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Samsung TL34HD

Digital Camera Review

Nov 14, 2008 - By Tim Barribeau

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TL34HD Prices

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External Reviews
Steve's Digicams Samsung TL34HD Digital Trends Samsung TL34HD

Movie Mode (6.90)
As noted in our video testing section, the TL34HD doesn't shoot particularly high quality video, which is a shame. At the very least it gives you a decent amount of control over the process. You can alter exposure compensation, white balance, focus, resolution, frame rate, metering, timer, sound (off, on, or off while zooming), image stabilization and color.

You can shoot at 1280 x 720 (both high quality and normal, though the difference is never explained), 640 x 480 and 320 x 240. All resolutions can be filmed at 15 or 30fps, and the lowest can also squeeze in 60fps. The TL34HD uses MP4 (H.264(MPEG4.AVC)) as its compression method of choice. If you're having trouble running the files, we suggest using Apple's Quicktime.

Drive / Burst Mode (7.00)
The TL34HD has a number of burst modes, though none are mind-blowing. At full resolution, you can take a single image per press, or shoot on continuous mode to keep the photographs coming as long as the shutter button remains held down. High speed mode takes three shots every two seconds, a number more or less confirmed in our testing. If you need ultra-fast images and don't mind taking a resolution hit, Motion Capture will take 15 photos every two seconds, but at a measly one-megapixel resolution. Finally, there is auto-exposure bracketing, which has no controls, but brackets at the unusual ±0.5 steps..

For timers, there are the usual culprits. 10 seconds, 2 seconds, double (one picture taken after 10 seconds, another 2 seconds later) and remote. Unfortunately, the wireless remote isn't included, and was not on sale at the time of this review.

Playback Mode (7.00)
The playback mode on the camera is competent, if not amazing. You can scroll through images using two arrows at the bottom left and bottom right of the screen. The camera insists on using a sliding animation between each file, which makes comparing images difficult. You can view slideshows with five different transitions, three music types and a variety of intervals between pictures.

The editing controls are minimal. First of all, there's the basic resizing and rotating, which are nothing new. You can change the color of the image to negative, green, red, blue, sepia and black and white. Special effects add filters and distortions to your picture: add noise speckles your image; elegant softens and brightens it; shaded creates vignetting (shadows towards the corners) and color filter will turn everything that isn't in the foreground into black and white. You can also fix red-eye and tweak saturation, brightness and contrast. Finally, there face retouch, which adds a soft blur over facial photos to help cover the skin imperfections.

The editing controls in playback.
 

When browsing through your images, you can zoom in up to 13.7x times, and scroll around with your fingers. You also have the option to press the Trim icon, and the image will be cropped to whatever's on screen presently. Zooming out to thumbnail versions shows nine thumbnails at a time, but unfortunately you can't zoom out further to show more.