus modes you have to make up to three button presses. We do like the way the focus point can be changed with the press of one button, though, so it's not all bad.

Perhaps the best thing about the Olympus XZ-1 camera is its OLED screen. It looks vibrant and has wide viewing angles. Like most screens, it can't be viewed easily in the brightness of day unless you shade it, but it only requires one hand above the screen blocking the direct sun to be viewable again. What you see on the screen is generally what gets committed to the SD card, and this means that you don't have to fiddle around much with the settings, nor take multiple shots in order to get the look you want.

In auto mode, the Olympus XZ-1 has a tendency to overexpose images, but only slightly. Its overall performance in this mode is very good and it means that anyone can just pick up this camera, point it, and with the aid of the OLED screen, capture good looking images. In manual mode, the camera helps out by letting you know if the image is properly exposed. The exposure meter will flash in red if the scene is underexposed — simply play with the aperture or shutter until the meter gets to zero and you'll be right.

If you want to get artsy, then you can turn the camera's mode dial to 'Art' and rotate the lens ring to pick one of seven different Art modes. These modes can make your pictures more vibrant, more dramatic, softer or grainier; it can give them dark corners and even make objects look smaller. It's one of the features that makes the XZ-1 so much fun to use — we had way too much fun using the Dramatic Tone filter.

As for the camera's regular, non-art mode quality, it's very good. Pictures are captured with rich colours and they are well defined. Some detail is lost when images are viewed at their native size, but unless you crop your images heavily, this should not be too much of a problem. Noise starts to creep in at ISO 800 and we recommend not using such a high ISO with this camera. With such a wide aperture available, you should be able to get away with a lower sensitivity in most cases.

The Olympus XZ-1 has a built-in pop-up flash, but it doesn't have an electronic viewfinder; there is an option for one (VF-2). It can capture Full HD video (up to seven minutes) and the art filters can even be used while shooting video. Some frames will be dropped when shooting with an art filter, but it's nevertheless a great feature that can be used on short videos. You have the ability to zoom while shooting video and the camera will focus automatically. We found the overall video quality to be very good, but the sound wasn't. Luckily, there is an optional stereo microphone that can be plugged into the hot-shoe (SEMA-1).

The speed of the Olympus XZ-1 camera is good. Shot to shot performance won't lag noticeably while the previous image gets written to memory and burst mode is capable of capturing around 2 frames per second for around nine shots before it slows down. The biggest performance hit comes when using the Pin Hole or Diorama filter, as the images on the screen refresh very slowly.

All things considered, we really like the Olympus XZ-1. It's easy to use, yet it has good manual features. But most importantly, it's a fun camera to use and it has interesting art filters to play with, too. We also like the screen and the fact that it mostly displays exactly what will be captured to the SD card. We wish the shutter speed was a little faster than 1/2000, and we'd change a few things about the controls and make a few things easier to access, but overall there isn't too much to dislike about this camera. It would make a useful travel camera, a fun party camera and it can even be a worthwhile addition to a professional's photography kit.

PC World

Samsung NX11 interchangeable lens camera

The Samsung NX11 is an interchangeable lens camera with a 14.6-megapixel APS-C sized sensor and a relatively compact body size. It's the type of camera to go for if you want something slightly smaller than a traditional digital SLR, yet still want to have the flexibility of choosing between different lenses and settings. However, the NX11 doesn't usher in any improvements over the NX10, which was released over one year ago, and this is a little to its detriment.

The NX10 came at a time when existing interchangeable lens cameras didn't offer excellent value for money. The NX10 was one of the only models priced under $900 to offer a built-in flash and electronic viewfinder. Those features, along with its bigger, APS-C sized sensor and an easy-to-use menu system made it a far more interesting value proposition than say the Olympus PEN E-P2. The NX11 doesn't bring with it the same sort of 'wow' factor that the NX10 brought last year; the NX11 is essentially the same camera as the NX10, with the only notable differences being that it now ships with one of Samsung's i-Function lenses and supports GPS features; it's also cheaper, retailing for a respectable $749.

