Thom Hogan reviews the samsung tl500

[eric_arnold]

<p>http://www.bythom.com/samsung-tl500-review.htm</p>

<p>he likes it, basically. a short review which doesn't go into exhaustive depth, but does note the camera's strengths.</p>

[leicaglow]

<p>I really like the Samsung products. It is the P&S I buy friends, relatives, and loved ones for gifts. I thought I would buy the tl500 for myself, but it is in a very competitive field. I actually preferred the Casio, and its slow-mo movie capabilities.</p>

[Hector Javkin]

<p>I avoid Samsung products because of miserable experiences with their notebook computers, but from Hogan, with this kind of camera, that's very good.</p>

[leslie_cheung]

<p>Thought I read his TL500 review a couple months ago. Hmmm...</p>

[bill_tuthill]

Leslie, this camera came out over a year ago, so perhaps you are remembering a different review.

 

The TL500/EX1 seems to be a great RAW shooter for stills. Considering what I've seen lately from Pany GF3 and Oly EP3, you might do nearly as well with this camera, which is a lot smaller.

[eric_arnold]

<p>i've had this camera for a few months and have found it to be very shooter-friendly.<br /><br />i love the fact i can put it in M mode with auto-ISO and just use the two dials to control shutter speed and aperture, just like a "real" camera. the assignable AF points are a nice touch too. and, the OLED screen does function as Live View, with real-time adjustments to shutter and aperture allowing you to gauge the brightness of a scene before you shoot it. that's actually something my DSLR doesn't do, and makes up for the lack of a viewfinder.<br /><br />the 24/1.8 setting is great, especially considering that for a nikon shooter, you'd have to spend $1800 on a 24/1.4G to get that combo. what's really good about this is because its a small sensor camera, you get more DoF @1.8 so there's more sharpness at that setting due to the wider plane of focus than with a DSLR and a fast prime at 1.4 or 1.8. in practice this means you can shoot wide open and not worry about misfocus so much.<br /><br />even with a FF camera, fast aperture sometimes trumps high-ISO. i found this out when i shot a dark scene with a backlit neon sign in it with both the TL500 and a d3s/24-70 combo. the 24-70 was of course limited to 2.8 max aperture, so i had to push the ISO. in doing so, i blew out the background, overexposing the neon sign. but with the TL500, being able to shoot at 1.8 also allowed me to fix the ISO at 800, which kept the neon within correct exposure. of course the DSLR shot had more dynamic range, but the TL500 wasn't bad. in fact, it would be difficult to tell the difference between the two without excessive pixel peeping. <br /><br />agree with thom the NR in jpeg sometimes gets a little pixel-smearing. but what's really good about the TL500--and the reason i picked it over the LX3/5-- is the skin tones, which are very natural. the camera has a few quirks (i dont even bother with manual focus), but the plusses far outweigh the minuses. and at the current price of $320, it's a much better value than the Olympus XZ1. <br /><br /><br /></p>

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