Samsung NV7 OPS First Impressions Review

 

The mode dial is littered with white icons except for the Auto mode’s text, which has a green background. The Auto mode tries to make things real simple for users by disabling most shooting options. Here is what’s left to be changed (if desired): macro, flash, image size, image stabilization, and controls for color and brightness. The color and brightness controls are on sliding scales that move when the thumb moves across the buttons on the bottom of the LCD screen. The color moves from cool to warm and the brightness from dark to bright. The color adjustment is a replacement for white balance and the brightness scale is a simple version of exposure compensation. I used the Auto mode to take several pictures of static and moving subjects. The pictures of digital cameras and other non-moving objects turned out just fine. Pictures of people walking didn’t turn out very well. Even with the image stabilization activated, there were plenty of blurry pictures. While there's limited light in areas of the convention center, we expected the optical stabilization to assist the slower shutter speeds a bit better.

 

Movie Mode

The movie mode is also conveniently located on the mode dial and has more options than most compact digital cameras. The size can be chosen to 640 x 480 and 320 x 240 pixels, and the frame rate set to 30 or 15 fps. Color effects can be chosen along with the same white balance and exposure compensation options that are available while shooting still images. The auto focus system can work normally or be set to macro for shooting videos close to subjects. It works fairly well, but has a noticeable lag when zooming. The auto focus system catches up quickly though. Perhaps one of the best aspects of the movie mode is that the 7x optical zoom lens is fully functional. While this is happening more and more in compact cameras, the trick is to keep the lenses quiet. Samsung mastered that in the NV7 because the 7x lens moves throughout its range without a peep – or whir or click or anything. This is great news, but its audio isn’t that great. The monaural audio that is recorded sounds a bit muffled; however this could be the result of the general buzz at the convention center. The quiet 7x lens is nicely complemented by the optical image stabilization system. The icon doesn’t appear on the screen and users can’t change the mode, but the NV7 automatically employs the system continuously in the movie mode – which is the best way to do it. All videos come out very smooth. Videos can be edited for the big screen within the camera too. The NV7’s playback mode has a simple trimming function that cuts a clip into two files. The Samsung NV7’s movie mode is quite impressive with its many shooting options, silent zoom lens, and steady image stabilization system.

 

The camera’s shooting mode can be set to Single, Continuous, Continuous High-Speed, Motion Capture or Auto Exposure Bracketing. The Continuous mode is incredibly slow. It takes about a second and a half between shots, but it can take pictures until the memory is full – albeit a bit sporadic. It doesn’t shoot evenly but seems to stutter here and there. The High-Speed burst mode snaps along at just faster than 2 fps, but stops after only 3 pictures. It took 6-7 seconds to write the images to the internal memory too! The Motion Capture mode is similar to Sony’s Multi-Burst 16 mode in that it can snap a lot of pictures, but it does so at a low resolution. The Samsung NV7’s Motion Capture mode takes 10 pictures a second at the 1-megapixel size. They can be played back like a movie in the playback mode. The Auto Exposure Bracketing shoots 3 frames like the burst mode and changes the exposure level for each shot, but it is unclear if the exposure interval can be adjusted at all. I sure couldn’t find it. The NV7 also has a self-timer that snaps pictures after a 2 or 10-second delay. There is also a double self-timer that takes a picture after 10 seconds, then another after 2 more seconds. Finally, the camera can sync with an optional remote control and take pictures when a button is pressed.

 

The playback mode is accessed by one of the only on-camera buttons; it is located at the intersection between the Smart Touch buttons on the right side of the screen and the bottom. Once in the playback mode, the following menu options appear on the screen.

 

 

There is hardly any text in the playback menu and the icons don’t appear with text when scrolled over like in the shooting menu. An Edit option also appears on the screen and when selected, it opens a different menu.

 

 

Pictures can be viewed one by one or as nine-image thumbnails. Above are the editing effects that can be applied to images. The Trimming feature applies to both still and video files. Pictures can be magnified up to 8x and file information can be displayed or hidden. The playback menu is missing a function to create print orders, and users can’t even access the PictBridge menu item until the camera is connected to a printer.

 

There is a “photo gallery” playback mode on the mode dial that is much like Kodak’s Favorites mode. The Samsung NV7 displays photos from here and can play fancy slide shows with the same selectable intervals, loops, and transitions as the other slide show. This mode, however, also lets users select music from a collection of three soundtracks. The background music isn’t a work of art, but takes two or three measures of simple music and plays it over and over again. The “photo gallery” playback mode does keep pictures very accessible and allows users to start a slide show in seconds.

 

The Samsung NV7 has 12 scene modes: Night Scene, Portrait, Children, Landscape, Text Recognition, Sunset, Dawn, Backlight, Fireworks, Beach, Snow, and Advanced Shake Reduction. The first 11 modes are found by entering the Scene position on the mode dial and scrolling across the top of the LCD screen. When scrolling through, the screen shows a sample picture and text title from each mode. This is very helpful. There really aren’t any great scene modes that allow for indoor shooting so Samsung included an Advanced Shake Reduction (ASR) mode on the mode dial. This mode activates the optical image stabilization system and uses high ISO sensitivity and fast shutter speeds to reduce blur. The mode seemed to work well too, as it did just that. The NV7’s Text Recognition mode shoots documents, then allows users to extract the text using the included software. I did not get to test this feature, but can’t wait to try it out upon full review.

 

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