Once again a reminder that no matter how good the software gets, physical lenses are just really awesome. Sub 100 compact cams with real optics from 10 years ago can still make better zoom pics than modern phones for 1500 bucks.
Have you actually looked at large prints to say that? Granted this is a phone with compact camera put on it so it is not direct comparison with phones that we had back then but still I highly doubt it has the performance of a modern phone at least in unedited mode
@@shawonahmed5775 Yep and it will never be able to do a 9x zoom, or a 6x zoom or a 15x zoom as everything is fixed to one focal length. These cheap digital cameras are able to go for the full range (24mm-200mm and everything in between) whereas the phone cameras are fixed permanently at a certain focal length and have to use digital zooming to achieve all these other focal ranges.
Phone cameras were WAY ahead of its time back then, we are already in 2024 with basically the same features with quad-bayer "high mp" sensors, phone camera innivation pretty much stagnated. Except for sony with their xperia lineup.
When the S4 Zoom first came around, I remember always wanting one, I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen, but I wasn't able to get it anywhere in the UK. At the time I had an iPhone 4S, that I eventually changed for a regular S4, and the screen unlocking sound is so nostalgic to me, even if it was only a decade ago!
It is and it isn't - if it was just a normal long exposure, the entire image would become progressively lighter, this works in a vaguely similar way to how the 'live composite' mode works in Olympus cameras, where it takes a base exposure then progressively adds only the very lightest parts of the image (like lights, stars etc) over a period of time while keeping the base exposure the same. Pretty crazy to see that in a phone really!
@@FuzzWoof Hm, maybe, i did similar photos with my Canon EOS350D, and i dont remember encountering such a problem. Maybe i took the photos in Tv mode(Exposure priority). And i agree about the phone. I have my Canon 70d record 1080p 30fps videos, and it's kind of crazy to see a mobile phone do that
I just wish Samsung would do a revival with todays technology. Imagine what would be possible. 40x optical Zoom; 8k 60fps; 4k 240fps; 1080p 720fps combined with Galaxy AI.
Few years after S4 zoom, motorola launch the Moto Z, where you could attach a camera module on it. Also 10x zoom but with 4k videos. That was a sick design. Where people could buy mods what they wanted to improve their phones. Wish samsung do something like that nowadays, with huge zoom and DSLR quality for galaxy.
@@BatMouse-1989That smartphone failed because nobody wants to spend extra 200-300 dollars on the 600-800$ smartphone. Very few people who bought DSLR have lenses other than stock 50mm and telescope/zoom lens.
man...this was when samsung was COOKING.I remember when this came out it blew my mind how cool the camera was. I like digital cameras but having a android phone combined with it made it incredibly useful. the Nokia 1020 was another crazy camera with a smartphone slapped on it (love for you to go over that too). Also YES I MISS THOSE LITTLE SOUNDS. I know some thought they were cringe back then, but they gave samsung so much more character than they do today.. Just the unlock sound gives me so much nostalgia.
Being able to change the battery was SO useful. When one was low you just swapped it out. Now you've gotta carry around a heavy external battery to charge up the battery in the phone. So much less inefficient. I saw plenty of people not knowing you could buy spare batteries though and would still be charging up the phone from an external battery.
@@PhazonBlaxor I think the EU only sais the batteries will have to be "easily removable" as in, you could use a screwdriver or something. Idk if most companies won't just do malicious compliance (apple 100% will) by finding some loop hole to still make removing the battery annoying.
@2727daqwid Actually, they also said batteries have to be easily replaceable with "no tool, a tool or set of tools that is supplied with the product or spare part, or basic tools." So "easily" replaceable really means easily here.
@@heroninja1125 check out nothing phone! It's still a slab, but it looks like they are at least trying. I've just got the np(2) and I have a tone of fun with it's little quirks and weird features. Ohh, and the Flips are fun too! I had the Flip3 from Samsung for 1.5 year, and I absolutely loved it. It did have issues with the screen, but I believe the new ones have resolved durability to the point you can daily them for 2 years at least, and Samsung will replace the screen for free with extended warranty - only downside is that flips are an expensive business lol. On the other hand you have that Motorola razor that I think is like 700-800$? That's still expensive, but closer to a reasonable price, around flagship price.
