Quick Review Camcorders : Samsung SCD903

The camera has a quarter-inch, 1 MP CCD, which is sizable and impressive, considering both its low price and the industry’s general trend toward CCD reduction. However, all hopes of strong image quality during testing were immediately shattered when the SCD-903 was tested under low light situations of 15 and 60 lux. Even at 3000 lux, the camera had difficulty with maintaining clarity in the violet and red portions of the color chart, with some slight noise already appearing. When tested at 60 lux, this Samsung, like the 303 and the 103, fell apart. There was a large amount of noise immediately, with the blue portion of the color chart becoming blurred and indistinct along with the previously mentioned red and violet. The noise at 15 lux is so aggressive that it is hard to differentiate between the color bar transitions, and all of the colors became dulled and darkened to the point of having no relation to the actual colors on the original chart.

The Samsung SCD-903 does have a 12x optical zoom, along with a 900x digital zoom that seems laughably high when one considers the compromised image quality that comes from higher digital zoom levels. This camera does have a color electronic viewfinder that can display menu settings; however, access to the main menu is not available without engaging the LCD, which summarily turns off the viewfinder. This manual control debacle notwithstanding, there are plenty of other hurdles to overcome when using the camera in manual modes. Although the user does have control over Zoom, Focus, 29 steps of Exposure, White Balance, Shutter, Slow Shutter, and Flash, they are spread unevenly and sometimes in overlapping sections of two separate menus. This pseudo-dual feature with limited access in certain areas is an immediately aggravating and inevitably futile system of manual control. This sort of layered and confusing format might motivate the consumer to engage the EasyQ setting, which locks all manual controls on the camera, making it safe for even a monkey to operate. Also, manual White Balance appears to not alter image quality on the Samsung cameras tested, making this feature seem dubious.

This camera comes with a 2.5-inch LCD screen, and the following ports: External Mic, A/V-Out, DC-In, USB Out, FireWire, DV In/Out, and S-Video. This model is capable of recording MPEG images, and has both memory stick and MiniDV options available for still and video images. It is not possible to engage in Analog-to-Digital Pass Through with the Samsung SCD-903. With this camera primarily intended for Automatic use, due to its mind-boggling manual control operations and rigmarole, one would hope that the Automatic controls would be capable of shooting in various lighting situations. And, although the 903 tested better than its lower-priced ugly stepsisters, the 303 and the 103, it still doesn’t compare to other manufacturers. However, with its abominable results in low and standard lighting tests while in automatic mode, not even this solution to the manual control problem is logical.

Samsung SCD903 Compared to the...