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Samsung Digimax A55W Unveiled

Mark Goldstein | Digital Compact Cameras | June 4, 2005 | 6 Comments

Samsung Digimax A55WSamsung Digimax A55W is announced. The Samsung Digimax A55W is a 5 megapixel digital camera with a a 4.8X optical zoom and 2.5 inch LCD screen. The Samsung A55W supports the MPEG-4 video format and can record in VGA(640X480) format at 30 fps. The Digimax A55W offers movie stabilization, which helps maintain steady recording of a subject. Price and availability of the Samsung Digimax A55W to be announced.

Samsung Press Release

Samsung Techwin widens its 5 mega-pixel digital camera portfolio with the Digimax A55W

The Digimax A55W provides 5X digital zoom in addition to a 4.8X optical zoom, achieving 24X total zoom when used at the same time. It also provides 8X zoom during playback, so you can really check the detail of the shots you have taken. The Digimax A55W is equipped with a large 2.5” 200K high-resolution LCD to offer superb image quality for both photography and image playback.

For better movies, the Digimax A55W supports MPEG-4, the high-compression high-quality video format that can record for up to 3-4 times longer than traditional video formats used in other digital cameras. The Digimax A55W can even be used as a camcorder since it can record more than 1 hour of high quality video recording time if you are using a 256MB memory card. With video recording in VGA(640X480) at 30 fps, the Digimax A55W provides a smoother movie that you can even watch on your TV.

The Digimax A55W has movie stabilization, which helps maintain steady recording of a subject by means of automatic detection and correction of lateral and vertical camera movements of the camera. The continuous video recording feature of the Digimax A55W, which is based on exclusive Samsung technology, allows you to pause and resume video recording as desired and merge those multiple movie clips into a single file at a later time. You can press the Pause button to pause or resume recording.

For easier editing of movies, the Digimax A55W allows you to select and save only the desired part into a new file during playback, on the camera. The Digimax A55W also allows you to capture a still image during video playback. The Digimax A55W has special effect functions that give you a shooting experience beyond conventional photo-taking. The Special Effect functions offered by the Digimax A55W include: Colour Effect, giving you a variety of colors, including B/W, Sepia, Blue, Red, Green or Negative depending on your photographic settings: Highlight, which keeps the subject in sharp focus while putting the rest of the image into soft focus: Photo Frame, allowing you to choose from nine different types of photo frame and then shoot your subjects in them; and Composite Shot that lets you take 2-4 shots, and save them into a single file.

The Digimax A55W offers Continuous Shooting and Auto Exposure Bracketing(AEB) functions. You can use Continuous Shooting to shoot a fast-moving subject, helping ensure you get all the action and AEB to shoot a series of pictures with slightly varying exposures.

Using the built-in image editing function of the Digimax A55W, you can edit a variety of images without a PC. You can use the Trimming function to cut an undesired part of an image and save only the required part. When you are short of memory, you can use the Resizing function to recover some of the memory space, by resizing and saving images in a smaller size. You can use the Rotating function to rotate an image in the desired direction and save it.

With its Auto Macro function, the Digimax A55W automatically adjusts shooting distance and focus. You can press the Macro button to have the camera automatically adjust distance and focus from between 2cm to infinity, obtaining crystal clear images regardless of their shooting range.

The Digimax A55W supports various scene modes to give you the best picture result in a variety of settings. The ten scene modes supported by the Digimax A55W are Night Scene, Portrait, Children, Landscape, Close-up, Sunset, Dawn, Backlight, Fireworks, Beach & Snow.

The PictBridge feature of the Digimax A55W allows pictures taken with the camera to be directly printed without a PC, so you can instantly obtain clear 5.0 mega-pixel prints just by connecting the camera to a compatible printer. In addition, it provides a substantially faster transfer rate with USB 2.0 as compared to the existing USB 1.1.

The Album feature of the Digimax A55 allows you to categorize and save images based in albums in the camera base on your own criteria, for example, event and date, and to enjoy only selected images in a slide show.

Equipped with a built-in memory(32MB), the Digimax A55 allows you to save pictures without a memory card. With its Copy to Card function, you can seamlessly transfer images saved in the internal memory to an external memory.

It also provides various useful functions such as voice recording for up to 1 hour, voice memo for adding a short voice message to a picture and “One-touch Playback” for instant playback of a picture even when the power is off.



 

Your Comments

6 Comments so far | Newest Oldest first | Post a comment

#1 robert

I just bought this Samsung A55W and was very dissappointed to see that there is a delay in the audio when taking videos - actually I am really pissed off - that's one of the reasons I got this thing - because my last camera, the Konica-Minolta DiMage has the same problem!

Any idea if this is a defect or if these cameras are ALL just like this - are peole just putting up with this fault???

Thanks for your help - I would really appreciate it!!!

Robert

12:53 am - Sunday, December 11, 2005

#2 Janosch

I just ordered the same camera on Monday, after hesitating for some time, since I could not find any reviews about its performance. I'll let you know, if the same problem occures with my camera.
Do you see (Hear) the problem when playing back the file on the camera or on your pc ( or mac?)?
How do you like the camera otherwise? How's battery life?

Janosch

10:19 am - Wednesday, December 14, 2005

#3 Peter

Just viewed my first 512 mb of mixed video and photos video and sound sync seemed ok I will have a closer look and get back to you Robert My main complaint is the very slow shutter speed on cloudy days using full optical zoom and the overall process times
both these functions are worse than my older 4meg kodak and acheaper new samsung I bought for my daughter
No viewfinder and slow what a pain
Emailed samsung hoping for firmware update or Iwant my money back Dissapointed

6:07 am - Saturday, December 17, 2005

#4 Geo

I took this camera back to the store and exchanged it twice before I gave up.. I bought this camera for the specs and the price.. I loved using it when it was able to tell there was battery power.. After taking no more than 5 pics with the flash the camera would shut off complaining of low battery. then it would have to be off for a few minites before it would come on again.. When I tried to record a video I got no more than 3 seconds before low battery shut down.. The differences between the cameras that I exhanged was only the time I got before shutdown. I tried this with several sets of fresh batteries in each camera.. Obviously this makes using the camera impossible. SO DONT GET IT.

I give this camera a 2 out of 10. 1 for the price, and 2 for the features and ease of use(when it works).

6:20 am - Tuesday, January 10, 2006

#5 Nathan

I also took back 2 Samsung A50s due to battery problems. Gave up in the end and bought a Fujifilm A500.

12:37 pm - Saturday, August 26, 2006

#6 Eric Goddard

I bought A55W because I had a very good digimax 60 which I dropped and broke. However I am finding similar problems even with a LION battery it does not seem to last long. The other problem I have is that it will not always switch on first time even after being off overnight. It takes a couple of tries before it comes on. Than if it is switched off it will not come on again first time. I am wondering if there is a power on/off switch problem.

1:20 am - Sunday, June 10, 2007

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