Nearly two years ago, I purchased the Samsung WB30F digital camera (it is usually referred to as a point-and-shoot camera) for a little over $100 and used it for a variety of events. Apart from the camera’s interface, the sample photos speak for themselves. The camera’s performance was exactly what I would expect (even better in some cases) from anything in the low $100 price range (I paid $140 for mine).
Night Photos – Low-Light Performance Could Be Great Or Terrible Depending On It’s Usage
We all take photos sometimes, but what we photograph really does matter. If you are taking selfies with this camera, it can certainly do the trick (fairly well) in any lighting using its built-in flash, but if you want to do the following, you’ll have a hard time.
Vast Expanses Of Scenery/Astronomical Photos: You will never, ever get a decent photo of the moon, planets, beaches, distant mountains, birds, and anything else more than 50 feet (give or take some feet) away from the camera. This is because the flash can only go so far. It isn’t going to travel miles to that gorgeous eclipsing moon that you happened to catch in the morning, or that beautiful orange sunrise.
As you can see in the photo above, the moon looks like a glowing orb with no detail. To be fair, none of the cameras in the $100-$200 price range are good at this either.
Daylight Photos And Dynamic Range
This 16.2 Megapixel (MP) camera can take fairly clear photos at resolutions up to 4608 x 3456 during cloudy and sunny weather, however, colour accuracy isn’t the best, and its photos doesn’t have that brilliant, vibrant look that many (higher-priced) DSLR cameras can achieve. As for bright sunny weather: The WB30F’s dynamic range makes it hard to take good photos without reducing the exposure value, as seen in the somewhat darkened image below, which was taken during bright, sunny weather.
The lack of dynamic range causes inconsistent exposure which resulted in the glowing trunk/rear windshield, and the darkened background. Cameras with excellent dynamic range are capable of darkening only those areas which need to be darkened (like the trunk in this case), without darkening the rest of the image.
Video
This camera can record video up to 720p (1280 x 720, which is HD), but bear in mind that the fact that it’s HD doesn’t mean it’s high quality. HD just means that the resolution is 1280 x 720 (720p) or more. 1920 x 1080 (1080p) is known as full HD. You can see a sample video taken with the WB30F below.
Other Features: The Samsung WB30F camera offers a number of features for consumers, including a 2 and 10-second timer for selfies, automatic backup, it can automatically copy photos to your smartphone or tablet as you take them in real time. It has a social media upload feature that lets you upload your photos to Facebook and other networks without having to connect it to a computer, and it can upload videos directly to YouTube (at a low resolution, so you may as well connect it to a computer for this).
Conclusion: This camera does a lot for the price, and it tops virtually every smartphone camera (except the iPhone 6). You get what you pay for. It offers a lot for a $140 camera. Especially great selfies!
More Samsung WB30F Sample Photos
