Samsung Digimax Pro 815

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Features

	Hold the Pro 815 by its shaft and you can use it as a tool to club fellow photographers vying for that prime shooting position.

There are several remarkable features on this supersize-me unit. We cannot help but say: Think twice when you declare that technology can never be sexy. This shooter looks perfectly typical, until it unleashes its 28mm-to-420mm (35mm equivalent) zoom lens. While the Pro 815 is not strutting its photo- and movie-capturing capabilities, the camera is a sight to behold when fully extended.

If the numbers 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0 look familiar to you, it shouldn't come as a surprise by now that the Pro 815 sports an LCD screen on steroids--upping the 3.0-inch display on Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-N1 by 0.5 inches. In addition, the screen has a 235k-pixel resolution so your images won't appear heavily pixilated and your friends won't have to squint when you are showing off your vacation photos. We are probably day-dreaming but we do wonder if Samsung plans to incorporate a built-in TV tuner card on the Pro 815. If not, the large display looks like an awful waste of space.

	The top LCD duplicates what you see on the 3.5-inch screen, but you cannot play back pictures on this one.

While the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-R1 sports a flexible LCD for waist-level shooting, the Pro 815 features a top color viewfinder panel that allows you to frame your images or view the camera status. This 115k-pixel screen measures 1.44 inches diagonally across and is capable of showing the camera status so you don't have to turn to its 3.0-inch LCD when you need to check, for example, your ISO setting. Unfortunately, you cannot sample your pictures on this display and it doesn't facilitate overhead shooting.

Three mechanical rings wrapped in rubber occupy almost the entire length of the non-extended lens. Heading the trio is the zoom ring followed by manual focus and finally the exposure value compensation. There are indicators on the zoom scale in white lettering between the zoom and focus rings to let you know the approximate current focal length.

The Pro 815 employs a dual jog system which is indispensable once you start using the camera's numerous dedicated buttons. These dials allow you to cycle between the various individual functions and the screen will indicate which jog dial to use when you are scrolling the menus.

	It is a pity the Pro 815 accepts only CompactFlash cards.

Though the Pro 815 is heavily loaded with features, it's a tad disappointing that the unit accepts only CompactFlash Type I and Type II cards. We are nitpicking, but it would have been better if it had a dual-card slot option.

What primarily differentiates prosumers from digital SLRs is its ability to take videos. The Pro 815 records motion images in VGA, but falls short with a 25fps rate, five less than the usual 30fps in competitor models. But unless you scrutinize your movie frame by frame, chances are you won't notice the difference.

If you know which settings you use most frequently or which scenes you shoot most often, the Pro 815's MySet feature can shave off a few seconds when capturing that precious moment. With MySet, you can save commonly used camera settings such as resolution, ISO and white balance for various shooting conditions.

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