Samsung Digimax V4

Samsung isn’t a big name in digital cameras –
it’s still best known for electronics – but the
Digimax V4 heralds a new push by the
company to become one of the major players in the
digital photography market.
And the Digimax does look like it’s got everything
going for it: resolution, photographic options, size, build
quality, versatility and, above all, price.

More for your money

Samsung’s aiming the Digimax V4 at both beginners
and more ambitious photographers. Beginners can leave
the camera set to the ‘Easy’ auto-everything mode so
the camera sorts out the technicalities. More
experienced users can apply exposure compensation,
change the white balance, change the metering mode
(from multi-pattern to spot metering) and switch to
either aperture-priority auto-exposure, shutter-priority
or full manual mode. There’s an AEB (Auto-Exposure
Bracketing) option too for taking three shots at three
different exposure levels so you can choose the most
successful later.
In itself this dual appeal is nothing new. Even
advanced enthusiasts’ cameras like the Nikon CoolPix
5700 or Canon PowerShot G3, for example, have idiotproof
point-and-shoot modes. What’s important here,
though, is that the Digimax V4 offers all these advanced
features for such a low price – a price at which you’d
normally only expect to get a simple auto-only model.
The Samsung’s versatility extends to a movie mode,
admittedly with a limited resolution (288 x 208 pixels),
but with a good 24fps frame rate that prevents your
movies looking jerky. It can record sound at the same
time, and the built-in microphone can also be used to
add voice annotations to your still images.
All the controls available could leave you spending as
much time making alterations as actually taking
pictures. The Samsung gets round this with three
different My Set options that store up to nine different
settings including image size, quality and ISO ready for
re-use at any time.
This camera’s not finished yet, either. Samsung
boasts that the Digimax V4 can use no fewer than nine
different types of battery but in truth six of these are
variants on AAs (alkalines, NiCds, NiMh and so on).
You can also fit 3-volt CR-V3 lithium cells, dedicated
Samsung lithium-ion disposables and, if you go for
the optional Power Pack, a rechargable lithium-ion
battery and charging unit. This gives a life expectancy
of around 280 shots.

Daily use

All of which is pretty good for £350 all in. And if you’re
expecting compromises in build quality as a result,
you’re in for a surprise. The Digimax is compact and
solid-feeling, with a high-quality metal finish. This is a
camera that feels more expensive than it actually is.
The startup speed is pretty brisk at around three
seconds, and the focusing speed is on a par with rival
cameras, typically taking around a second to confirm
focus. The zooming isn’t quite so impressive, though.
It’s quick enough when travelling from one end of the
range to another, but as soon as that’s done that it
spends a moment refocusing.
The LCD panel is where digicam makers try to save
cash when they’re on a tight budget, but there’s little
sign of cost-cutting here. The 1.5-inch panel produces
crisp, bright, sharp images – maybe a fraction too bright
in broad daylight. Samsung reckons it auto-adjusts to
dimmer lighting, and it certainly performed well in
gloomier indoor lighting.
The optical viewfinder’s usable, though not quite
so impressive. It’s a reasonable size, but there’s lots
of barrel distortion around the edges.
If there is a chink in the Samsung’s armour, it’s
the control layout. The controls themselves feel
positive and well-engineered, but if you want to use
some of the camera’s more advanced features you
have to go through the menus to get to them. The
aperture-priority, shutter-priority and manual modes,
don’t have their own positions on the main mode
dial: instead, there’s a combined ‘A/S/M’ position
and you have to pick the one you want from the
menus. You’ll also need the menus to swap to spot
metering mode, set up auto-exposure bracketing,
change the white balance, change the quality
settings and more. You might be able to configure
your favourite settings using the My Set feature, but
the Digimax still comes across as a camera that
offers a whole host of tools but then puts them just
a little too far out of reach for everyday photography.
It was a bit disappointing, too, to find that the
Digimax is pretty slow at cycling through images in
playback mode, taking as long as four seconds to
render each shot fully on the LCD. It is quick if you
want to zoom in on shots, though, and pan around
them to check the details.

Image quality

If a few of the controls are all we’ve got to complain
about, then the Samsung’s going to come out of
this very well indeed. But most importantly – what
are the pictures like?
They are, on the whole, very good indeed.
Exposure accuracy and colour fidelity are excellent.
Outright sharpness isn’t the best we’ve seen from a
4-megapixel camera, but it’s not the worst either.
Maybe we’re spoiled by the razor sharp definition of
the PowerShot S50 this month, but the fact is, the 3-
megapixel Olympus Mju 300 is sharp enough to rival
the Digimax. Never mind, though, because the
Samsung’s results are smooth-toned and noise-free
and can surely stand a little sharpening in your
image-editor. Certainly for £350 you’re not going to
find a camera that produces better pictures than
these.
You don’t need us to tell you that the digital
camera market is competitive, constantly changing
and crowded with excellent cameras. It makes it
pretty hard to pick out any one of them and say
“this is the one to buy if you’ve got a fixed budget
or you’re looking for a specific set of photographic
options”. Compared to its many rivals, we wouldn’t
rate the Digimax V4 best for image quality, design
or features alone, but for £350 it gives you more of
all three than we think you’ll find anywhere else.
For now anyway.