Despite the lack of changes from the previous model, the NX11 is still a good camera and we think it's worth considering if you want to get yourself a relatively small camera that will accept different lenses and feel a little like a digital SLR. It brings a digital SLR-sized sensor to a body that is very compact, yet well featured: you get a built-in electronic viewfinder (EVF), a built-in flash, there is also a hot shoe, and a control dial for changing the shutter and aperture values.

The NX11 uses Samsung's NX lens mount and it ships with one of the company's i-Function lenses (our kit came with the 18-55mm lens). An i-Function lens contains circuitry that allows you to change the shooting settings by pressing a button on the lens and then moving the focus ring. It's a very awkward way of doing things if you ask us, and we're not sure how it's meant to be easier to change settings by moving the focus ring rather using traditional methods. We much prefer the buttons on the back of the camera and the control dial that sits near the shutter button. In fact, we wish it had two separate control dials for the shutter and aperture values when using it in manual mode.

The camera's picture quality is impressive and we think that anyone from a casual user to an avid photographer will like the results. It does a good job in bright light conditions and also in overcast conditions. It's not great for night photography, mainly because there is a lot of noise when you use a value above ISO 800. Images shot at ISO 800 will also look a little grainy and this will be noticeable when viewing the photos at their native size on a screen. It's a shame that Samsung hasn't improved in this area. Cheap digital SLRs from Canon and Nikon are well ahead in this regard. Colour tones and saturation were good in our tests and most photos came out looking rich and vibrant (although this will depend on the settings you use).

PC World

Kodak Z990 Max review

The Kodak Z990 Max is a bridge camera with 30x zoom, on sale for an attractive price. But can it take good pictures or shoot good HD video?

Given the modest price tag of £250, it’s an eye-catching claim. Unlike a digital SLR’s lens, this lens is operated solely by a motor, and protrudes from its impressively solid housing in response to the pulling of the telephoto-to-wide-angle lever on the body’s front right.

It’s a rather slow process, so don’t expect to be able to fire up the Kodak Z990 Max camera, zoom in to an object some distance away and start shooting quickly. Focusing at distance takes longer than it ought and we were disappointed by some of the blurry results we got, having triggered the shutter release before the focus had finally locked.

It’s not always easy to discern this using the 3in LCD, however. We had no such issues when using the Fujifilm FinePix HS20 - another bridge design but with a mechanical zoom that isn’t dependent on a motor.

That said, we didn’t manage to wear out the Kodak Z990 Max’s AA batteries during our test period despite shooting a combination of video and around 150 photos, many of them using the zoom.

You can get some half -decent results from the Kodak Z990 Max using the auto setting but if you’re keen to be more creative, there’s a fistful of manual controls too.

We were pleased to find an onscreen histogram, for example – one of those neat visual indicators of whether your photo is likely to come out overexposed, too dark or just right. Unfortunately, the screen on which you can view such information suffers from glare; in bright sunlight you need to switch to the electronic viewfinder instead. This and the video mode have their own buttons on the back of the camera.

Be aware that if you take a succession of shots using the burst mode or use the Kodak Z990 Max to record HD video, you’ll have a lengthy wait (20 seconds or so for a minute-long video clip) for the camera to process and save it. In the meantime, you can’t take any more shots. We were using the fastest grade SD card for our tests, so the hold-up was certainly down to the camera rather than the card. If you shoot fast, you’ll probably want to stick to standard JPEG shots rather than the superior but more space-filling RAW.

Oddly, Kodak has used the same square navipad design as is found on its compact cameras and printers. Most cameras have a circular navipad and options that are easier to select. It’s not always as easy as it ought to be to work out how to get to particular options. Kodak makes it simple to share your photos and provides thumbnail previews that let you review all the photos you’ve taken or only those with people in.

Face recognition is included and you can even set up the Kodak Z990 Max to identify particular people. In our testing, this feature worked as described. If you simply want to click the playback button to check how well your last few shots have turned out, this feature can be frustrating as it adds a couple of extra steps to the process. An override option for impatient photographers like us would make sense.

Elsewhere, Kodak hasn’t thought through the menu settings as well as it should. The top dial provides the usual auto, portrait, scene, aperture priority and manual options, plus one to access creative effects and an HDR mode. This is great for moody landscapes but, again, takes an age to process the resulting shots.

