Samsung Digital Camera

Today at the Samsung Experience store in New York City, Samsung (www.samsung.com) unveiled several new digital cameras for release this summer and fall, including its first prosumer model, the Pro815.

Samsung Pro815

The 8-megapixel Samsung Pro815 sports a gorgeous 3.5-inch LCD on the back, as well as a second, 1.4-inch LCD on top of the camera. To give you an idea of how big a 3.5-inch LCD is, it's closer to a Sony PSP screen than the 2.5-inch LCDs that are currently becoming popular for cameras. The smaller LCD screen on top can be set to status mode or preview mode for framing macro or low-lying tripod shots.

The camera features 15X optical zoom and a three-ring lens, with one ring each for exposure compensation, manual focus, and zoom. One thing that may be problematic is the lack of image stabilization hardware to support the long zoom, though Samsung says the Pro815's blend of a high-speed lens, low-noise design, and noise-reducing processing will compensate for the lack of true image stabilization.

Samsung also touted the Pro815's speed, claiming 1-second boot-up and recycle time. The camera can also shoot Motion JPEG video clips at 25 fps with stereo recording. It will be available in August.

Samsung Digimax i5 and L55W

The new Digimax i5 is Samsung's smallest camera to date, a 5-megapixel ultraportable with a large 2.5-inch LCD screen and 3X optical zoom. The camera comes in silver, red, gray, and black, and has a stainless steel cover. Though it's a bit thicker and heavier than other credit-card-size cameras we've seen, it has several interesting features.

We're intrigued by the text recognition feature, which lets users photograph documents and convert them into Word files. Eat your heart out, James Bond.

More standard features include Safety Flash, which optimizes the user's flash settings to adjust for red eye and camera shake, and also reduces power consumption and adjusts the camera's settings for indoor and night images. The camera also has a super-macro mode for shooting subjects from 1 to 5 centimeters away.

The L55W is 5-megapixel compact camera with 4.8X optical zoom and a 2.8-inch LCD. The camera comes with 30MB of internal storage as well as SD/MMC compatibility, and Samsung claims it has a boot time and recycle time of 1 second.

Check back in a few weeks for PCMag.com's full reviews of Samsung's new camera offerings, and updates on pricing and availability.

Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in PC Magazine.