Samsung Cameras also introduces a tier to it's digital family - the A series. Aimed squarely at those who want to 'point and shoot' the Digimax A6 model offer versatility and affordability whilst retaining the quality you would expect from Samsung.Developed for "point and shoot" photographers looking for a solid camera with a full range of features, the Digimax A6 combines a 6 mega-pixel CCD sensor and 3x optical zoom to deliver fantastic image quality.
1 Great Value for money! A day #1 review !
I bought this camera from radioshack for 200 after 100 rebate. I upgraded from a canon S30. I was holding out for a nice price for a small but versatile camera like the S30. This one seems to perform better in extremes of low light and bright light than my old camera, but the auto white balance was better with canon.
Just took it out of the box and shot some pics. Nice upgrade from my Canon powershot S30. Similar ease of use, much lighter, more image formats (tiff), uses any type of battery (BIG PLUS) even rechargables or the CRs, comes with a rechargable CR battery and charger, which is a nice value. The CR (Li ion) battery, enables users to take up to 380 images in succession according to the website, has to see if this is true.
White balance is slightly warmer than my old S30 camera, gives more reddish hue, will have to fix it in future. In my opinion good value for money.
Uses USB 1.1 for transfering the larger pics, so slower than my old camera during transfers.
Pic quality looks good. Has 32mb internal, holds 11 pics in full resolution jpeg. Less if you use umcompressed. Each pic is 2-3MB in size in jpeg mode. Did not try tiff mode yet, probably will double in size. Now I have to get an SD card, for this as I had a CF card based camera before.
Low light pictures are slightly overexposed in the program mode. Bright light pics are slightly underexposed. I have not used the speciality modes for these pics. All in all almost as easy as using the S30, feels the same, but lighter and more megapixels. I g=have not tried any of the 9 scene modes yet-(Portrait/Children/Landscape, Close up/Sunset/Dawn/Backlight /Fireworks/Beach/Snow).
I have a comparision of pics from my old canon S30 and new Samsung in similar settings if you want to see them check this album out. http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=2130506283
Also there is a nice review on dpreview of its cousin the V6. Functions are pretty much the same. Actually cant tell the difference between A6 and V6, as far as I can tell they are the same internally.
It also has the capability to shoot movies at up to 30 frames per second of VGA quality (640x480). This allows stored movies to be played on general TVs, without any deterioration of the image, this is a nice improvement over my canons S30's 340x340 resolution. I read, we can also capture a still picture from movie clips, havenot figured how.
The PictBridge function of the Digimax V6 allows images taken by the camera to be directly printed without PCs. This means we can immediately get clear 6 Mega-pixel pictures, by directly connecting the camera to a printer supporting the PictBridge printing standard.
We can also set any image they want on the default screen of the camera after adjusting the image size. Additional functions such as voice recording with video, solo voice recording, voice memo to add voices to general pictures, and One-Touch playback are listed, but I have not tried them yet.
The A6 provides multiple language support including English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Korean, Russian, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish, Dutch and some more. It comes equipped with a a nice complement of accessories, including a ok loooking carrying case, USB cable, Charger, Li Ion battery, software driver CD-ROM and a wrist strap.
Samsung's website sucks, does not even list any digital cameras! So I guess firmware upgrade or driver downloads will be a terror.
All in all I am happy with the camera on day one! Served my need in the right price.
Some Extended technical details for the choosy follows:
Sensor
* 1/1.9" Type CCD
* 6.4 million pixels total
* 6.1 million effective pixels
Image sizes
* 2816x2112
* 2560x1920
* 2272x1704
* 2048x1536
* 1600x1200
* 1024x768
* 640x480
Movie clips
* 640x 480
* 320 x 240
* 30 fps, 15 fps
* Recording time dependant on memory card capacity
File formats
* Still Image: TIFF, JPEG (DCF), EXIF 2.2, DPOF 1.1, PictBridge 1.0
* Movie: AVI (MJPEG)
* Voice : WAV (Voice recording max. 1 hour/voice memo in still image max. 10 sec.
Lens
* 38-114mm equiv. (3x zoom)
* F2.7 - 4.9
* Schneider Kreuznach
Focus TTL autofocus
Focus distance
* Normal: 80cm - infinity
* Macro: 30 80cm
* Super Macro: 6 - 30cm (Wide only)
Metering
* Multi
* Spot
ISO sensitivity
* Auto
* 50
* 100
* 200
* 400
Exposure compensation
* +/- 2EV
* 0.5EV steps
Shuttter speed 2 - 1/2000 sec
Modes
* Program AE
* Shutter Priority AE
* Aperture Priority AE
* Manual Exposure
Colour modes
* Normal
* B&W
* Sepia
* RGB
* Negative
Scene modes 9 scene modes
White balance
* Auto
* Daylight
* Cloudy
* Fluorescent _H
* Fluorescent _L
* Tungsten
* Custom
Self timer 2 or 10 sec
Continuous shooting Yes
Flash
* Built-in
* Modes: Auto, Auto & Red-eye reduction, On/Off, Slow Sync
* Range: (wide) 3.0 m, (tele) 2.0 m
* Recharge time: Approx. 7 sec.
Viewfinder Optical
LCD monitor
* 1.8" TFT LCD
* 115,200 pixels
Connectivity
* USB 1.1
* AV out
* DC-in
Print compliance PictBridge
Storage * SD/MMC card
Power
* 2 x AA alkaline, Lithium, Ni-Mn, Ni-MH, Ni-Cd, Ni-Zn / 1 x CR-V3
* Rechargeable battery : 3.7V Li-ion(SLB-1437)
