Samsung i85

Reviewed May 2008

Image Quality

Overall, I was impressed with the quality of the images captured by the Samsung i85. Photos were sharp and had good color fidelity in most photographic situations. The auto-focusing and metering systems worked well in a variety of lighting conditions to keep snapshots crisp and properly exposed.

To compensate for the lack of breadth in the 36mm lens, Samsung has incorporated some wide file formats into the i85's repertoire. In the top shot above, a field of skunk cabbage was shot at the camera's widest zoom setting in 3268 x 2448 format. The shot below it uses the same focal length, but a wider file format, 3264 x 1836. (Photos have been proportionally scaled to fit this page.) The effect creates a wider picture, which can be more effective for some landscape shots.

Many point-and-shoot cameras have a 3x optical zoom. The i85 has a 5x optical zoom, which gives it more flexibility when capturing subjects who may be spooked by a photogrpaher encroaching their space. Certainly, the 5x zoom is no substitute for heftier fare, but, as the telephoto photo above illustrates, it can get you in range for closeups that would be lost to the 3x zoom. Zoom performance outdoors was good with no obvious distortion.

With its two macro modes, the i85 lets you get up close and personal with subjects that don't object to being crowded by a camera. Objects shot at close range with the i85 were sharp with nicely rendered details.

During daytime conditions, indoor shots can be taken without a flash and without pushing the light sensitivity settings of the camera. In the photo above, there was sufficient light from the window to produce an evenly exposed photo with good detail and color fidelity.

Indoor shots with a flash varied, as might be expected, with lighting conditions and distance from a subject. With face recognition on and at a distance of five to six feet, exposure was acceptable, as the photo above, taken with the "composite" feature of the camera, illustrates. Photos taken under challenging light conditions--such a dark restaurant--tended to be overexposed.

Samsung has packed what it considers to be "fun" features into the i85. While the fun effects can be better achieved in a computer with an image editor, they can be an amusing diversion when in the field cobbling together a quick slideshow for display on the camera's LCD. Some fun features shown above are, from left to right, negative, red filter and color mask.