the samsung galaxy S4 zoom

On a rainy Friday night late last week, attended an event in Edinburgh, at an old cinema turned music venue to shoot for Samsung, using the new Galaxy S4 Zoom, an imaging smartphone with 10x optical zoom, perfect for just such occasions.

Smokey dry ice and laser-coloured stage lights, indoors and very low light conditions — it was the last place one would expect good photographs, but what we got was not only that, but also shots enveloped in drama and atmosphere, and a little romance . . .

ROSELINE : The S4 Zoom has many of the same built-in features as the Galaxy S4 [previously reviewed here] such as the Animated Photo mode, which which gives the option of selecting objects in an image to animate and to freeze, creating an animated gif in-camera; and Beauty Face, which evens out the skin for portrait shots. But a favourite was the Continuous Shoot function, which can capture four frames per second — more about this function below.

Above : using the 10x Zoom, shot from the far back and mezzanine of the theatre.

P.F.M. : “I like the feel of the smartphone—the built-in grip feels comfortable and secure in your hands and feels like a traditional camera.  The dedicated shutter release button is large and easy to locate for fast and steady shooting, and the manual zoom ring on the front of the handset is great for composing shots at a distance, making it easy to zoom in and out, and allowing you to get shots you might not get with a regular smartphone.  There’s also a zoom button on the touch screen for speed.”

Above, using the Continuous function, which shoots at four frames per second, perfect for capturing fast motion and action shots.

The S4 Zoom works well in low-light conditions, such as restaurants and concerts, as it has a built-in Optical Image Stabilisation system and advanced sensor technology that needs less light for proper exposure and quicker focus than conventional sensors.

Other things to love are the replaceable battery, which means there is no need to carry around an extra charger, which are quite bulky, and the expandable memory, which means not having to delete photographs while out to make more room.  The option to tripod mount is also infinitely useful—self-portraits, landscapes, or city lights . . .

All in all, the S4 Zoom is perfect for working late and attending special events, as the zoom turns a smartphone into a precision camera without the need carry around an extra camera and lenses, and yet still has the ability to send texts, tweets, facebook updates and instagrams.  What more does one ever need?

{p.s.} despite all the camera features, it is still also a smartphone, and one with a feature called In-call Photo Share that gives you the option to take a shot and send it in a text while you’re speaking on the phone x