Mirrorless and hybrid cameras are becoming the leading cameras in the market today. But, DSLR cameras still have value, as well as compact digital cameras are also doing okay in the market.
When it comes to Samsung, they have released cameras such as NX series (Mirrorless), GX series (DSLR), and compact digital cameras (ST/WB series), and today I’m going to take a look at the ST100 which is a compact digital camera.
▲ Appearance / Design
It comes in 2 colors purple and black, and has a shiny body. It is 100x60x20mm and weighs 135g. (Not including the battery and memory card)
The lens is the famous Schneider 6.3-31.5mm (35-175mm on 35mm equivalent) of focal length and F3.6-4.8. It’s an inner zoom type and supports 5x digital zoom.
It’s a dual LCD camera with a 1.8” LCD on the front. It’s a specialized camera for self shots. For your information, it supports couple/jump/smile shot modes which are taken automatically.
On the back, it has the 3.5” wide touch screen LCD like previous models.
The sides are finished in a smooth curved line and on the right side, there’s a strap ring.
On the top, it has F.LCD/Power/Shutter/Zoom/Play buttons, and the F.LCD button is to activate the front LCD. For your information, by tapping the front LCD, the front LCD can be turned on as well.
On the bottom, it has a battery/memory card chamber, recharge/data cable connection port, and tripod connection port. The battery is 3.7V 740mAh Li-Ion and MicroSD is used as the memory card.
In design, it’s like a normal digital camera, but it’s more specialized for self shots with the dual LCD.
▲ UI/Menu
The basic UI and menu are the same as the previous cameras.
All of the functions are operated by touch and by selecting the left upper side, the screen mode can be selected. Through the mode button, the menu such as size/filter/ISO/color can be set.
The menu is also very similar to other ST series. The menu also changes with the shooting mode.
The mode can change to Smart Auto/Movie/Program mode by rotating the motion recognition button located on the right center.
The overall menu and UI lay outs are the same as the previous ST series and all the menus are operated by touch. (Or motion recognition)
▲ Screen Size
The Samsung ST100 has a 1/2.3” CCD and 14.48M pixels (14.2M effective pixels). 3 kinds of screen ratio modes are supported and the general 4:3 ratio supports 6 sizes such as1M/3M/5M/8M/12M/14M.
It also supports 16:9 2M/10M and DSLR 3:2 12M.
It supports 5x zoom and the pictures below are the maximum wide angle and maximum telephoto angle images.
Maximum wide angle photo (Upper) by the ST100
Maximum telephoto angle photo (Lower) by the ST100
▲ Center / Corner quality and ISO
Compared with the center quality, the corner quality is a little insufficient.
<Center/Corner quality of the Samsung ST100>
From ISO 400, I started to notice noise. Other digital cameras normally have noise from ISO 400.
<Images of the ST100 by different ISO>
The quality is not that great, but like a normal digital camera.
▲ Additional functions
Samsung ST series supports various additional functions, and these functions allows a lot of ease of use for users. Face recognition also worked well.
<Face Recognition function of the ST100>
Scene mode consists of various modes such as Beauty Shot/Frame Guide/Night Scenery/Portrait/Macro/Text/Backlight. According to the current scene, users can select the proper scene mode.
Sometimes, it’s a little too difficult to choose the appropriate scene, and because ISO/Shutter speed/Aperture is fixed in the different modes I had to experiment a bit to get what I wanted.
<Scene modes of the Samsung ST100 – Night Scenery (Left) vs Firework (Right)>
Smart Filter is my favorite function. It consists of Miniature, Vignetting, Fish eye 1 & 2, Defog, and Sketch. The Functions gave me pictures a lot of personality.
<Smart Filter of the ST100 – Miniature Filter>
<Smart Filter of the ST100 – Vignetting Filter>
<Smart Filter of the ST100 – Fish eye 1 (left) and Fish eye 2 (Right) Filter>
<Smart Filter of the ST100 – Sketch Filter>
We’ve looked at the ST100 with the 1.8” dual LCD from Samsung. This cameras great for the Myspace style photos with it’s front LCD. So for the ladies and gents that like to take great self shots for their personal blogs and post this is a great camera to look at. And damn it makes you look good. Especially the Smart Filters, allowing each picture to really feel unique.
Below are the resized sample shots without any alterations. Thank you.
