 Lots of expensive features in a tight package / one of the easiest cameras you can use because of touch screen controls. |
| Review Date: June 25, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Anonymous, United States |
This is a really easy to use camera that can almost be called a "system", it has a menu structure that is flat and wide ...MEANING you don't have to open menus and sub menus to get to the settings you'd like to adjust as if it was a Blackberry or a Nikon.
The LCD touchscreen is a nice feature that isn't even included in $1,000+ camcorders from Sony or Canon and it can be used to shortcut into Indoor / Outdoor modes. This is our second Samsung camcorder and the LCD touchscreen makes it easy enough to skip reading the users manual.
The battery is better than most for uptime even with heavy flash usage, it charges fairly rapidly on either the base or the petite 110v wall charger. Autofocusing is on par with other camcorders, Samsung has been criticized in the past for slow focusing and "excessive" focusing when the lens opens too far or narrowly and has to back step to proper resolution almost like someone learning to parallel park and taking extra motions in forward and reverse. In most cases, they offered firmware updates with anemic instructions and sometimes even hard to find firmware files but this corder seems to have avoided those legacy problems.
We lent this camera to a friend of ours and single mother of three boys for a weekend and she found it easy to learn and use, a great but passe feature is the ability to shoot still photos simultaneously with full motion video, even though it is a common feature it is underappreciated except by parents and grandparents who manage to capture that single moment suitable for framing.
The fit and finish rivals a $1,500 Sony HandyCam and the swivel handgrip makes it comfortable even if you have arthritis like my father in law.
The anti-shake seems as good as any other but anti shake is overpromised like traction control and makes the owner believe they're invincible until they skid off the cliff or shake their video like it was a helicopter movie.
The best feature I've noticed about Samsung camcorders is their indoor / low light performance, even the cheapeast Samsung's can outperform a $900 Nikon D80 or $1,000 Canon H104 and the Samsung still runs at a decent shutter speed so the slightest vibration won't blur your shot like a Canon at F2.8 and 1/4 sec shutter speed.
The Samsung LCD has a native preview function, meaning if you adjust the mode from Outdoors to Indoor, or Indoor Flourescent, the LCD display adjusts brightness and tint accordingly so you'll know immediately how the final video and camera shot will look, this is a lifesaver for anyone who's ever filmed a long afternoon just to become angry at a dark and underexposed video or washed out still shots that seem yellow when they get home.
It is an accomplishment this camera could impress an old fashioned film photographer like me, I'm a coot who still believes Ektar beats MP's and I keep a dark room with enlargers and chemicals along with boarded windows on the side of the house that doesn't face east or west. It is easy to laugh at someone like that but there are more of us old fashioned film shooters than you'd think and we still insist on carrying an F4 inside our D90 bags.
With that being said, we're arrogant and hard to impress and it is worth notating whenever we give compliments to anything digital. |
Awesome Camcorder - Samsung has hit a home run
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| Review Date: June 15, 2009 |
| Reviewer: V. Agrawal, Lawrenceville, NJ USA |
Normally I don't write reviews, but I felt compelled to write one for this camera. Let me start by saying it's an awesome device. It's ultra compact but don't let that fool you when it's comes to the performance. The video is stunning quality, rich vibrant natural colors, super fast start up (no moving parts to deal with), comfortable grip (it fits snugly in the palm of my hand). It's sleek looks turns a few heads! I have had strangers stop over to take a look. I have not explored all the settings and features but I did not feel a need for that at all. Defaults are just perfect.
The software that comes with it is pretty good. It does the job of conveniently copying the videos & pictures to a PC folder of my choice and automatically creates subfolders organized by date.
Given the recent price drop, I don't think why anyone would want to buy a DV tape based or Hard disk based camera anymore. Also, I think it would be smart to buy the 16GB version, since everything else is same compared to other choices. 16GB can store 3 hrs of HD movies on the camera. You can always buy extra SDHC cards as needed. (Remember how it was with MiniDV tapes...)