The creative effects take long exposure night portraits, add drama or simulate a photo booth – an odd combination, we thought. We didn’t find this camera intuitive to usee. Compared with an Olympus PEN E-PL1, for example, with its on-screen assistance in choosing best scene modes or suitable ISO, this camera leaves the novice to flounder.

Performance

Given a bright but overcast day, we ended up with some colourful shots that were sharp enough to bear muster even when viewed at full-size in Photoshop. Other cameras we’ve used in similar conditions have turned in dark, smudgy shots.

However, the Kodak seems to overcompensate for the lack of light, resulting in both oversaturation and fringing around object edges on some shots. Textures and detail in our photos were well represented too.

Indoor scenes benefitted from the tendency towards brightness, while this camera deftly handles macro shots. We got pinsharp, beautifully detailed photos of the beaded figurine we use to test this aspect.

Video also came out well. Using the zoom in this mode is not advised since there’s a lot of mechanical noise as well as inevitable picture shake. With either a tripod or shooting a scene ‘straight’ we were impressed by the vibrancy and detail of our footage. The inclusion of a speaker is welcome too.

PC Advisor

Samsung SH100 review

The Samsung SH100 offers a brilliant set of in-camera features, such as an array of wireless sharing and remote-control options, that make this inexpensive point-and-shoot stand out from the crowd - in a good way.

At first glance, the Samsung SH100 looks like a run-of-the-mill, low-priced touchscreen camera. It's built for very casual snapshooters, and its core specs aren't exactly mind-boggling: The SH100's 14-megapixel CCD sensor may have been an impressive feature a few years ago, but in these days of ever-inflated pixel counts, it's standard issue in the compact camera world. Same goes for its 5X optical zoom lens and 720p video recording at 30 frames per second.

The SH100 ups the ante, however, with its built-in wireless features, which include (but aren't limited to) direct uploads from the camera to Facebook, YouTube, and other sharing services. The most unusual wireless feature is the ability to create a peer-to-peer connection with Samsung Galaxy S series phones, meaning that you can use a phone as a wireless remote control and a tethered storage device for photos and video.

The sum of all these parts is hardware you'd expect in a standard-issue £150 camera, but enhanced with innovative in-camera extras that provide great bang for the buck. The SH100 performs well in Auto mode, has well-implemented Wi-Fi features, and offers a little something extra for anyone who owns a Samsung Galaxy S or Samsung Galaxy S2 phone. Serious photographers won't find much to like here, but it's a great option for a younger shooter.
Samsung SH100: Hardware and Design

The 14-megapixel Samsung SH100 is very compact, with a 0.74-inch-deep frame that slips comfortably into a shirt or pants pocket. One trade-off for that small size is that the camera uses Micro SD format cards instead of the more-traditional SD Card. Another slight oddity is that the camera's battery charges inside the camera, via a proprietary connector that you can plug into a USB port or into the included wall charger.

The SH100's 5X optical zoom lens favours wide-angle shots, ranging from 26mm to 130mm in 35mm-film-equivalent focal lengths. The camera has digital image stabilization only, which is generally less effective than an optical or sensor-shift stabilization system; even so, the SH100 had no problems keeping full-telephoto shots steady in my hands-on tests.

Many of the camera's controls reside in its touchscreen menus, leaving the SH100 with just four physical buttons: a top-mounted power button, a shutter/zoom control, a playback button, and a back-mounted home button that takes you to the camera's main menus.

The SH100's touchscreen interface is straightforward and easy to use, with four scrollable pages of phone-style icons that give you access to shooting modes, playback options, wireless features, image-editing tools, and special effects. The in-camera options are plentiful and clearly labeled, but four pages of icons is a bit much; I would have preferred to see Samsung group like-minded features in folders to reduce the number of navigation swipes necessary.

The camera's 3-inch touchscreen also takes a couple of presses to register some selections, and it might prove problematic for people with thick fingers. Because it's a resistive touchscreen, you sometimes have to press it harder than you expect. What's more, entering e-mail addresses, wireless network passwords, and other login information while using the camera's wireless features can really test your patience. There's no option to reveal passwords as you type them, either, meaning that you fly blind when inputting text, and your margin of error is very small for such a touchy interface.

