Why are there no samsung BL103 digital camera reviews?
I got the camera today for black friday at walmart. I searched online to see if it even was a deal or not but it’s like the camera doesn’t exist on the internet. Any help with a review or an answer why?
It’s a Walmart exclusive, apparently, and it sucks.
I am a professional photographer and have tested the camera myself (and returned it already). Here’s my review:
We asked a friend to pick up this camera for us at Walmart after we discovered the L200 was sold out at Fry’s Electronics, because we thought it was the same camera. Walmart’s ad certainly led us to believe that they were the same. However, once we picked the camera up we discovered that it was actually the BL103, which is nothing less than a really cheap imitation of the L200.
Don’t be fooled by the promise of 10.2 megapixels. The images look more like they were taken with a 3.0 megapixel camera. There is also absolutely no red-eye reduction, so don’t get your hopes up about getting decent photos of people if you use the flash. However, you are pretty much forced to use the flash because the camera’s low-light performance (or any kind of light, really) is terrible. There is also a delay before the image is even snapped, so if you’re trying to take spur-of-the-moment shots, that moment will be gone before the camera takes the photo. The camera also had problems reading from the memory card and kept having errors. I’m a professional photographer, so I played with the camera’s manual settings to see if I could get better images than what the auto settings produced. No such luck. No amount of tweaking will be able to get a quality photo out of this camera. Obviously I don’t expect a point-and-shoot camera to give the same performance as an SLR, but even my old Kodak Easy Share 4.0 megapixel camera can pump out better images than the BL103.
I wasn’t impressed with the manual settings at all. There were only two f-stops to choose from, and although the camera’s box boasts of being able to shoot clear images at 1600 ISO, the images I shot at 1600 were disgustingly noisy. It was slightly grainy to begin with, even at 100 ISO, and the higher you go, the worse it gets. The shutter speed was missing several standard intervals, but I suppose that doesn’t matter because even changing the shutter speeds, I didn’t notice any difference aside from the number being displayed on the screen. Even if you’re not a pro and have no idea how to use the manual settings, the idea of a point-and-shoot is that anyone can get fairly good pictures at least by using the auto settings. But it’s impossible with this camera, so that in itself is a huge disadvantage.
You may think that for 10.2 megapixels, this camera is a great deal for the price. However, I say save your money up for a camera that actually produces good quality images. There are many other reasonably priced point-and-shoot cameras out there (even with less megapixels) that can take better photos than the BL103. Don’t be fooled! This camera is CHEAP and is not worth the money. If you bought it at Black Friday to give as a gift, don’t wait until it’s too late to return it! Do your self a favor and return it and invest in something better. A photo can be priceless, but only if you have a camera capable of capturing it. The BL103 won’t do the job.
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:58 pm
This is a special model made exclusively for Wally world, and was not available before 11/28.
References :
September 22nd, 2009 at 10:09 pm
It’s a Walmart exclusive, apparently, and it sucks.
I am a professional photographer and have tested the camera myself (and returned it already). Here’s my review:
We asked a friend to pick up this camera for us at Walmart after we discovered the L200 was sold out at Fry’s Electronics, because we thought it was the same camera. Walmart’s ad certainly led us to believe that they were the same. However, once we picked the camera up we discovered that it was actually the BL103, which is nothing less than a really cheap imitation of the L200.
Don’t be fooled by the promise of 10.2 megapixels. The images look more like they were taken with a 3.0 megapixel camera. There is also absolutely no red-eye reduction, so don’t get your hopes up about getting decent photos of people if you use the flash. However, you are pretty much forced to use the flash because the camera’s low-light performance (or any kind of light, really) is terrible. There is also a delay before the image is even snapped, so if you’re trying to take spur-of-the-moment shots, that moment will be gone before the camera takes the photo. The camera also had problems reading from the memory card and kept having errors. I’m a professional photographer, so I played with the camera’s manual settings to see if I could get better images than what the auto settings produced. No such luck. No amount of tweaking will be able to get a quality photo out of this camera. Obviously I don’t expect a point-and-shoot camera to give the same performance as an SLR, but even my old Kodak Easy Share 4.0 megapixel camera can pump out better images than the BL103.
I wasn’t impressed with the manual settings at all. There were only two f-stops to choose from, and although the camera’s box boasts of being able to shoot clear images at 1600 ISO, the images I shot at 1600 were disgustingly noisy. It was slightly grainy to begin with, even at 100 ISO, and the higher you go, the worse it gets. The shutter speed was missing several standard intervals, but I suppose that doesn’t matter because even changing the shutter speeds, I didn’t notice any difference aside from the number being displayed on the screen. Even if you’re not a pro and have no idea how to use the manual settings, the idea of a point-and-shoot is that anyone can get fairly good pictures at least by using the auto settings. But it’s impossible with this camera, so that in itself is a huge disadvantage.
You may think that for 10.2 megapixels, this camera is a great deal for the price. However, I say save your money up for a camera that actually produces good quality images. There are many other reasonably priced point-and-shoot cameras out there (even with less megapixels) that can take better photos than the BL103. Don’t be fooled! This camera is CHEAP and is not worth the money. If you bought it at Black Friday to give as a gift, don’t wait until it’s too late to return it! Do your self a favor and return it and invest in something better. A photo can be priceless, but only if you have a camera capable of capturing it. The BL103 won’t do the job.
References :