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I've had this camera for just over a week, and when I ordered it I was afraid I'd have trouble getting the video into usable formats, as well as a little concerned about the widescreen comments on here. Windows 7 RC doesn't put them that way when you download the video from the camera, but MediaShow does. I just wanted to add into everyone's consideration the fact that the Cyberlink MediaShow software (included with the camera) does a very good job with both of these. You can organize and edit your video very easily, as well as "produce" the videos into smaller sizes (and convert to WMV format in the process, if you like), and when it views/saves videos it puts them in widescreen if you have it set that way. I was expecting trouble with all the negative comments on here, but I have to say it's been much better than I thought it would be.The only reason I say 4 stars is that the camera is pretty plastic-y feeling in your hand (compared to my coworker's more expensive Canon) and loses focus pretty often in anything but good lighting (even when the object fills the screen). For the price though, these things are not very surprising.
Colors are blah, picture contrast is low, artifacts and noise galore. Very plasticky with a kind of a cheap feel. Extremely light and easy to use. Impossible to prevent shake. Cool colors that attract comments. Picture is very substandard compared to both a point-and-shoot camera and cameras costing $100 more. My kids loved using it and didn't seem to care about the picture quality issues. As a result I gave it 2 stars since they would have loved to keep it as I packed it back up for a refund.
Combined with the large f1.8 aperture, videos can get very out-of-focus indoors. When I ordered this, I was most excited about the f1.8 lens for low-light video. It does work fine indoors and even in low light, but it has trouble focusing in those conditions. Because this is a consumer-grade camcorder it doesn't have a manual focus ring and there's not much you can do when the autofocus fails.Other than this one issue, this is a great product for having fun recording videos. I haven't had any technical issues with it, and it has been great for videos at family parties and during road trips.
I use them to record both video and still images of vacations, family events (such as weddings) and friends. It also has a digital zoom but using it lowers the quality of the video by quite a bit. If this camera had a microphone port I could record high quality sound to go with the video. Also, I have a parabolic microphone set-up to record bird calls. It has a long tail that tapers down to a bare shaft and then ends in a racket shaped tip. One word: birds.I have been a bird watcher for decades and I have built my digital SLR arsenal around that hobby with several Canon DSLR bodies and specialized extra-long lenses.
However, I often find that bird behavior cannot be captured in a still photo. One example is an Amazonian bird called the Highland Motmot. I have several camcorders including two HD models. I am thinking about getting one for my oldest daughter to replace her current model. The Samsung SC-MX20 has a 34x optical zoom which allows me isolate wild birds in the field at relatively great distances (in comparison a 500mm lens on a 35mm full frame camera is just over 10x magnification). One thing that I have found is that the image stabilization feature on this camera is not very effective (especially at greater focal lengths) so I always use a tripod. This would be a great "point & shoot" video camera for recording family videos.
I have several really nice still photos of it takes a video camera to capture that movement of it's tail. One might wonder why I would use a lower definition, kind-of basic camera like the Samsung SC-MX20. Still, I enjoy this camera and think that it is an exceptional value. When perched it often flicks it tail side to side so that it looks like a grandfather clock's pendulum (the locals have a name for it that translates into "the clock-maker bird). That's where this camera comes in.My HD camcorders both have a 10x zoom lens, which is pretty much standard for that type of camera. It is small, compact and easy to use. I still use my HD cameras for most of my shooting but if I didn't have them I would use this one all of the time.
This Samsung camera is very cheap material and poor quality. Not worth of money. I thinking to get Flip instead. I think Sony and Samsung are the ones to avoid in digital camera and camcorder.
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