A hotshot that likes to share

Social networkers have been busy “like”-ing the new Samsung WB150F smart camera. This is the latest Samsung hotshot under the “Shoot wow Share Now” concept, meaning it has built-in wireless that lets you upload your shots to your Facebook page, Picasa web album, and your Photobucket account as well as delivering short video clips to your YouTube account.

The WB150F is also a good camera in its own right, with strong image quality. It features 14.2-megapixel resolution and Schneider-KREUZNACH lens of f/3.2 with 24mm wide-angle and 18x zoom, or 432mm telephoto lens in 35mm equivalence.

It comes with a 3-inch LCD monitor and advanced shooting modes of Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority and Manual Exposure, plus a Smart Auto shooting mode.

To use the smart functions, you need to be near a Wi-Fi hotspot. Then you simply select the online function, accessible under the Wi-Fi option on the mode dial, and follow the prompt to enter your password for the router or wireless access point.

I tested it at home with my router and had no problem connecting the camera using Wi-Fi 11g connection.

You need to enter the account name and password for your Facebook page or Picassa web album to upload photos. The camera provides an onscreen QWERTY keyboard and you use the four directional keys on the main control wheel to select your username and passwords.

Both Facebook and Picassa will create a dedicated album called WB150F to upload your selected photos to.

You can also e-mail your snapshots from the camera directly when you have a wireless connection. You simply enter your e-mail address and the recipient address and select photos you want to send.

Also easy to do is creating a cloud photo account on Microsoft Skydrive, using your Hotmail or Live account. Then you can upload the snapshots from the WB150F to the Skydrive photo album.

The WB150F also lets you use the Auto Backup functions to backup the photos from the camera to your desktop PC or notebook after you have installed the application on the computer.

The WB150F is compatible with your smart phone or tablet too – just install the MobileLink app on the device you want to send photos to.

Meanwhile the Remove Viewfinder app on your smart phone will turn it into a wireless remote to control the WB150F and take your own photos.

The WB150F also has a built-in alshare app for displaying your snapshots wirelessly on a DLNA-certified TV (like the LG TV in the Parliament assembly hall that made headlines).

Our test found that the WB150F took beautiful pictures both indoors and out. Portrait shots came out sharp with accurate colour reproduction while landscape shots were impressive in their depth and detail.

I had the opportunity to try the camera at Amphawa floating market. The result was sharp, clean outdoor photos with well-saturated blues in the sky, deep natural greens and vibrant details of the market’s bustle.

I mostly allowed the camera to select the optimum parameters, using the Auto Smart shooting mode. But when I trained the lens on Buddha images inside the shrines at Amphawa, I found the Smart Auto mode tended to transform the glowing golds into blue tones.

Fortunately, the WB150F has a Scene selector on the mode dial. Turning it to the Sunset mode, I shot again and achieved the golden glow I was looking for.

The WB150F has a fast focus. I managed to shoot sharp photos of the scenery along the Mae Klong River while my long-tail boat was speeding.

But the camera took about 1.5 seconds to get ready for another shot. And it took about 3.8 seconds to start up and be ready for the first shot. 

However, its 0.4s shutter lag was acceptable and caused me no problems in snapping the action.

Samsung’s WB150F is in shops for Bt7,990 with a free 4GB SD card.

 

        Key specs:

Image Sensor: 1/2.3-inch CCD Sensor with approx. 14.2 megapixels

Lens: Schneider-KREUZNACH 18x Zoom Lens 4-72mm (35mm 

film equivalent: 24-432mm) focal length with f/3.2 (W) -5.8 (T)

Focus system: TTL Auto Focus (Centre AF, Multi AF, Tracking AF, Face Detection AF, Face Recognition AF, Selection AF) 

Focusing Type

Shutter Speed: 16-1/2,000 seconds

Exposure: Program AE, Aperture Priority AE, Shutter Priority AE, Manual Exposure Exposure Control

ISO: Auto, 80, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1,600, 3,200 ISO equivalent

Display: 3-inch TFT LCD\\ with 460K dots

Dimensions: 106.5 x 59.9 x 23.4 (32.2)mm 

Weight: 188.2g (without battery and memory card).