+POINT The Samsung Smart Camera WB350F is like having a bunch of smartphone camera apps built into the interface of a point-and-shoot camera that has a 21x zoom lens and optical image stabilization. The camera's wireless features make it easy to shoot and share your photos to Android or iOS devices or straight to Web sites.
-POINT There's no improvement in photo or video quality or shooting performance from the previous version, which was just good. While its wireless options are still plentiful, its remote viewfinder function lags behind competitors'.
The Bottom Line The Samsung Smart Camera WB350F is a good package if you want to add an affordable long-zoom point-and-shoot to supplement your smartphone photography.
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| SPECIFIACTION |
The Samsung Smart Camera WB350F is a good reason why you shouldn't shop by specs alone.
When it was announced at CES 2014, it seemed the WB350F was a redesign of 2013's WB800F camera, a higher-end compact megazoom that featured a similar 16-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor and a 21x, f2.8-5.9, 23-483mm lens. The WB350F is actually, as the model name might suggest, an update to the lower-end 18x zoom WB250F. Or to be more succinct: this camera, despite what its specs might imply, is not as good as the WB800F and really offers little improvement over the WB250F beyond having a longer zoom lens.
Basically, you'll want to consider this camera for its features more than for its photo quality. The photos aren't bad, especially if your priority is to share them online. If you need a camera that can take photos for prints larger than 8x10 in all lighting conditions or for something like birding, where you'll want to enlarge and crop in to examine fine details, this likely won't be enough camera for you. The camera's strengths are in its novel shooting options and Wi-Fi capabilities (though even those are starting to slip behind the competition).
The camera's video quality is good enough for posting online or viewing at small sizes on a computer screen, and having a zoom lens with optical image stabilization gives it an edge over a smartphone. However, depending on which smartphone you have, there's a good chance you'll get better video from it than the WB350F.
Like its pictures, the video isn't particularly good in low light. There is some judder when panning the camera, and you'll see some ghosting with fast-moving subjects (which aren't uncommon for the category). The zoom lens does work while recording, but you will hear it moving and focusing. (There's a Sound Alive feature that will dampen this sound, though it will muffle the rest of the audio, as well.) The camera is relatively fast to refocus and adjust to exposure changes.
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| SCREEN SHO |
SHUTTER SPEED
If you like to control shutter speed and aperture, shutter speeds can be set from 16 seconds to 1/2,000 second. Available apertures at the wide end are f2.8, f3.2, f3.5, f4.0, f4.5, f5.0, f5.6, f6.3, f7.1, and f8.0; in telephoto you have just f5.9, f6.9, f7.5, and f8.5.
Being a Smart Camera, the WB350F's wireless features are a key part of the package here. If you connect the camera directly to a Wi-Fi network, you can send pictures and video by e-mail; upload to Evernote, Facebook, Picasa, YouTube, and Dropbox; and share content to DLNA-enabled devices as well as sync to a personal Samung Link cloud storage account, which you can also access from other devices.
If the camera is connected to a wireless network with a Windows PC on it, you can set up Samsung's i-Launcher software and do wireless auto-backups to your computer (though you're probably better off connecting via USB). If you connect to the same network as the camera with a smartphone or tablet, you can use the camera as a baby monitor, which is fine if you're on vacation or just in a pinch, but the performance isn't good enough for regular use.
What you'll probably use most, though, are the camera's Remote Viewfinder, AutoShare, and MobileLink features. MobileLink lets you transfer files from a smartphone or send files from the camera to one or more smartphones. AutoShare gives you the option to automatically send photos to a smartphone as you shoot them with the camera. The Remote Viewfinder turns your smartphone or tablet into a viewfinder, and you can also move the camera's zoom lens as well as hit the shutter release. However, that's about all you can do with this feature, and you're limited to capturing 12- or 2-megapixel images. Other camera manufacturers allow you to capture at full resolution, start and stop video, and use shooting modes other than auto.
Establishing a Wi-Fi connection with Android and iOS devices is pretty straightforward: Start the feature that you want to use on the camera, use your device's Wi-Fi settings to connect to the camera, and launch the Samsung Smart Camera app on your device. But, for Android devices with NFC, the procedure is even easier -- you just have to tap the two together, and they'll start the connection.
Conclusion
The Samsung Smart Camera WB350F is a good package if you want to add an affordable long-zoom point-and-shoot to supplement your smartphone photography. Just don't look too closely at the photos
The Samsung Smart Camera WB350F is a good package if you want to add an affordable long-zoom point-and-shoot to supplement your smartphone photography. Just don't look too closely at the photos
