Digital Camera Review

First Impressions Review

Jan 11, 2009 - By Tim Barribeau
The HZ10W from Samsung squeezes a substantial 10x zoom wide angle lens and 10-megapixel sensor into quite a small, well built package. We got our first glimpse of this camera at CES 2009, and after some time working with a pre-production sample, gained some insight into what sort of beast it is. Overall we were quite impressed, as you'll see in this First Impression review. Expect to see the HZ10W in stores in January for $299.99
Advertisement

Manual Control Options
The HZ10W has a good degree of manual control, though it's not quite as full featured as it could be. That said, we're always glad to see a camera where you can manually set the aperture and shutter speed, as well as white balance and manual focus.

Focus
Manual Focus
The HZ10W lets you manually focus with the left and right buttons on the directional pad, with the central part of the screen enlarged so you can make sure the image is properly sharp.

Auto Focus
The focus mode can be set to spot, multi or selection, the last of which lets you use the directional pad to select an area of the frame to focus on.

ISO
The ISO range is an eminently respectable ISO 80 to 3200, though the highest setting is only available at 3MP. Strangely, auto ISO wasn't available in Manual mode, but this may be a hiccup in the current unfinished firmware on the pre-production model.

White Balance
For white balancing, you can trust the camera to decide with auto, or else use presets for Sunlight, Cloud, Fluorescent H, Fluorescent L or Tungsten or take a manual white balance setting.

Metering
The relatiely standard metering options of multi, spot and center-weighted are all here.

Shutter Speed
While the shutter speed can be manually set, we were not able to do so on our pre-production sample..

Aperture
The aperture range can be set manually, but only to maximum or minimum given the current zoom level, nothing in between. At full tele it runs f/3.5 to f/7.5, and at maximum zoom it goes from f/5.8 to f/13.1, which is an overall quite slow lens.

Image Stabilization
The HZ10W offers both optical and digital image stabilization, which is welkcome given the rather slow nature of the lens.

Picture Quality / Size Options
Image compression can be set to Superfine, Fine or Normal in any of the following resolutions: 10MP, 9MP, 7MP, 7MP (16:9), 5MP, 3MP, 1MP

Picture Effects Mode
During shooting you can change the color palette to black and white, sepia, red, green, blue, negative or custom, or set the film mode to vivid, soft, forest, retro, cool, calm or classic. Additionally, in playback, you can add noise to your pictures to make them look more grainy.

Modes Page 6 of 8 Conclusion Samsung HZ10W Digital Camera First Impression Review Navigation

Advertisement