Received my new Samsung Wb500 / HZ10W last Friday and I'm LO

[MuzakaEklekta]

Thank you PalmBeer for all of your posts. Information (in English) is scarce at the moment on this camera. I have had my eye on it ever since it was announced.

I have tried to find information most days, but every time I see a sample image, my heart sinks. Judging by all the samples you have posted, there seems to be quite a few issues.

Why are all of the portrait shots out of focus?

[digitri]

Wow thanks a lot PB, I really appreciate the effort you've put into this!
Your images are the first real world samples I've seen from this camera. I'm considering the TZ7 as well and though I'm really (really!) excited about the manual controls of the Sammy, if the Panasonic proves to have a bit better image quality I'll probably go for it. I'll have to wait and have some patience for sure

BTW, I've seen your blog too and it's looking very nice.

Cheers!

[PalmBeer]

MuzakaEklekta wrote:

Thank you PalmBeer for all of your posts. Information (in English) is scarce at the moment on this camera. I have had my eye on it ever since it was announced.

I have tried to find information most days, but every time I see a sample image, my heart sinks. Judging by all the samples you have posted, there seems to be quite a few issues.

Why are all of the portrait shots out of focus?

I'm not quite sure which issues you're talking about here to be honest. But as I said I'm not a professional photographer and am only learning technical things like different types of focus, shutter speeds etc right now.

The portrait shots seem quite detailed and correctly focussed to me, can you explain what you mean to someone with little to no experience or knowledge (in other words to someone like me :G )

If you can, help me out with other things as well.
You mention all other samples I posted (also onmy blog) had quite a few issues, but again I do not understand what you mean by this as they look good to me..

By helping me understand it, I can perhaps post better images if the camera allows it...

[PalmBeer]

digitri wrote:

Wow thanks a lot PB, I really appreciate the effort you've put into this!
Your images are the first real world samples I've seen from this camera. I'm considering the TZ7 as well and though I'm really (really!) excited about the manual controls of the Sammy, if the Panasonic proves to have a bit better image quality I'll probably go for it. I'll have to wait and have some patience for sure

BTW, I've seen your blog too and it's looking very nice.

Cheers!

I was considering the TZ5 and was about to buy it when I learned that the Wb500 would come out just 2 weeks after I was going to buy the TZ5. Since the WB500 had better specs and the sample pics I saw were very good (to me in any case) I went ahead and bought the WB500. Afterwards, when compared with the TZ5 in this review (http://www.dkamera.de/testberichte/samsung/wb500/fazit) I actually prefer the WB500.

The TZ7 was announced a few days after I ordered my WB500, but to be honest the TZ7 will be $100 more expensive and ment I would have to wait another 3-5 months. Considering the specs are almost identical (the added 2X zoom doesn't persuade me) I'm still very happy with my choice.

[Transit29]

First of all, Palmbeer, THANK YOU for collaborating with us on your purchase, and posting samples in your blog.

I've been anxiously awaiting this camera's U.S. release since first reading about it a few weeks ago. I'm looking for a compact yet capable camera to record decent stills and stable HD Video for a trip I have planned in March, and this seems like it will be the best thing available by that time. The trip comes before the Lumix TZ7's release, and the sound on this from the samples I've seen seems to be measurably better than the LumixTZ5 and probably even the Lumix FZ28. Plus, I like the use of mp4 instead of quicktime.

My question is this - I downloaded the WB500 manual to get a better idea of features and functions. Since there will be times when I'll want to shoot 640x480 video as well as HD, I was troubled by reading in the specs that the zoom at this resolution is only a 6.7x or so (no wide angle available), but more bothered that it seemingly stated the microphone would cut off when zooming in this resolution.

Can you verify if this is the case, that using zoom in 640x480 video cuts off the mic? It's not a deal breaker, but it does leave me possibly contemplating if there are any other options.

[PalmBeer]

Transit29 wrote:

First of all, Palmbeer, THANK YOU for collaborating with us on your purchase, and posting samples in your blog.

I've been anxiously awaiting this camera's U.S. release since first reading about it a few weeks ago. I'm looking for a compact yet capable camera to record decent stills and stable HD Video for a trip I have planned in March, and this seems like it will be the best thing available by that time. The trip comes before the Lumix TZ7's release, and the sound on this from the samples I've seen seems to be measurably better than the LumixTZ5 and probably even the Lumix FZ28. Plus, I like the use of mp4 instead of quicktime.

My question is this - I downloaded the WB500 manual to get a better idea of features and functions. Since there will be times when I'll want to shoot 640x480 video as well as HD, I was troubled by reading in the specs that the zoom at this resolution is only a 6.7x or so (no wide angle available), but more bothered that it seemingly stated the microphone would cut off when zooming in this resolution.

Can you verify if this is the case, that using zoom in 640x480 video cuts off the mic? It's not a deal breaker, but it does leave me possibly contemplating if there are any other options.

