The Dual LCD from Samsung has changed again and come back with a new cute design. It’s totally different from the previous ST500/550 and becomes more stylish and slimmer. Compact digital cameras are normally more popular for woman users rather than men, because of the great mobility, light weight, and convenience. The stylish and cute design is also a big advantage enough to be popular for woman users. Let’s take a closer look at the ST100 from now.
The ST100 has totally been changed, so it can’t even say it’s the same Front display series as previous cameras. The front color and high glossy UV coating is so elegant. The elegant front makes the dual LCD more attractive, and without using the front LCD, it helps users take self shots. Of course, using the front LCD allows more accurate self shots.
The ST100 is stylish enough to appeal to woman users without considering the dual LCD function. The size is also compact and slim suitable for woman users. The 135g of weight is not that light as a compact digital camera, but appropriate to take a shot to prevent shaky pictures.
The biggest difference from the previous front display cameras is the inner zoom lens. It’s not easy to find inner zoom lens camera among the newly released compact digital cameras, but since Samsung is proud of their quality and lens, they tried to change the front display cameras, I think.
The inner zoom lens in the ST100 is the 35-175mm (On 35mm equivalent) Schneider approved lens with F3.6-4.8 good enough as a compact digital camera. It could have been better if there was a cover for the lens, because the lens was weak to fingerprints or dusts. Next to the lens, the built-in flash and assist light are located. The 5x zoom suitable for standard and telephoto zoom has a relatively narrow range of aperture, so it can secure the shutter speed in telephoto angle, so it’s better for users who like easy shooting rather than various and complicated functions.
On the top of the body, circular function buttons are located. From the left, microphone, front LCD button, power LED, power button, shutter, and zoom lever are located, and below is the play button in the same color as the body. The grip is a little insufficient, because of the touch screen LCD. However, using both hands, there was no inconvenience for shooting.
On the bottom of the body, a battery and memory chamber are located, and micro SD memory is supported. 20 pin port and tripod socket is located next. The 740mAh Li-Ion battery is a relatively small caused by the slim body. It takes about 200 shots with the battery, so if you go somewhere to take shots, a spare battery or recharger is necessary.
The 740mAh battery capacity requires recharge, but it can also be charged by connecting it to PC via USB port. Therefore, the convenience might fill the insufficient battery capacity.
The touch LCD is the representative part of Samsung cameras, I think. The touch LCD of the ST100 is the 3.5” large touch screen allowing more convenient operation. The ST500/550 provided capacitive/resistive types, but the ST100/600 supports the capacitive type, so there’s no difference in the specification. Users have preference and there’s advantage and disadvantage in both capacitive and resistive, so I think the capacitive LCD was a good choice without the difference in specification. The brightness and vividness of the 3.5” touch LCD is very good and much better than the ST500/550.
The TFT 3.5” touch LCD has 1,152K colors, so it has high quality of brightness and vividness. Even though the AMOLED has not been applied, it’s bright enough under the daylight, and through the gravity sensor, the mode can be changed by tilting the camera. The full touch screen UI is provided with icons and explanations, so beginners can easily use the camera. Especially, the F.LCD button turns on the front LCD and allows users to select the self shot, jump shot, and smile shot menus to help users take shots more conveniently.
The ST100 has been advanced in the body design. It has the 7 degree slanted body and it allows easier self shots with the front LCD. Samsung compact cameras are not DSLR-like cameras, but more specialized cameras in the hardware as a compact digital camera and differentiated from the high end cameras. Of course, the 7 degree slanted body is not as good as the wide angle lens, but it can be distinguished from other same level cameras.
The elegant style of the ST100 and the 1.8” front LCD can be controlled by the F.LCD button or tapping the LCD. Using the F.LCD button, self shot, couple shot, children, jump shot, and smile icon can be used, while tapping the front LCD, only the front LCD is activated from the previous shooting mode.
The front LCD hid in the high glossy UV coated body might surprise people who don’t know of the front LCD of the ST100. For example, when shooting the person, he/she would be surprised by looking at their faces. On the other hand, when shooting a person at the back, you can take him with pretending to take a self shot.
