Sensible self shot digital camera, ST600 - Unboxing
These days called Digital revolution, various new instruments have been released, and there’s a strong wind of change in the digital camera market. DSLR camera considered for professionals are popular as much as compact digital cameras and hybrid cameras equipped with manual functions also get attention from a lot of users.
Especially, looking at smart phones equipped with a good camera over millions of pixels, I think the digital camera market is like a battle field. In this strong competition, there’s a unique camera supporting Full touch and front LCD, so I’d like to review it.
It’s the ST600 from Samsung.
Let’s take a look at the unboxing photos. The ST600 consists of body, adapter, battery and cable for data transfer and recharge. Unlike other Samsung cameras, it uses Micro SD memory.
It’s the smooth body of the ST600. Different from previous cameras, it has the high glossy body. It comes with black, gold, and pink, and I reviewed the pink one. Like you see in the picture, there’s a flash, lens, and AF assist light on the front.
On the top, various buttons are located for shooting.
•Play button •Shutter(Zoom lever) •Microphone •Power button •Front display •Speaker
On the back, it’s so neat, and thanks to the 3.5” full touch LCD, this great neat design could be made.
On the bottom, there’s a cover for battery and memory camera and tripod hole.
Lastly, on the side of the product, USB and HDMI ports are located. Because it’s not used that often, it’s covered.
Why don’t we put in the battery and memory camera? Let me put in the battery SLB-07 for the ST600.
Let me insert the memory camera. You should push the battery until you hear the click sound, and because of the small size, you should be careful of the battery.
Let me turn it on. The 3.5” LCD looks very big to me.
The large LCD of the ST600 is useful when reviewing and shooting, I think. I will explain how to use the buttons on the LCD later. Please wait.
The front LCD can be turned on by tapping the LCD on the front or pushing the LCD button on the top. It’s very impressive.
With the front LCD, you can take a self shot like this.
Let me finish the unboxing of the ST600 here, and let’s take a look at the specification and feature of the ST600.
The ST600 has a similar specification to previous IT100 and WB650. Especially, the menu and screen follow the previous Samsung cameras, so people can easily get used to it.
However, there are some special features for the ST600, and these followings will be handled with more details in the review.
• 3.5” full touch LCD
• 1.8” Front LCD
• 27mm wide angle & 5x zoom lens
• Stylish design
Sensible self shot digital camera, ST600 - Review
When it comes to the ST600, due to the full touch LCD, I felt like using a smart phone rather than a digital camera, and I think if you are familiar with recent smart phones such as iPhone or Galaxy S, you will be able to easily get accustomed to the ST600. In that, I will show you a movie clip for you to see the touch UI well.
It’s the clip for shooting screen. The ST600 supports various shooting modes like other Samsung cameras, and if you want easy shooting, you can just select Smart Auto or Smart Scene Detection (Movie). For your information, the ST600 supports 7 different shooting modes as below.
• Smart Auto: Optimizing the camera setting by the situation and subject.
• Auto: Similar to Smart Auto, but providing more various settings.
• Program: Half auto mode allowing users to adjust various camera settings.
• Scene: Allowing users to set various situations such as beauty, night scenery, sunrise/sunset, and macro.
• Dual IS: In order to prevent hand blur by adopting the OIS (Optical Image Stabilization) and DIS(Digital Image Stabilization).
• Smart Scene Detection: Automatically adjusting the settings by the shooting situation for movie recording.
• Movie: Allowing users to adjust various settings for movie recording.
In each mode, various settings such as exposure, white balance, ISO, AF, and image quality are adjustable, and in a movie recording mode such as Movie, the size, frame, and lens effects are also adjustable.
2. ST600 - Camera Mode Review (2)
There are various things that differentiate the ST600 from other digital camera except the full touch LCD and front LCD. The one outstanding feature is its gyro sensor like a smart phone. This sensor allows users to use interesting gestures when shooting and reviewing pictures and the above movie clip shows the quick mode change which is one of the most interesting features.
The quick mode change is a function to change the mode by tilting the camera to up, down or left with having the quick mode button pushed. I thought it was not useful for digital cameras, but after using it for a while, now I think it’s quite interesting. Even my wife who was not interested in digital gadgets showed her interests in the gesture function of the ST600.
To be honest, if it was a function not useful, I wouldn’t mention it like this, but actually, it’s very good to change the mode quickly. However, I couldn’t change the mode to what I want, but I think it would be addressed by updating the firmware.
The view mode of the ST600 also allows users some uniqueness, and it’s really like a smart phone. (Of course, the touch screen is not as smooth as smart phones, but great enough as a digital camera.)
Using the ST600, thanks to the intuitive UI, I could easily edit and play pictures without any trouble. Especially, the slideshow function supporting sound and detailed effects is powerful as much as a digital frame. On top of that, it supports the sorting function by date and color and 3D mode. By using the gyro sensor, I could really feel something in my hands.
The front LCD which is unique thing of the ST600 is a great function for those who like self shots, and I was wondering that how they adopted this type of LCD on the glossy body. As you can see from the movie clip, when the front LCD is off, you can see nothing. It’s like a magic that something comes up out of nowhere by pushing the power button.
The front LCD works as the same way as the main LCD, so it reacts by the gyro sensor when taking and watching pictures. Please refer to the movie clip for more details.
Sample pictures of the ST600
Due to the short time for this review, I couldn’t take many shots with the ST600. Moreover, it was winter which is the worst season for shooting and the busiest season for work, so the sample shots are really insufficient. However, because this was the third Samsung camera, I could really experience the feeling and functions enough, and those who are used to Samsung cameras would be interested in the ST600, I think.
Sensible self shot digital camera, ST600 - Conclusion
Full Touch display, Front LCD, and Gyro sensor! These copyrights suitable for smart phones came up for a digital camera. It was in the ST600. I could feel these features with the ST600 for the time, and it was new, easy, and interesting to me.
Especially, by adopting the full touch, it was more convenient to change menus and adjust detailed settings. The touch was neither as smooth as a smart phone nor multi touch type, so it was a little unsatisfactory, but I thought it was acceptable, because the full touch interface itself was way more advanced type.
Let me summarize the strength and weakness.
Strength
-Large Full touch LCD screen
-Front LCD for more perfect self shots
-Fast and convenient gyro sensor gesture
-Intuitive and quick UI
-Cute design
Weakness
-Weak appearance (Material)
-Unsmooth touch screen
-Single touch type
-Unnecessary memory type change (Personally preferring SD memory)
