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 enlarge | Brand: Samsung
Category: Photography
List Price: $149.95
Buy Refurbished: $69.99
You Save: $79.96 (53%)
New (13)
Avg. Customer Rating:  82 reviews
Color: Black
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
System Memory: 11
Floppy Disk Drive: None
Monitor Size: 240
Optical Zoom: 3
Digital Zoom: 3
Display Size: 2.4
Maximum Focal Length: 18.9
Minimum Focal Length: 6.3
Maximum Resolution: 8.1
Has Red Eye Reduction: Yes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 0 x 0 x 0
MPN: S860Black
Model: S860Black
UPC: 044701009115
EAN: 0044701009115
Release Date: February 12, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A 24 hours a day keep-it-with-you-at-all-times camera August 16, 2008
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
I uploaded a grasshopper photo in the samples gallery for this camera. I was surprised to see it as sharp as the photos from my Digital SLRs, except some minor jpg artifacts in the blurred background. This photo was taken at full superbright Florida daylight, meaning short shutter speed and hight apperture value. This makes shake free images and long depth of field easy, even handheld. The camera was set to macro mode, with is a one-touch button and therefore quickly activated.
For professional photography I use a digital SLR, and I published books on Amazon with images from my digital SLRs. But those cameras are huge and heavy. This tiny samsung, in case logic strechy bag, is as small as a wallet. I used it for family trips, and to copy documents from pinboards. Much faster than writing down, or searching for a copy machine. Press the macro button, click done. Press the view button, zoom button, to check the image sharpness, off, done. For family photography it's great. The skin tones come out natural. For long exposures just find a table, a fence post or use the ground, to hold the camera firmly with one hand, and press the shutter button with the other. Night shots of fireworks with 4 second exposure time are easy this way. Alkalines lasted 100 to 150 pics without flash. A 2GB SD holds almost 500 pics at 8MP.
A little scary is, that the on button is not a slide, but a press for 2 seconds. The lens will zoom out, and if that happens inside a tight camera bag, will the lens mechnism survive this? Also, the camera switches on, whithout lens coming out, if pressing the play button. But it has a auto-off mode.
One strange effect happened, when the batteries were low, but still working witout flash. When activating the flash, the camera switched off without pulling the lens in! Well, switching it on and off again pulled the lens in. Anyway, makes sense to always have an extra set of fresh batteries.
Using Lightroom to pull shadows or squeeze highlights is pretty much not of much use. This camera optimizes the image already pretty much to the maximum possible. And the dynamic resolution is just not there for further such editing. Be it due to sensor or A/D or jpg noise.
I personally print from this camera 2 prints on one 4x6, so each print is 3x4", which matches the aspect ratio of the sensor, and also at this small size pretty much all images, handheld or not, are sharp.
Following is a link to my book about Suntan adjustment in Lightroom and Photoshop. This of cause only works when using Digital SLRs:
Suntan: Skin Tone Color Adjustments in Lightroom and Photoshop
 Good features, lousy image quality June 9, 2008
11 out of 18 found this review helpful
The S860 has a decent feature set for a cheap camera, but beware the image quality. At ISO80 in bright daylight, the S860 managed to introduce immense noise into reds. I took 8 photos of a building with a red banner and had to run each of them through Noise Ninja to make them presentable.
Better than a camera phone? Sure, but worse then just about anything else.
Excellent product with one insignificant flaw June 12, 2008
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
I am thrilled with this camera that I bought for my 6 year old daughter. It takes great pictures even in automatic mode and shoots quality videos as well. One thing that is not working by some reason is face recognition. There is a button for this but I was never able to get it to work. Maybe it's just defective item or maybe it's flaw in the design, not sure, but otherwise the camera is a winner. It is very easy to change it's resolution on a fly. Good ergonomics, easy to use menus.
 Good camera for kids July 18, 2008
10 out of 14 found this review helpful
This camera takes decent pictures. But if you just point and shoot without waiting for it to focus, the pictures will be blurry. Still, because of its price, it is good for kids to learn a little photography. Also, because it has only two AA batteries, taking pictures that requires flash is a bit slow.
UPDATE
Needs strong batteries. Duracells don't last long. Camera froze after one and a half months. Sent back to Samsung and had lens assembly and main board replaced. I had to pay for shipping. It should have two stars, but I could not change the rating.
Get what you pay for June 27, 2008
9 out of 15 found this review helpful
I needed a digital camera to take pictures of items for eBay listings. I didn't need anything amazing, just something that works and produces a clear image. I purchased this Samsung S860 because I have had good luck with Samsung products in the past and the price was sweet for how many megapixels it had. When I got it home, I fired it up and the first things I noticed was the staticky viewscreen. I could see what I was pointing at, but it was pretty fuzzy. Not a big deal so long as the picture quality was alright. The camera build quality also seemed very lacking. I felt like if I dropped it even a few inches it would crack and break. Doesn't feel nearly as sturdy as it looks on Amazon. The three pictures I took, two of them were acceptable and one of them either I didn't get the focus right or it didn't take a good picture. I'm no master of a camera so it's possible I just wasn't using it right. The buttons on the camera did not seem logical to a new user and I couldn't figure out how to delete pictures I've taken without resorting to the manual. Up to this point, I'm still satisfied though. I install the Samsung drivers on my PC so I can download my images. Plugging in the USB cable alerted me to a complete lack of quality in the plug itself. Its shaped so the plug can only go in one direction, but after the second time I tried plugging it in, the metal had become bent along with the prong on the inside. Still was able to get it to plug in, but now it's too tight and I really have to look close and make sure its going in the right way. Still, I wasn't prepared to curse my purchase, so I left the camera on the USB plug overnight. When I took it off in the morning, I tried turning on the camera and all that happened was the lens extended out but the viewfinder did not turn on and the power light did not stay on. I tried turning it back off but nothing would happen, the lens was still extended. Removed the batteries to try again, and still nothing. The camera would no longer power on or completely power off. Very frustrated, I call Samsung technical support. They had me remove the batteries for 30 seconds and try again, and still nothing. But before they would be willing to service the camera, they told me I was going to have to buy new batteries and see if that fixes it. Sorry, but I'm not spending any more money on this so I have already packaged it back up and am returning it to Amazon. I guess I'm just going to have to spend more money on a different brand camera.
I didn't need much from this camera, but it failed to deliver even the basics, so I do not recommend this camera to anyone who wishes for more than a paperweight.
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