Samsung 2 View Camera

The first time I laid my eyes on the Samsung 2 View was during a press conference sometime September 9. There were just a few units to fiddle around then but I fell in love with its features right away. This is camera that will surely make you smile and still look good in the photos. I will explain more. Samsung lent me a review unit for my trip to Singapore during the Philippine Department Tourism (DOT) ” Take Me to the Philippines Campaign ” , a Collaboration between DOT and Black Eyed Peas Filipino Member Apl.de.ap. In fact I got to use the Samsung 2 view for a month and took another set of photos on my second trip to Singapore.

samsung-st-550-1
The new Samsung ST550 and ST500 have a 1.5″ LCD screen located right in front of the camera.
samsung-st-550-2

As if that doesn’t make being part of the picture a piece of cake, Samsung’s Smart Gesture User Interface with built-in Gravity sensor makes camwhoring as easy as tapping and smiling.

I will show you some examples.


ace-durano-me
As you can see, Secretary Ace Durano is fascinated with the LCD screen in the front. I didn’t have to press the shutter to take this photo. Lightly tap on the LCD, and it will automatically turn on with the camera set into self-portrait mode with smile detection. Your picture will then be taken automatically, without having to press the shutter!
alp.de.ap.and.me
Flash using the smart mode in the dark room of a night club with the Apl.de.Ap worked well.

tim-yap-and-me

But easy self-portraits are not the only reason why these cameras will soon be on everyone’s wishlist. At a resolution of 1,152K, the ST550’s LCD has four times the resolution than the average point-and-shoot, making it easy to choose which photos to delete and which ones to keep.
singapore-cuisine
It also has 12.2 megapixels and a 27mm wide-angle Schneider-Keruznach lens with 4.6x optical zoom for wider shooting range within short distances. Besides all these specs, the ST550 and ST500 also has a lot of intuitive technologies that make taking professional-grade photos a breeze.

Like I told you earlier, see the smiles as the Samsung 2 View camera is in front of my family. I even look good as I test the smile detection of the camera as I let it stand on a small tripod. It is very sensitive to your smile. The wider your smile, the faster it is to take your photo.
noemi-dado

My young nieces and daughter all turn to the camera and loved how the Samsung 2 View took their photo. Don’t you think their smiles are just so lovely?
samsung-2-view
My husband also gives his winning smile.
samsung-2-view1

My co-blogger in this techie Gadgets blog shows her sweetest smile.
samsung-2-view-2
It also has 12.2 megapixels and a 27mm wide-angle Schneider-Keruznach lens with 4.6x optical zoom for wider shooting range within short distances. Besides all these specs, the ST550 and ST500 also has a lot of intuitive technologies that make taking professional-grade photos a breeze.

The Smart Gesture User Interface enables you to check out your saved images with just a flick of your hand. By tilting the camera at certain angles, you can either go to a different mode or view your saved images without pressing a button.
samsung2view
Gone are the days of overexposed or grainy photos with the Smart Auto feature, which corrects the focus and the white balance according to 16 different potential scenes and subjects. Finally, the Smart Face Recognition technology memorizes over 20 faces and adjusts the exposure and focus to the most high-ranked faces on camera, enabling users to sort out images by face.

The photo above was taken on my second trip to Singapore last October 23. I already mastered the art of self-portrait that I didn’t have to look at the LCD viewer.
samsung-st-550
Here is another self-portrait with Anton and I using smile detection.

I was not able to test the video features since the review unit didn’t come with a memory card. The Samsung 2 view can record 720 BD video at 30 FPS in H.264 format, providing twice as much recording capacity as MPEG4 formats and four times more using the MJPEG format. With HDMI connectivity, all your homemade HD videos can easily be enjoyed in any HD monitor or HDTV.

One thing I don’t like about the camera is the short battery life if you turn on the front LCD viewer. (Edit- Good news. When you buy the camera, it comes with free battery) Consider buying a spare battery if you plan to use it for a whole day tour. Mine died on the 5th hour of the city tour around Singapore.

The ST500 and 550 is available at all photo shops nationwide retailing at Php21,990 and Php 16,990 respectively.Such a perfect gift for your family.

Even my 12 year old niece was so impressed that she made it her Christmas wish list. Here she is showing her mom the LCD viewer and persuading her to buy this camera.

customer

3 thoughts on “Samsung 2 View Camera

  1. That is indeed a nice camera to easily carry around. I dare say I love the tone of some of the images. And some of the flash photos are still decent. This may be a good camera for the “no-manual settings” person.

    Hmmm.. the price is kinda ouch though (for me).

    Nice view on the Samsung 2View camera.
    .-= The Photoblogger´s last blog ..Domestication of man: Genetic Evolution =-.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *