Samsung Digimax V50

Posted by T3 Online on Mon 27 Sep 2004

Flippin' 'eck - it's a crazy, twisty, flip-out screen

Now that you need a model release form to take a picture of your next-door neighbour's cat, candid photography has fallen out of fashion. But if you're still a fan of the surreptitious snapshot, a flip-out screen is perfect to avoid startling your subjects. This Samsung has a two-inch LCD that can rotate through 270 degrees to suit even the most awkward angle.

Behind the screen, a grumbling 3x zoom feeds your photos to a standard five-megapixel chip. Neither the lens nor sensor is exactly first class, with the optics suffering from softness and purple fringing, and the CCD sprinkling images with a dose of digital noise. The V50 isn't much to look at either, unless you enjoy champagne-coloured plastic and boxy styling. But at least its specification is up to date, offering plenty of photographic features (including manual exposure and focusing) and a fast USB 2.0 connection.

The controls are a bit odd. Though it looks like there are two sets of zoom buttons, the one around the shutter release is actually an unconventional jog dial for changing exposure or focus settings on the fly. There are also plenty of scene programs for beginners and a movie mode that makes a terrible mess of capturing pixelated 640 x 480-pixel clips in strange colours and with muffled sound. Take a look at the V50 if you're a fan of folding screens, but there are cameras with more to offer.