They could never get away with this kind of stuff today, it's not aesthetically presentable and the moving parts pose a huge risk - which is exactly why they started adding multiple cameras instead. And digicam enthusiasts are really a niche audience that are just going to buy actual digital cameras anyway. Everyone already has a main phone, and this is simply not fit to be used as one.
@@Neopumper666 One thing that I would like to highlight this was that this was a continuous optical zoom. At the moment, anywhere between 3X and 10X ,say 7.5x, is pic from 3x cam digitally zoomed in
@@methamphetamememcmeth3422 I mean, I did use the S4 Zoom back in the day as a secondary phone and it really is uncomfortably too thick. It's like pocketing a compact digital camera from the 2000s. The pictures it took were good, but I really didn't use the zoom feature often enough to justify having to carry this unwieldy bastard around everywhere. It just made me wish I had a normal sized phone with at least comparable image quality, but no crazy zoom to make it so big. And going back to the iPhone was exactly that.
I owned this phone back in the day and upgraded to Samsung's next iteration, the *Galaxy K Zoom* , which I loved. I also owned the Galaxy Camera which again was ahead of its time. Samsung simply did not promote these devices enough for them to be truly popular, which is a shame because they took amazing pictures.
This looks incredible. If Samsung made an S24 version of this, I'd be the first in line to by one. Modern smartphones have come some way toward making up for this lack of an optical zoom feature with dedicated 3X and 5X telephoto lenses, but this still seems better.
... You do realize that Samsung has already matched this thing's 10x optical zoom capabilities inside of a standard smartphone form factor with the S22/23 Ultra's periscope lenses, right??? O_o This form factor simply isn't necessary anymore for good optical zoom performance. Lens design and manufacturing has come a long, LOOOOOOONG way since this thing came out. This kind of phone design simply doesn't make sense anymore without a dramatic camera sensor size upgrade vs standard phones, and if you're doing that you're basically just going to end up with a full size DSLR running Android for its OS (which would be FLIPPIN' AWESOME, don't get me wrong!), not a smartphone with a zoom lens on it. 🤷
@@Cooe. Not quite. The S23 Ultra has a fixed 10X telephoto lens, but you can't precisely adjust it like you can with this phone. If you want full resolution at exactly 6.8X zoom, you can do that on this old phone. The S23 Ultra does not have that capability.
Those "old school" flashes were so much better, I remember being on nights out with my old Nokia cybershot and those kind of flashes would light up the whole club for a fraction of a second, so indoors in the dark with lots of movement you always got perfectly sharp and well lit photos, LEDs are nowhere near bright enough for that
Even worse sometimes . My cheap A10 has better flash than my own expensive Nord phone , but it's company specific as some phone have quad flash at 200$ but only that specific feature , specs are not good but , some phones really choose 1 feature to do best and it's nice for those who like that.
I actually had one and I loved it lol... It was both my daily and my camera for streaming... I mean, a 1080p 30fps / 720p 60 fps cam is all you need even today... What made it better was the 64gigs of storage and the fact that you could add another 128 gig sd card. Even after upgrading I kept that phone as a travel cam until it fully died on me...
I think the most interesting thing to see is that while the pictures quality are really nice, there isn't that overprocessing looks of today's phones pictures. Honestly, I think it's so much better
man those android sounds bring back memories. my first higher end phone was the s4, it was a sprint phone that i had to flash the imei on so i could use it on boost. ah the wild west of modding phones i dearly miss.
u can do the light tracing trick on any phone just go to pro mode make ISO the lowest possible and lower the shatter speed so the phone will capture light for about 15 sec before generating the picture so that light trace is actually the positions that the car lamps were in that 15 secs
Man, as others have pointed out, its amazing how much its held up for being a product of its time. It would definitely be cool to see an updated version of something like this with modern tech in a smartphone, just to see the results and how a mainly hardware supported camera system would compare to the AI infused software camera systems that are popular today. The only other example that i could think of that has done this with modern tech would be the xiaomi 12S Ultra concept phone which allowed you to install an additional lens on the rear cameras of the phone, just like a regular camera. I believe the quality was very good, but it was exceedingly expensive.
