Manual exposure control; RGB intensity controls; low price
Confusing menus; no aperture- or shutter-priority; exposure adjustments in 1/2-stop instead of 1/3-stop increments
While inexpensive for a 6-megapixel camera with manual control, the Samsung Digimax S600's poor image quality is sure to disappoint
5.2 Average
Reviewed by Philip Ryan
Samsung calls its S-series cameras point-and-shoots, but these slim snappers offer controls that could help them break away from the usual crop of mindless auto-only cameras. Before you get your hopes up, however, we have to warn you that the Digimax S600's image quality leaves quite a bit to be desired. You'd be better served stepping up to Samsung's Digimax L60, which delivered significantly better image quality and a touch more style, for only a slight increase in price.
Design
Measuring 97mm by 61mm by 25mm and weighing just 136g, the Samsung Digimax S600 fits nicely in a jacket pocket, and its curved grip makes it easy to hold. The sparse, silver-and-grey look won't turn any heads, but isn't ugly either. Its 3x optical, 35mm-to-105mm (35mm equivalent), f/2.8-to-f/4.9 zoom lens extends outwards from the camera front when powered up and retracts when turned off.
The power button, the mode dial and the shutter release reside on top of the camera, while the zoom rocker, a four-way-plus-menu/OK control pad and three other control buttons occupy the right side of the camera back next to the 61mm (2.4-inch) LCD. The zoom rocker sits about 6mm too far to the right for comfort, though the curved indent underneath it provides a perfect spot for your thumb. The three control buttons let you enter play mode and adjust exposure compensation, not to mention access settings such as ISO, white balance and RGB intensity. They also let you access other options, such as colour modes, photoframe overlays, stitch-assist modes and framing guides to help you line up your subjects. This last button is labelled with an 'E' for 'effects', while the exposure compensation button is labelled with plus and minus symbols.
The problem is that most manufacturers place options such as white balance and ISO in the regular menu. Not only that, since the camera defaults to show current settings on the LCD (a good thing), including ISO, it's hard to notice that the exposure compensation button gives you access to adjust this and other settings. Furthermore, when in full manual mode you have to press exposure compensation twice to access these settings -- again, not very intuitive.
Features
We were happy to see a full manual exposure mode. Not many point-and-shoot cameras let you select both aperture and shutter speed. Strangely, the S600 doesn't offer shutter- or aperture-priority modes, though it does include program and full auto modes, as well as ten scene presets. While not as many as some of its competitors, this Samsung covers all the basics, such as portrait, night, landscape and sunset, and even includes one called dawn in case you end up partying all night after shooting that sunset.
Exposure compensation covers a range of plus or minus 2EV in 1/2-stop increments. Most cameras offer 1/3-stop increments for a finer degree of control. Similarly, the S600's manual shutter and aperture adjustments use 1/2-stop steps, though again, that's still more control than most cameras in this price range. If you really want to be safe, you can set the S600 to automatically bracket exposures, in which case it will shoot three shots in succession -- one normally exposed, one at plus 0.5EV and one at minus 0.5 EV. Metering options include multi, which averages readings from throughout the image area with an emphasis on the middle, and spot, which measures only the centre of the image.
Performance
The performance was mixed in our lab tests. The camera took 1.7 seconds to power up and capture its first image, which is actually somewhat fast, but once it started up, it took 2.3 seconds between shots without flash and an even slower 3.3 seconds with flash turned on. The shutter lag was a speedy 0.6 seconds in high-contrast situations and 1.1 seconds in low-contrast lighting. Continuous shooting was sluggish, capturing 36 VGA-size JPEGs in 31.8 seconds for an average of 1.13fps, and 30 6-megapixel JPEGs in 32.7 seconds for an average of 0.92fps.
The LCD partially washed out in bright sunlight, though it was still possible to see enough to frame our images. It gained up in low light just enough to frame the image, though not as much as some of the LCDs we've seen lately. The flash is rated to provide even coverage out to about 3m with ISO in auto mode.
Image quality
Automatic white balance produced very warm, yellowish images with our lab's tungsten lights, while the tungsten white-balance setting had a noticeably bluish cast. Thankfully, the manual setting produced neutral results, though the audience for these cameras is not very likely to set a manual white balance. Given that even Olympus's dirt-cheap FE-series cameras manage to provide a neutral white balance in auto mode, we don't understand why it should be so difficult for this camera, although it does so many things that those Olympus FEs can't even dream of. In natural daylight, the Digimax S600's automatic white balance did a good job of neutralising colours, which were natural-looking and well saturated.
Even at ISO 50 (the lowest setting possible with this camera), some noise was visible in our test images, though it was very minor and remained so at ISO 100. At ISO 200, noise was very noticeable, causing even moderately dark colours to become mottled with splotches of varying lightness and colours, though many finer details were still unobscured. By ISO 400, the noise overwhelmed lots of detail, resulting in images unfit for print.
Exposures were generally accurate, though images were slightly soft and had noticeable fringing in highlights, especially with backlit subjects. We also noticed JPEG artefacting, which lent a choppy look to some curved edges.
Given that Samsung has shown that it is capable of making cameras that capture pleasing images, such as the Digimax L85 and the Digimax L60, there's little excuse for its S-series cameras turning in pictures that are plagued by artefacts and other noise. So, while the Samsung Digimax S600 certainly has a feature set that looks solid, you're better off spending a little more on one of Samsung's better-performing cameras, or looking at an other brand altogether.
Additional editing by Kate Macefield
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