Thread: Samsung S1060 Digital Camera

Samsung's S1060 is a 10.2-megapixel, 5x optical-zoom compact digital camera that is part of the company's push to remind us that decent photos are not all down to the megapixels. Other factors, such as lens quality, image sensor and ISO rating, matter too. This camera boasts ISO ratings that range from 50 to1600, the aim of which is to produce fine grained pictures at the low end, when light is bright, and to allow you to switch off the flash and use what natural light there is when it is darker.

We found the images were very noisy when using the higher ISO ratings of 800 or 1600: there will be few occasions when a lower ISO combined with the camera's flash won't produce better photos. At a low ISO of 100 or 200, picture quality was fine, although again, we found its performance was influenced by the light. It tended to work best with less noise when the light was brighter, like most compact digital cameras.

The S1060 has a responsive Face-Recognition mode, which focuses on a person or people in the frame, provided both eyes are facing the camera. This means that if the person moves, the focus automatically adjusts, and we found this feature worked well. It also has image stabilisation, which helps keep shots sharp in low light but is slow to process photos. If the camera shake is too extreme, it can't do much, in any case. We saw a distinct improvement in our tests where we shot the same image with and without stabilisation.



The camera is housed in a black casing of average build quality with a bright 2. 7in LCD screen. It's simple to use but also comes with full instructions, supplied as a PDF manual on disc. The zoom button is well-placed and all the camera's functions can be easily accessed.

It is just about small enough to fit into a pocket, in spite of the protruding lens. It also has 17MB of internal memory and you can insert SD or SDHC cards up to 4GB for additional storage. The S1060 will film video at up to 30fps. There is a unique button labeled as 'E' that lets you select the Color Effect mode like Normal, BW, Sepia, Red, Blue, Green"Negative and Custom. It also lets you resize and rotate the picture.

A downside, though, is that the Samsung S1060 uses a proprietary USB lead for connection to a computer rather than a standard mini USB cable, which could be annoying if you lose the supplied cable. Overall, the S1060 is not a bad camera, but its performance was hampered by sometimes struggling to focus when light was slightly dim. It will best suit those who are not too demanding and want a simple point-and-shoot camera.