Samsung L55W reviews

I can't believe that there are no good reviews of the Samsung L55W out there. The camera was introduced a long time ago, and still no neutral reviews. The only one I have found was on a swedish site (cyberphoto) selling cameras. I believe they are fairly neutral although they sell it. However, it is not a very thorough review with very limited image samples. I am swedish so I can help translating if needed.

Have you found any other reviews out there?

I like the combination of 16:9 format, wide angle and 4.8x zoom. Are there any other similar cameras out there?

http://index.hu/tech/digicam/cikkek/digimaxl55wr/ !1

Here's one short review in hungarian.

I rest my case. One short swedish review and one short hungarian without any images. Do you have any idea why there are no real reviews around? Not a single one in english? There must be a reason.

There ARE images. Just check the bottom of that link. Then click on some picture... and then again to see it big. I think there will be an EN review soon at DCResource.

New L55W review here:

http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?art=2313

Key quote: "The images are massively over-processed, robbing what would otherwise be outstanding shots of much of their fine detail."

Prog.

What a pity, the two most interesting cameras in a year, the L55W and the R3 both ruined by the miserable 5mp 1/2.5 CCD.

These manufacturers should wake up.

Brian

After seeing the sample pics, I have to agree.
L55W have all the great features NONE OF THE BIG competitors have :
1. 28mm + nice zoom
2. mpeg4 movie
3. wide screen
4. wireless remote control
5. great compact physical size
They have EVERYTHING but picture quality.
What a big disappointment !!!

brianj said:

What a pity, the two most interesting cameras in a year, the L55W
and the R3 both ruined by the miserable 5mp 1/2.5 CCD.

These manufacturers should wake up.

Brian

Click to expand...

Sorry mad_823, something wrong with my Firefox browser. I can see the images from the hungarian site now.

Honestly, are the images really as bad as TrustedReviews are saying. Looking at the full images at the bottom of the hungarian site, can someone point out exactly what is wrong with those images (give concrete examples)? It's not that I don't believe you or trustedReviews, but to my eyes the noise is not that bad. What's wrong with my eyes today...

Don't you find that the pictures are dull and crayon like?

They processed the images so much that the details are lost and resulted in color smudges. They removed much of the noise alright, but they also removed most of the details and then they try to cut it out with a blunt scissors.

What a waste to an otherwise great camera.

lubbe75 said:

Sorry mad_823, something wrong with my Firefox browser. I can see
the images from the hungarian site now.

Honestly, are the images really as bad as TrustedReviews are
saying. Looking at the full images at the bottom of the hungarian
site, can someone point out exactly what is wrong with those images
(give concrete examples)? It's not that I don't believe you or
trustedReviews, but to my eyes the noise is not that bad. What's
wrong with my eyes today...

Click to expand...

The description you give is exactly what I find with the Ricoh cameras like R2 & R3. Could they be using the same chipset.

Brian

Hi all,

I read the articel on TrustedReviews

( http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?head=63&page=5304 ) and there was mentioned a odd thing with the ISO settings (noise and shutter is the same with ISO 50-200, only with ISO 400 other shutter-times and more noise can be seen). As a owner of the Digimax L55W I focused myself on this problem and tried some test-shots: The explanation for this effect is very simple:

The automatic of the L55W seems to ignore ISO settings of 50 and 100 when the shutter time is 1sec or longer. In this case the camera always uses ISO 200 (for 50, 100, and 200) or ISO 400 if selected. This explains also the effect of the constant shutter-speed for ISO 50-200. It seems that there is a bug in the Firmware, because nevertheless the ISO-information in the JPEG-Header varies from 50-200 in this case.

But if I use more light for the photo so that I reach shutter-speeds below 1 sec for ISO-50, the camera uses really all ISO-settings and I get different shutter-speeds for different ISO-settings as expected. And with ISO-50 the image noise is really very low (IMHO). If anyone is interested I can upload some pics with ISO 50-400.

I'm not sure when the L55W starts with noise-reduction. I think it is about shutter speeds of 1sec or more. Maybe I will perform some test about this.

All in all the camera is not so bad as sometimes described. Ok, image quality could be better (more details), but IMHO, you can not get all features in such a compact case (5x opt. zoom + wide-angle + big sensor-size with low noise in place of a 1/2,5" chip with higher noise).

Regards, gufoe

Yes, please... I would love to see those test images of yours.

Ok, here are some images (especially those with ISO 50-400). I'm not a photo artist, so the images are rather snapshots...

http://service.gmx.net/mc/6ZqO0yRqvXt69PRr6mN2flnrZn5SU4

Enter GMX MediaCenter as guest and then you can see the images. Clicking on it opens only downscaled sizes. To download full size files use "Datei/Download" inside the window.
The guest-access is only valid for 30 days.

Regards, gufoe

Gufoe,

Thank you for your tips on the Samsung L55W. I know it is well over 12 months since you posted them, but I only recently found them. I had been puzzling over the problem myself and so am very grateful for you sorting out what was happening.

I have another problem and am hoping you (or somebody else reading this) can help me. When I take photos (using the Samsung L55W) of landscapes with tree-topped mountains, instead of the photo showing the normal serrated top of the mountain that I would expect, I get a thick flat line. It looks AWFUL and is so disappointing because sometimes the photos are otherwise really good and clear.

Is there anything that can be done to change this or do I just need to get a new camera when I can afford one?

Many thanks

Brenda