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I'm impressed!
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| Review Date: July 13, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Quoad Toad, Chicago |
My last video camera was a Sony digital8. The image quality was good for the time, but after using this video camera, I was shocked at the improvement of this camera over my last camera.
The H104 is very intuitive and easy to use. I took it out of the box and was immediately able to start recording without needing to consult the manual (the battery came partially charged).
When first taking the camera out, it's set to "Easy Q" mode, which supposedly is able to pick the perfect settings without interference from the user. However, I highly recommend turning it off "Easy Q." Using "Easy Q" the pictures were very grainy and the camera had a difficult time focusing. Alternatively, users can turn off "Easy Q," but still set all of the other settings to "automatic" and achieve beautiful videos.
After turning off "Easy Q," I was literally wowed by this camera. It takes a lot to amaze me these days, but this video camera impressed me. The videos are crisp and the colors are beautiful. I especially like the way this camera handles greens and blues. The H104 gives users a wide variety of settings to play with such as manual focus and white balance. However, I found that camera did a great job on its own once "Easy Q" was turned off.
Night images looked nice. I recorded fireworks as a test and found the fireworks turned out clear. The surrounding area was dark, but the fireworks turned out. Recording at night can be difficult for any consumer grade camera, but I found this one did a decent job.
Watching recordings on my HD TV made the images look superb. The H104 comes with a remote so you can easily show recordings to friends without having to get up.
The H104 comes with software that can automatically transfer videos from the camera to your computer. I'm usually wary of the software included with electronics, but I was satisfied in this case. The software works well and so far I haven't noticed any pop-ups asking me to buy other products.
Overall, I highly recommend this camera. It simply produces wonderful videos. I'm extremely picky when it comes to electronics, but this camera exceeded all of my expectations.
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Excellent camcorder - easy to operate right out of the box
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| Review Date: July 16, 2009 |
| Reviewer: C. Quinn, Washington, DC |
This is only the second camcorder I've ever used, but wow was it easy to get started even for a beginner like me. Since it comes with a solid-state hard drive, I was able to fire it up and play around with features once it was fully charged. I still haven't gotten an SDHC card for this because I'm not sure I'll ever need it.
I was impressed by the quality of the indoor video I shot in a fairly dim room- the video of my living room looked a lot better than the room in real life! The zoom is incredible- I was able to read book titles as clear as day even when standing 10 to 15 feet away from the bookcases. The still photos were equally impressive as was the built-in flash. I'm much more a photo person than a video person, but I would feel 100 percent confident relying on this camera for both during my next trip.
The camera is comfortable in the hand, and did a good job of image stabilization when I found myself unable to take a steady shot. I thought the zoom was also really steady- no jerky Blair Witch-like effects. Highly recommended and not too complicated for a beginner to love! |
It'll be a good match!
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| Review Date: October 19, 2009 |
| Reviewer: TARAS, |
HMX-H104 have equipped SSD (Solid-State Drive) for the first time in the world. It supports 1920x1080i Full HD based on 1/4.5 inch CMOS sensor. In addition, it has 180° rotating full angle grip and easy-to-use built-in software Intelli-studio. It is a home camcorder with various high-quality features.
HMX-H104 doesn't follow the trend. It's rather leading the trend a few steps ahead. For the first time in camcorder history, it adopted SSD (Solid State Drive) memory. Its revolutionary change of storage seems to be successful. And with `Full angel grip,' it destroyed the stereotype that grip must be fixed. It came out from creative thinking. Not only that, smooth-looking body, 10x optical Schneider lens, OIS, easy-to-use Intelli-Studio, and interval recording complete perfect conditions for a compact camcorder with Full HD in 1920x1080. Of course, there's also a downside like 4,700,000-pixel photo features. But for the people who're trying to buy a camcorder for the first time, I will recommend HMX-H104. It'll be a good match. |
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