Samsung TL500

Samsung's TL500 delivers beautiful images even in poor lighting, but for a pocket camera it has a big body and a big price tag—and it doesn't do HD video.

Angle

Since the TL500 is able to open up to f/1.8, it will often open be able to collect more light and use lower ISO sensitivities. 

Screen

The display is mounted on an articulating arm, which can swing out, rotate 180 degrees, and then be tucked back into the body so it's protected from scratches during transport. 

Back

The 3-inch display on the back of the TL500 is an OLED, and it's gorgeous. 

Back

The TL500 should appeal to pros who want granular control over their photos. On the grip located on the front right of the camera, there's a horizontal spin wheel for your finger to control the shutter speed, and a vertical wheel on back of the camera controls the aperture so you can get a real manual shooting experience. 

Left

The lens on the TL500 is the selling point on this camera: it can quickly collect a lot of light, and making it well suited for shooting in low light conditions without a flash.

Ports

The camera writes photos and videos to SDHC memory cards, which can be easily transferred to your computer via a card reader. The TL500 has a USB port, but it's proprietary, so you if lose the included cable you might have trouble replacing it. 

Right

There's just 3x optical zoom (focal length extends from 24-72mm), but the lens can open all the way to f/1.8 (at the telephoto position and f/2.4 at the wide-angle position). 

Angle

Video recording is a huge disappointment on the TL500—it's standard-definition, in a market where even $200 cameras can capture video in high-definition.

OLED’s black levels are much darker than LCD, and the contrast on the display is remarkable.OLED also shows much less motion blur, so moving subjects won’t leave trails onscreen. 

The TL500’s screen is particularly sharp (made up of 920,000 dots), with clarity and quality to rival the LCDs on entry-level DSLRs.  

The Samsung TL500 offers fully automatic shooting, as well as manual, program, aperature priority and shutter speed priority shooting modes.  

Speed is not the strong suit of the TL500. For starters, it took an average of 4.48 seconds to power up and shoot a photo, in my tests. 

High ISO’s are good for shooting in low light without a flash, and the Samsung TL500 has the ability to shoot up to ISO 1600 is comparable to a good D-SLR camera, but keep in mind images from a D-SLR camera at ISO 1600 will typically be sharper and offer a larger dynamic range, since they have larger image sensors. 


Price Range $339.95 - $419.99

Spec Data

Type Compact

Megapixels 10 MP

Media Format Secure Digital High Capacity

Battery Type Supported Lithium Ion

35-mm Equivalent (Wide) 24

35-mm Equivalent (Telephoto) 72

Optical Zoom 3 x

LCD size 3 inches

LCD dots 920000

Wireless Connectivity No

HD Video Capture No

Boot time 4.48

Recycle time 2.38

Lines Per Picture Height 1972

Posted in: Camera