Samsung ES95: HD Compact Digital Camera (February 2013)

Samsung ES95
HD Compact Digital Camera (2013)

2016.01.02 - First published
2019.07.30 - Updated and condensed
2021.07.31 - Re-written from scratch

2022.07.25 - Re-written

Samsung ES95

Compact Digital Camera

Model - ES95

Introduced - February 2013

Sensor Size - 1/2.3" CCD

Resolution - 16.1 Megapixels

Focal Range (35mm Equivalent) - 25mm to 125mm

Zoom - Up to 5x digital

Maximum Aperture - f/2.5 (25mm), f/6.3 (125mm)

Shutter Speeds - 8" to 1/2000"

ISO Range - Auto, 80 - 3200

Exposure Mode - Program AE

Minimum Focusing - 80cm (Wide), 250cm (Tele)

Macro - 5cm (Wide), 100cm (Tele)

Video Specs - MPEG4, AVC/H.264, Audio: AAC (Mono)

Resolution - HD 1280x720, VGA 640x480, QVGA 320x240

Framerates - 30fps, 15 fps

Stabilization - Digital stabilization

Power Source - BP-70A 700mAh Lithium Battery

See Product Brochure Here

Photo Album

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Tn2JzAGiWmfJW3BL6

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Impressions

It was late in life by the time I ventured into photography, almost into my 30s. My first REAL camera (not mobile phone camera) was a Samsung ES25 compact digital camera. It lasted exactly a year until the flash busted, then I replaced it with this Samsung ES95 in September 2013. The ES25 ran on two AA batteries and shooting video quickly drains the battery to zero. The advantage of the ES95 was the lithium battery's juicier battery.

The Samsung ES95 is a 'compact digital camera' that was released on February 2013 so it was a new model at the time. Sad to say... Samsung exited the camera market in December 2015. I bought it for only PhP 3,500.00 brand new (5k in malls!). With that price point nowadays (2022), I could easily buy a used mirrorless camera or DSLR (eg. Nikon D60) that has a much bigger sensor!

Build Quality

Like any typical digicam, this camera is compact and lightweight, it fits easily in your pocket. Unlike some other digicams, the ES95 does not have a grip on the side. The camera has a fairly quick during startup.

Specs
This camera uses a 1/2.3-inch CCD sensor. This sensor size is typical size for digicams and action cameras. High-end camera/phones use 1-inch sensors. My current phone OPPO A5s has a sensor size of 1/3.2-inches (small). Some entry-level video cameras have a sensor size of 1/6-inches (very tiny!).

Image Quality - The Good

This camera can produce crisp images that can look as if it was shot with a DSLR, with the caveat that there has to be ample light. If you use the highest quality photo quality, you can crop the images to a quarter of its size and still get clear photos.

You can set the color balance to Auto and get accurate rendition. I have never ever tried to tinker with the settings. Remember, I was a newbie in photography those days, so the only way I used this camera was in full auto on everything.

Image Quality - Limitations

Having a small 1/2.3-inch sensor has both advantage and disadvantage. You won't get those coveted blurry background and shallow depth of field (bokeh) that you get with bigger sensors. At wide aperture, everything from foreground to background are in focus, but this is an advantage if your goal is to document.

Compared to my current mobile phone (OPPO A5s has a sensor size of 1/3.2-inches), this digicam has bigger sensor and it also has the advantage of optical zoom. Optical zoom means that you zoom by moving lens elements inside the camera. Mobile phones use digital zoom; they zoom by cropping the image, resulting in poor quality output the farther the subject.

The ISO sensitivity is only limited to 3200 maximum. It does have a secret ISO 6400 if you use Night Mode, but there is so much noise that the images are unusable. Even in ample light conditions, images look grainy with washed out colors at ISO 3200, so I usually set it to 800 or 1600 only.

The video only has a maximum resolution of HD 1280x720/30fps. The output is always grainy and soft even with ample light. The autufocus is good at wide angle, but around middle range to telephoto (125mm), the autofocus becomes a huge handicap. It only records in mono audio. It saves videos in uncompressed AVI format. This makes editing easier but it does consume much more space in the memory card.

This camera also has optical stabilization to keep videos looking smooth when you are moving around. (Maybe that is what caused my videos to look soft?)

While the color balance is good, I have a problem with color rendition. Yellow and reds appear fine and accurate, but purples become pale pink and blues appear cyan.

At the time, I have not realized the importance of looking at a lens or camera's minimum focusing distance. The closest to the subject I can get is 50cm. In comparison, other digicams and kit zoom lenses focus as close as 25cm at any range.

Conclusion

This camera review is being written now in 2022, but I used to own and use that camera back in 2013. Looking back, my shooting skills were not as good as recent years ago, particularly when it comes to lighting. At the time, I always relied on flash or ambient lighting. I think that if I still have this Samsung ES95 now and applied those skills, then I could have easily overcome its limitations and still produced images that could be as good as in image shot with a DSLR. In comparison to some other digicams I've used, the Samsung can really produce crispy shots if you have good lighting.