The Samsung SH100 is incredibly small and light, and the camera's plastic body and resistive touchscreen give it a toylike feel. Nevertheless, it feels durable enough to withstand the daily wear-and-tear associated with being tossed in a bag or in a pocket.

Samsung SH100: Shooting Modes and Features

The SH100 certainly gives you your money's worth when it comes to fancy in-camera features. Most of these extras are geared toward younger users: in-camera effects, special overlays, and fancy playback options.

Like most other cameras in its price range, it offers common automated shooting modes such as Smart Auto for both stills and video, six scene selection options, and a Program mode for tweaking ISO settings, white balance, metering modes, and other presets. The SH100 shoots 720p high-definition video at 30 fps in MP4 format.

In the camera's dedicated macro mode, you can nab a clearly focused shot of an up-close subject even when you're only about 3 inches away. And though there's no explicit manual mode, you have limited manual control over the camera's shutter and aperture settings in the SH100's Night mode. In Night mode, shutter speeds range from 1 to 16 seconds, while aperture settings range from F3.3 to F9.4 in wide-angle mode and from F5.9 or F16.7 in full telephoto.

The SH100 exceeds the offerings of most (if not all) cameras in its class with its Smart Filter modes (which mimic everything from a tilt-shift lens to scratchy sepiatone film), its in-camera editing options, and its wireless features.

The SH100's Magic Frame feature lets you snap a shot that appears on a virtual billboard, an old-school TV set, or a fake magazine cover. It's ridiculous--but fun to play around with.

The camera's Photo Editor option permits you to adjust image brightness, saturation, and contrast after you take a photo, saving a copy of the retouched image. You can also apply the SH100's Smart Filter options after you take a photo, in case you'd like to retain the original, untreated image. While playing back images, you can crop them (by selecting points on the touchscreen), rotate image orientation, and resize photos. All in all, the SH100's image-editing options are impressive for a low-priced camera.

Like the Magic Frame feature, the camera's playback options are geared toward teens and tweeners, providing a few unique extras for viewing photos in-camera. The Magazine option lets you flip through a virtual travel album, wedding album, or party-themed album of your photosyou also get "3D album" playback mode, and standard slideshow and playback modes.

Considering the camera's fun features, cellphone-style interface, and almost toylike ultraslim body, the SH100 should appeal to kids and casual snapshooters. The camera's wireless sharing features increase its convenience for fans of social networking.

Samsung SH100: Wireless Features

The SH100's coolest wireless feature is also its most limited. By downloading a free Remote Viewfinder app and installing it on a Samsung Galaxy S II or Samsung Galaxy S phone, you can use the phone's touchscreen to view a real-time feed from the camera's lens, snap photos by remote control, and adjust the camera's flash and resolution settings. You don't even need to be within range of a Wi-Fi hotspot to take advantage of the peer-to-peer app; it forms a direct connection between the phone and the camera. Here's a video run-through of the SH100's Remote Viewfinder app.

Though the SH100 has built-in Wi-Fi, don't expect to use the camera as a Web-surfing device. The camera's wireless capabilities are limited to sharing and file-backup services; it doesn't include a full browser.

If you can successfully enter text on the Samsung SH100's somewhat finicky touchscreen, the camera has some of the best built-in wireless features we've seen this side of a cell phone. You can send your photos as e-mail attachments directly from the phone; as long as you have an easily accessible wireless access point without too many encryption parameters to enter into the camera, it works quickly and without a hitch. The SH100 also lets you post your photos and videos to sites such as Facebook, Photobucket, Picasa, YouTube, and Samsung's own sharing site by uploading them directly from the camera.

The SH100 also lets you stream or share content to compatible devices on a home network via its AllShare feature, and it can connect to other SH100 cameras for file sharing over a Wi-Fi network.

