Samsung WB500 review

A versatile camera from Samsung made to excel for both group and landscape shots

The Samsung WB500 is a beast of a camera, evident from the off in its chunky casing. It’s not a pocket’s best friend, either, being a considerable weight and bigger than most compacts, but Samsung hints that this is necessary with the list of its onboard features.

The positive side to the size of the body is that it affords the handler a firm grasp, supported by the practical grip on the front plate, which is the only blemish on this stylish black and chrome camera. The final note on the WB500’s handling is that the user’s finger tends to stray towards the Mode dial on the top surface when aiming for the shutter button, although experience with the camera should render this trait redundant.

A spin of the Mode dial introduces the usual suspects on a camera in this class – Movie, Scene modes, Auto, Program and Manual – as well as a few welcome surprises. First up is the Beauty Shot function, great for saving time applying post-production work in an image-editing program, as the sensor picks up on “facial imperfections” (as Samsung delicately says) and retouches them in-camera to produce a blemish-free image that’s noticeably brighter and smoother than a standard shot.

Adding another string to the WB500’s bow is Dual IS, which combines optical image stabilisation and digital image stabilisation in order to eliminate camera blur in poor lighting conditions as well as normally tricky handling situations, such as shooting from within a moving vehicle.

Among the 14 Scene modes offered up by the WB500, Self-Shot offers the user a great chance to get fantastic first-time shots of themselves by introducing a feature when the camera is held and pointed at arm’s length that beeps (although it’s more of a dull ‘thunk’ sound) when the face is in the centre of the composition, theoretically meaning no more pictures of just foreheads or chins!

As we’re increasingly seeing in digital cameras these days, HD movie recording makes a welcome appearance in typical 720p resolution, as well as H.264 compression technology that decreases the size of the files in-camera, leaving the user with room on their memory card to take more pictures, movies or even voice recordings via the WB500’s stereo microphone.

Another of the WB500’s selling points is the Smart Album organisational feature. This is particularly great for those photographers with large memory cards (we’re talking 4-8GB here) who stubbornly refuse to delete any of their shots. Although this gives them constant reference material, it’s a drag to have to sift through the saved pictures in-camera to find the right one, and it’s on this premise that Samsung has introduced the Smart Album, which sorts photographs based on the user’s preference of time, content, colour or theme. Whether this is handy or not will depend on the individual user’s photography habits, but it’s always better to have the option and not to use it than not have it at all.

In terms of picture quality, overall the WB500 took clear, colourful shots, but when challenged it seemed to struggle with picking up on finer details in shots. Having said that, colours tended to remain true in the test shots and the exposure was admirable.

It seems as though Samsung couldn’t figure out what audience they wanted to target with the WB500, and as a result has packed in a magnitude of features that will appeal to those hobbyists who like to add a touch of manual control to their image-taking process as well as those who are content to let the camera do all the work automatically. This is epitomised in the manual exposure mode, which is basic as only two aperture settings can be selected, however, it’s a feature that Samsung didn’t have to include and many photographers will be grateful that it did.