2010-06-30

Samsung WP10 / AQ100 - VIDEO

2010-6-26 16.13
How good can the video quality be from such a cheap waterproof camera?


You might be in for a pleasant surprise.




The Sony HX5 has the best video image stabilisation of any pocket travel zoom so far, so how does the Samsung WP10 compare?

5 x zoom with no stabilisation



5 x zoom from the same position with  digital image stabilisation. Notice the image is is cropped on all sides and then resized to 720p. This brings visible degradation in quality.



How is the resolution compared to the Sony HX5 720 p mode? Let´s make a few clips and take a screen capture.

HX5 with the visible barrel distortion at wide angle

HX5 with much less barrel distortion at 1.5 x zoom
Should be gone by 1.7 x zoom, below 1.4 x zoom it was still very visible.

WP10 with no stabilisation and no barrel distortion

WP10 with digital video stabilisation from the same distance as above

I made several other tests but this gave the best results to compare


Here a close up with our photo models.
Need to figure out how close I can get before the WP10 loses focus. I think I was a bit too close with this one.



Did the focus distance test.
The WP10 does focus from 50 cm, macro is not selectable. BUT if you put her in Smart Scene Detection, the she detects a macro and focuses from 5 cm.


5 cm normal mode


5 cm Smart Scene Detection



The WP10 can make a screen shot from every position of the video in playback mode. This 2  were done with that function. There is also a tiny nearly not visible in bright light green led what shows you a focus lock by stopping flashing when you half depress the shutter.

Sadly the HX5 has not such an indication, so it will be guesswork how close you can go. This is from about 3 to 5 cm distance. The HX5 switches automatically into macro mode.

The displays on both cameras are not able to tell you if you are just a bit out of focus.

And here now on a pocket tripod using the Smart Scene Detection so the focus starts at 5 cm 2 videos starring the Gran Canaria Lagartos or Dinos how we call them.








How good is the digital video stabilisation compared to the Active Mode from the HX5?
The result quite astonished me, it comes close to the normal stabilisation from the Hx1 or the HX5.
The 10 times more effective Active Mode is naturally much better but for just digital, not bad at all.

the WP10



the Pentax Optio WS80



and the HX5

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