Samsung is launching a feature-rich camera soon and those of you looking for an upgrade may want to take interest. Though no exact launch date or set price are available, the Digimax D103 is worth holding out for. This 10.1-megapixel behemoth comes with 3x optical/10x digital zoom, a 2.5-inch LCD, PictBridge, 4cm macro (great for those close ups), nice looking movie recording capabilities in MPEG-4, ISO 1000, and effects for getting unique shots.
The D103 also comes with a grip in the front to help keep the camera stable when taking a shot. It even has a multitude of modes to choose from for every kind of shot possible. The design isn’t exactly the coolest or hippest, but with 10.1-megapixels, who cares?
Samsung Digimax D103 Digital Camera [MobileWhack]
Just a disclaimer, you might want to check out the image quality on the most recent Samsung Digimax cameras. I use one at school when taking pictures for my design class, and I’ve noticed that there’s an annoying image fringing problem. Also I think the UI for camera I use is counter-intuitive. Also beware of the 10X digital, it doesn’t really look good past a certain point (depends what you’re taking a picture of).
It does look like they did include a ton of the older features which made their other camera’s pretty nice, like a lot of scene modes, as well as standard features. A pretty well equipped point and shoot camera…
Price wise, I’d guess it’d be like the Canon A6XX series, so 300 – 400 depending on how the market goes.
mmm, this wouldn’t happen to be next weeks “prize of the week” would it? In which case, when I win the D40, I can win this one as well and do a blog entry describing the benefits and counterpoints to each feature on CrunchGear for all to get informed upon. You can then stick an Amazon affiliate link on CrunchGear (next to the article of course) to purchase both models and make back your money 10x over! ;-)
Unlike cell phones, cameras seem to be getting better and better via specialization instead of conglomerization.
Jon
How important are Megapixels though really? If the rest of the hardware is crapola then you get crapola picture, neh?
Scott… although Samsung isn’t known for photography, they do have the financial resources to outshine Kodak any day of the week… so I wouldn’t it put it past them to produce something AMAZING. I guess I will simply have to evaluate both and I will be sure to let you know alright ;-)
Jon
Scott,
The problems that I pointed out with the older Samsung cameras are pretty precise and nitpicky problems. I mean how many of the point and shoot market even mess with their ISO settings, and how many of those even know what ISO noise/fringing is…
But like many point out, megapixels should not be the only thing you judge when looking at cameras. How much you can adjust your camera plays a big role in how good a camera can be and how well you take your pictures. Ten megapixels is a ridiculuous amount of megapixels though, considering 4 or so megapixels can print out a very good looking 6 x 8 picture.
Quote of the day
“Ten megapixels is a ridiculous amount of megapixels” — Jon Lee, 206
Quote of 25 years ago
“Nobody will ever need more than 640k RAM!” — Bill Gates, 1981
The way things are going now with storage devices, computers etc… I wouldn’t be surprised if we get to 100MP and still have people complaining about resolution and clarity problems.
Jon
True, don’t tell anyone Jon, but I have 1E1000 megapixel camera. It’s pretty sweet. I’ll show you a pic.
http://www.camerahacker.com/re-use_camera/disposable_camera.jpg
10.1 megapixels? Sounds impressive, but if it were a USB device, I could daisy-chain it. :D In fact, I’m kinda surprised it isn’t a USB. That aside, the design isn’t pretty – although, 10.1 megapixels is enough to catch nearly anyone’s eye on it’s own.
Just got this camera today from PCWorld (UK) for only 129.99 GBP Great quality under good light.