Morning Transit,

I can confirm that in Widescreen Video recording modes 1280 and 1280 HQyou can use the Optical zoom to it's fullest 10 times magnification. In 640 and 320 the camera automatically zooms in a little bit and you lose the widescreen view. In 320 mode you can capture 60 frames a second, in all others 30 frames a second

You can still zoom in to the samedisctance as before with 640 and 320, however I'm not sure if this means that you lose the first 3.3X zoom. But to be honest I don'tbelieve the difference is that big. Probably more like 1X zoom or even less if you ask me by looking at what happens on screen when switchin resolutions.

Regarding the microphone. You have3 options when recording Video's as far as recording audio goes. You can turn off the audio entirely (effectively muting the entire video), you can select to have the Microphone turned of during zoom so it doesn't capture the noise of the lens zooming in (this effectively sets the speed of zooming to be the same as when shooting pictures), or you can choose to record all audio during zoom.

The latter is my favorite and this slows down speed of the zoom function by half approximately, but this means you can zoom in to 10X whilst recording video and audio at the same time without interruptions or losing audio during zoom. The Noise it picks up from the lens zooming in is hardly noticable, except when you're recording in absolute silence, but then again what's the point of recording audio in such an environment anyway.

I'll try to record a short video this afternoon during my break and use the zoom function in it. I'll upload it to Megauploads and post the link here for you.

I like the use of MP4 with H264 codec better too as this means I can connect my camera directly to my Xbox 360 and watch my movies on my HD TV in all their glory without having to convert them on the PC first

[PalmBeer]

Found another foreign review with lots of pics I didn't see before:

http://choijunyong.com/bbs/zboard.ph...=asc&no=52

Finding english reviews is still VERY hard for this camera...

On another note, I read a little more on the TZ7's new AVCHD Lite format for recording video's. I read on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVCHDthat this is (as far as I can tell)basically the same MP4 H264 as the WB500 has. At least it looks that way. And considering I can record over 2 1/2 hours of 1280HQ video on my 16GB card with the Wb500 I doubt that this new AVCHD Lite will double that time...

In any case, I'll report back later with some sample movies and will continue to update my Blog (http://palmkesphotoblog.blogspot.com)

[PalmBeer]

Uploaded 3 short Sample Movies of about 30-60 seconds each

- 1280 HQ with Zoom + Audio
-640 with Zoom + Audio
-640 with Zoom + Muted Zoom Audio

I shot these near a pond with some ducks where it was almost windstill and rather quite so you can clearly hear the sound it records when zooming and determine if it's acceptable or not.

http://www.megaupload.com/nl/?d=C9M6HGJ7

For me, having the option to turn sound on or off when recording movies and zooming is great and the recording of the zoom itself is acceptable considering all the other facts of this camera (size, optical zoom, movie quality, image qualityetc).

Greetings,
PalmBeer

[digitri]

PalmBeer wrote:

digitri wrote:

I was considering the TZ5 and was about to buy it when I learned that the Wb500 would come out just 2 weeks after I was going to buy the TZ5. Since the WB500 had better specs and the sample pics I saw were very good (to me in any case) I went ahead and bought the WB500. Afterwards, when compared with the TZ5 in this review (http://www.dkamera.de/testberichte/samsung/wb500/fazit) I actually prefer the WB500.

The TZ7 was announced a few days after I ordered my WB500, but to be honest the TZ7 will be $100 more expensive and ment I would have to wait another 3-5 months. Considering the specs are almost identical (the added 2X zoom doesn't persuade me) I'm still very happy with my choice.

Don't worry PB, you sure made the right choice and you are the best (and only) judge of that decision ;-)
Besides, going by the comperative reviews at the link you provided:
http://www.dkamera.de/testberichte/samsung/wb500/fazit
the WB500 can hold it's ground against *any* compact they have tested and that's no little feat! As for the TZ7, it's a bit smaller and lighter which I favor and perhaps the screen is a bit better, but it's sure more expensive and has no manual controls at all. In any case I don't expect you'll regret your decision and it looks like a great tool to develop your photography skills. Thanks again for your enthusiastic readiness to help!

[PalmBeer]

digitri wrote:

Don't worry PB, you sure made the right choice and you are the best (and only) judge of that decision ;-)
Besides, going by the comperative reviews at the link you provided:
http://www.dkamera.de/testberichte/samsung/wb500/fazit
the WB500 can hold it's ground against *any* compact they have tested and that's no little feat! As for the TZ7, it's a bit smaller and lighter which I favor and perhaps the screen is a bit better, but it's sure more expensive and has no manual controls at all. In any case I don't expect you'll regret your decision and it looks like a great tool to develop your photography skills. Thanks again for your enthusiastic readiness to help!

I didn't know the TZ7 didn't have manual controls, a missed opportunity.
The screen is probably better indeed as the TZ5's screen is better already(3 inch VS 2.7 inch and double the resolution).

On another note I've added ISO, Aperture and Shutterspeed information to all the photo's on my Blog by the way. Keep in mind all of them were shot in Automatic mode though.

I'm definetly going to experiment with different Apertures and Shutterspeeds in the manual mode a lot. I bought a book called the Digital Camera Bible last weekend and am going to study that some more over the coming weeks.

If anyone has any tips on how to understand and learn using functions like Aperture and Shutterspeed by the way then please let me know. I'm going to try and capture flying birds and moving cars for testing the Manual Shutterspeed function if I can.