Samsung WB1000

For over a year now, Samsung has been known for including very wide angle lenses on its compact cameras, starting at 24 mm while most of the competition contents itself with 28 mm, or 25 mm in the case of Panasonic's FX series. 

Only expert models like the LX3 or the Ricoh GX200 can match Samsung's record in this regard.  That makes this new WB1000 just the latest in a long line of high-end compacts from the Korean manufacturer.

Handling

Another long-standing tradition in this family of compacts is good solid design with well-placed controls.  Holding the WB1000 in your hand is therefore a pleasure, with the middle finger resting on a wedge at the side of the camera, while the loop for holding the wrist-strap prevents the thumb from slipping.  Nevertheless, we would have preferred this to be on the back, to give more support to the finger on the zoom control.  All of the camera's controls have been well-fitted, with the exception perhaps, of the scroll wheel, which turns a little too easily but is also very sensitive.


The menus are laid out in style, with the scroll wheel making changing the settings easy, both in the normal menus and those in the fast menu controlled by the Fn key, which brings together several key features (sensitivity, white balance, etc.) when you're not in automatic mode.

The screen is both very detailed (460, 000 pixels) and of excellent quality.  As it uses AMOLED technology, it has viewing angles that an LCD could never dream of, with no lack of contrast and good  deep blacks.  It's a real success that's only undermined by its glossy finish, which reflects sunlight and attracts greasy fingerprints; an LCD would do no better, though.

In practice, using the WB1000 is generally enjoyable.  It's pretty responsive, but the zoom control is a little too enthusiastic, making it hard sometimes to frame a shot accurately.  On the other hand, when light levels are low and you're using the flash, there is a noticeable lag in between pressing the shutter release and taking the photo, while without flash, it either focuses or doesn't, but manages to take a photo in under a second.


We're glad to see that the inclusion of manual modes, where the scroll wheel really comes into its own.  However, the range of apertures available is very limited, especially when using telephoto, meaning that S and A modes aren't very interesting.  Intelligent auto mode works reasonably well, but, by default, it's impossible to turn off the flash.  If you don't want to use it, then you'll have to turn it off every time you turn the camera on.

Image Quality

A less fortunate tradition for Samsung is the fact that there's a lot of work to do on the lenses and image processing on its cameras, and the WB100 doesn't make represent any remarkable progress.  It's a little better than the NV24HD, but still behind the current best-performing compacts.

Shots are reasonably precise, especially at the centre of the frame and at intermediate focal lengths, but the edges of the frame become very blurry using the widest angle lens and when the zoom is at its maximum.  There are similar problems with different sensitivities: there is some noise even at 80 ISO, lots more and some blurriness at 400 ISO, and things get worst after that.  We also noticed some changes in how the automatic white balancing played out: under the lamps in our studio, it stayed relatively warm up to 400 ISO before becoming more neutral at higher settings.


Another worry is that the WB1000 tends to over-expose the areas that it thinks contain the subject of your shot.  Although that prevents blurry faces, when that's coupled with the sensor's limited dynamic range, it also means that bright areas burn out.  The sky in particular ends up overexposed as soon as there are a few rays of sunlight.

The WB1000's video mode shoots in 720p using the H.264 compression format, and although its tech specs claim that sound is recorded while you're adjusting the zoom, we didn't find out how to activate that feature.  During our test, the WB1000 followed the lead set by its predecessors by pausing sound recording every time the lens moved.  The microphone is particularly susceptible to interference, and so while the WB1000 might be able to shoot videos with reasonable images if you have nothing better, it certainly won't replace a real camcorder.