The 1.8” front LCD provides various functions. Especially, when taking a shot of children, it was very difficult to take them, because they moved a lot without focusing on the lens. However, with the children mode in the ST100, they can focus on the camera lens by showing a funny animation like ‘Keroro’. If you tried to take a shot of children a lot, the children mode of the ST100 would be the great solution for that.
When shooting, in some situations, it wasn’t easy to say ‘One, Two, three, shot!’ loudly. The ST100 shows the smiling icon on the front LCD in the half shutter condition. This helps those who are not used to cameras take shots easily.
Recently, I have seen a lot of missions to take a jump shot or group picture with a tripod, but it’s really not easy to take a jump shot in TV shows a lot. That’s why the mission was assigned, but if they had known the ST100, the mission could have been a piece of cake. Selecting the jump shot in the F.LCD function, counting numbers are shown on the front LCD, and the ST100 takes 3 continuous shots in order not to miss the jumping moment. As I explained, the dual LCD is not only an auxiliary LCD, but also hot item for more fun and better pictures.
Since the inner zoom lens of the ST100, I worried about the quality of the ST100. However, I could really feel the insufficient quality of the inner zoom lens. Of course, bright aperture allows easier shooting in a low light condition, but it costs more. The ST100 is a compact digital camera for easy and fun snap shots, not a high end compact digital camera. If you expect great quality like DSLR or mirrorless cameras, you’d better find another model.
ISO 80 - 400
The ST100 supports ISO from 80 to 3200 and as you can see from the above picture, it showed the high quality in ISO 80 to 400. Even though I tested the cameras indoors without setting light or something, it provided pleasing results in the brightness and noise.
ISO 800 - 3200
In ISO 800 to 3200, there were differences in the noise. Recently, the noise feature is getting better in compact digital cameras, and ISO 3200 of the ST100 alleviated my worries about the inner zoom lens. I’m not sure how many shots would be taken in ISO 3200, but I don’t think you will hesitate to choose ISO 3200 because of the brightness or noise. In up to ISO 800, there was no big noise or something, but in ISO 1600-3200, there were some noise and marred pixels, but no brightness difference.
Shooting in maximum wide angle
The 35-175mm inner zoom lens (On 35mm equivalent) provides 5x optical and 4x digital zoom, so it’s not a wide angle camera, but good enough for simple snap shots.
Shooting in optical 5x zoom
Shooting in digital 4x zoom
It supports optical 5x zoom and digital 4x zoom, and the quality of optical 5x zoom was quite great, although it has an inner zoom lens. Due to the F3.6-4.8 aperture characteristic, the shutter speed got slower in the telephoto angle and it affected the shooting, but by adjusting ISO, you can take a great picture without hand blur. It supports auto, Smart auto, and scene mode for more convenient shooting.
The results in digital 4x zoom were a little disappointing, but if you are aware of the difference between optical and digital zoom, you will not really use the digital 4x zoom, so you don’t have to worry about it. Even beginners would recognize the changeover interval between optical and digital in the optical 5x zoom, and in a compact digital camera, optical 5x zoom will be convenient enough, I think.
It really doesn’t matter if you are a professional or a beginner with the ST100. Smart Auto function is the greatest function of Samsung compact digital camera. Now it becomes a basic function of Samsung cameras. It automatically recognizes 17 different situations and helps take the best shots.
You might have already been disappointed in the pictures taken in auto mode, I think. However, Smart Auto is totally different from the normal auto. When it’s close, it changes to Macro, or when it finds text, it changes to Text. It also automatically recognizes faces. Taking out the worries of people to the quality of compact cameras is the requirement of the compact digital cameras, I think.
The ST100 has the elegant style and dual LCD, and it makes people more accessible to cameras easily, I think. Nowadays, we could see a big DSLR or mirrorless camera anywhere, but the compact digital camera is much cheaper and more convenient than DSLRs and easy and simple shooting is also the reason of compact digital cameras.
From the ST550, the front display cameras have been improved a lot. The ST100 has style, compact size, stylish design, great quality, performance, and reasonable price, and it fits better with woman users. Since it allows users to take shots easily and conveniently, the ST100 is so special and different from other compact digital cameras, I suppose.
