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Introduction
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01.Product Tour
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02.Color
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03.Noise
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04.Resolution
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05.Video
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06.Sample Photos
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07.Playback
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08.Hardware
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09.Controls
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10.Design & Handling
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11.Canon SD970 Comparison
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12.Nikon S630 Comparison
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13.Panasonic FX580 Comparison
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14.Conclusion
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15.Photo Gallery
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16.Comments
Samsung HZ15W
Previous: Page 1
Product TourNext: Page 3
NoiseColor
Colors are fairly accurate, though most color modes oversaturate.
Color (12.50)
HZ15W has fairly accurate color, shooting under our lab testing conditions with 3000 lux illumination. For this test, we determine how closely the colors in photos of the X-Rite ColorChecker chart match the known color values of each patch, measuring color error using Imatest software. More on how we test color.
In its most accurate color mode (which was called ‘calm’), the camera accurately captured most colors, but had a tendency to undersaturate blues and oranges. The table below shows how each of the cameras, when shooting in its most accurate mode, compares to the ideal value of the color, which is shown in the left hand column.
As you can see on the score chart below, the Samsung performed respectably, lagging the top two by very little.
| Camera Color Comparisons | |||||
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| Ideal | Samsung HZ15W | Canon PowerShot SD970 IS | Nikon Coolpix S630 | Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX580 | |
| Dark Skin |
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| Light Skin |
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| Blue Sky |
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| Foliage |
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| Blue Flower |
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| Bluish Green |
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| Ideal | Samsung HZ15W | Canon PowerShot SD970 IS | Nikon Coolpix S630 | Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX580 | |
| Orange |
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| Purplish Blue |
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| Moderate Red |
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| Purple |
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| Yellow Green |
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| Orange Yellow |
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| Ideal | Samsung HZ15W | Canon PowerShot SD970 IS | Nikon Coolpix S630 | Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX580 | |
| Blue |
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| Green |
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| Red |
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| Yellow |
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| Magenta |
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| Cyan |
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Color Modes (5.00)
Samsung includes a wide assortment of color modes, as they do with most of their cameras, which are all unhelpfully named. They’re all accessed by pressing the E button on the back of the camera. There’s vivid (which oversaturates everything); soft (which struggles with oranges, blues and reds); forest (which oversaturates everything, even more so than vivid); retro (puts an orange hue on, but isn’t quite sepia); cool (puts a blue tint over everything); calm (slightly undersaturated, but the most accurate); classic (black and white); and finally normal. From normal mode, you can tweak a number of settings: color casts can be added (in black and white, sepia, red, green, blue, negative and custom which lets you alter the levels of red, green and blue); as well as sharpness, contrast and saturation over a five-point scale.
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Samsung HZ15W Manual
Top Rated Point & Shoots
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$499.001Panasonic Lumix FZ150
Excellent image quality, speedy performance, and a great design add up to the best superzoom that has ever graced our labs. That distinction seems to change hands every week, but trust us when we say that the FZ150 is a truly great camera. Read full 16-part review
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$449.992Sony Cyber-shot HX100V
This professionally-geared ultrazoom offers some of the best color accuracy we've ever seen. It's a shame the other scores weren't quite so strong. Read full 16-part review
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$799.993Canon PowerShot G1 X
Canon's new G1 X features a giant 1.5-inch CMOS sensor and the same manual control that we loved on the G12. Read full 7-part review
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$429.994Canon PowerShot SX40 HS
Canon's SX30 got a CMOS makeover that resulted in the SX40 HS, an impressive ultrazoom that captures beautiful shots in almost any scenario. Read full 16-part review
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$399.995Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ47
Panasonic resists the urge to cram more megapixels and more focal length into their latest ultrazoom. The FZ47 instead focuses on image quality and features, resulting in an incredibly strong camera that we loved shooting with. Read full 16-part review
$399.99TypesAny Zoom3,5.13.1x to 5x Zoom5.1,105.1x to 9.9x Zoom10,10x & Larger ZoomAny Megapixels0,8< 8 Megapixels8,108 to 10 Megapixels10,> 10 Megapixels
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