The various wireless features are surprising on a couple of fronts:We're not used to seeing so many innovative extras in a £150 camera; and they work much better than expected. We've tested a lot of cameras that have built-in Wi-Fi capabilities, and aside from its sometimes-touchy touchscreen interface, the SH100 offers perhaps the best in-camera Wi-Fi experience we've seen to date.

Samsung SH100: Performance, Image Quality, and Video Quality

In our subjective testing for image and video quality, the Samsung SH100 continued to surprise us by posting some outstanding scores for a camera in its price range.

The camera's flash was a bit too powerful in our flash-exposure test, resulting in a lower score for exposure quality. But the SH100 earned scores of Very Good for color accuracy, sharpness, and lack of distortion in our tests, all of which are assess photos taken with the flash turned off. The SH100 earned an overall imaging score of Very Good, and we recommend using it without the flash if at all possible.

The SH100 didn't fare as well in our video testing, mostly due to some stronger-than-normal contrast in our bright-light test scene and some very noticeable noise and grain in our low-light test footage. It earned an overall video score of Good, as it did for audio capture through its top-mounted microphone. All in all, this camera is a very good all-around performer for its modest price.

PC Advisor

Kodak PlaySport Zx5 Review

The PlaySport Zx3 was our favourite compact camcorder of last year, so this ruggedised model had a reputation to live up to.

As with its predecessor, the Zx5 is a 5Mp stills camera as well as a video camera, but we were disappointed to find no karabiner loop (as there was on the Zx1) available for when we indulge in some proper extreme sports action.

This does, however, mean there’s a mite more room on the camcorder for buttons. A colleague pointed out a shortcoming of previous models in this range is that the small, close together buttons were fiddly to select when wearing ski gloves. Happily, Kodak has rethought the buttons on the reverse of the PlaySport, spacing them out and adding a dedicated Share button.

You can share via email, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Orkut and YouTube and can specify whether the media you share should be shrunk down for speed and a leaner inbox or sent at its original size (unwise for video, for example). Should you wish, you can add a ‘frame’ to a photo to give it an inimitable look.

Before you can get the PlaySport to share its contents you must install the device to your PC using the software preloaded on it. Despite having installed the Kodak software, we were unable to browse the directory of photos and video we’d shot from our PC. Instead, we had to accept the recommendation to install ArcSoft MediaImpression. We also found the frequent onscreen prompts to register our camcorder mildly irritating.

If you prefer, you can insert the SD card on which your photos and video have been shot into a card reader, of course. If you’ve already installed the software, though, you’ll have to tell it not to autoplay whenever you plug in a USB device.

As with previous models, the build quality of the PlaySport is faultless. The 125g device is neither too heavy nor too light and fits perfectly comfortably in the hand. Cradle it in the palm of your hand and you can easily access the raised plastic buttons with your thumb without having to stretch or readjust your grip. The slightly textured frontside of the Zx5 prevents it slipping from your grasp, while holding it upright to shoot footage doesn’t obscure the lens or the speaker.

The camcorder captures Mpeg4 video and widescreen photos. There’s a basic digital zoom too. The shots we got from the PlaySport Zx5 were rather mixed. The 4x digital zoom is no substitute for a proper optical one, of course, and our indoor shots came out granular and rather insipid. Outdoors on a bright day, we got some much more pleasing results, with plenty of lush green grass and punchy red and blues.

Kodak has added a speaker next to the lens. This meant we picked up a lot more dialogue than before. Indoors at a christening we found it picked up every snuffle and toddlers’ wail. Amplified output also recorded better: at a concert, both vocals and instruments sounded much closer than similar footage on some other camcorders of this type. (Unfortunately, the non-directional microphone also picked up the gossip of the other bystanders , of course.) When talking direct to camera, we got good, clear dialogue results.

The camcorder supports in-camera editing and a couple of fun effects, face-recognition and image stabilisation – the latter is one of the few useful additions we’ve found on what was already a great piece of kit.

Finally, one design quibble. We aren’t convinced that a removable lithium-ion battery is an improvement on in-device charging. Given its cited use as an underwater camera safe for depths of 3m, we’d have been happier had the Kodak PlaySport used a lithium-ion battery that wouldn’t potentially leak should it become exposed.

PC Advisor