The light tracing is just long exposure. It just opens the sensor to light for like 10 seconds, so everything thats still stays still and everything that moves leaves a trail. The brighter a subject, the more that trail will be visible. So, car lights are the perfect subject
I've got the K-zoom. I really loved that phone. Actually still runs pretty smooth. Great condition too. The battery's kaput though and the OS is seriously OOD. I wish someone would release a custom ROM for it
The "light trace feature" can be reproduced by going manually into the settings, decrease the shutter speed as low as possible, and adjust the ISO to fix the brightness if needed. You can reproduce this effect on pretty much any phone.
I had this phone some years ago. And recently I just bought it again. As a phone is already an antique, but as a point and shoot camera is really fun to use. The compact size, the zoom ring, the myriad features and options and modes… Image quality isn’t the greatest, but it’s capable of some very nice shots. And really I just like it because it’s fun to use, fun to just shoot with it. I wished Samsung did a modern version of this, which won’t happen, I know. But it’s such a fun camera that is just nice to wish for an updated version 😊
I miss the early 2010's samsung smartphones. They have a charm to them that modern smartphones don't have. The galaxy beam and beam 2 had to be my all time favorites. Great memories.
damn that camera looks good for its year and the video is even better than my redmi 12, i love this kind of video, you should make more retro phone content like the lumia.
When smartphone companies finally release it on a modern device, they will advertise as if it’s “revolutionary” and “AI-powered” even though it existed 10 years ago 😂
Light Trace is essentially just a long exposure shot! If you were shooting on a "real" camera you would set the shutter speed to however many seconds you want. Also commonly done with waterfalls and rivers to give the super soft foggy smokey like effect
I should be sleeping since it is 3am now but your content is too good for me to go to sleep now. You are my favourite TH-camr for tech. Watching your channel is addictive. Keep it up.
The light trace is basically a long exposure, So the shutter stays wide open for some time and it captures the light trails of the headlights and the taillights of the fast moving cars, then with some image processing, It turns the long exposure shot into the output you saw
I am still using my Galaxy S4 (in white) but not the Zoom... still works for me as I don't need anything fancy.. and I just had to change the battery a few months ago. lol Newer phones these days are way too big... and you can't beat that sound!
In the fall of 2013 I was a senior in high school. These were the phones I wanted. Samsung GS4, HTC one M7, iPhone 5 and so on. Back then I had a Samsung Galaxy attain from Metro and later on an LG Optimus F6.
I bought this phone back in 2013 and i still have it till this day. Unfortunately the phone stopped turning on a year ago and replacing the battery didnt help. I gotta get it checked at the Samsung service station however im not even sure if they will fix such an old device. I had a lotta fun carrying this phone around and people would sometimes wonder why i was pulling a camera outta my pocket!!! Ah the memories!!!
Really Fusion of a feature camera with smartphone , I remember its launch back here in Mumbai INDIA and I loved this combination , but already had bought SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 2 back then in late 2012 and had to drop plan to buy this. AWESOME ZOOM.. I GUESS this design is on hold for good of CAMERA industry..
It's funny how people are amazed by the camera quality, as if they don't realize that this is basically a digital camera with cell phone capabilities. Comparing it to any other cell phone camera is kinda silly. I'm more amazed by the fact that Samsung developed this device and released it to the market. Maybe it was mostly for marketing purposes and didn't really generate much revenue. Really nice review though! Keep up the good work, and I'm excited to see what unique device you have found next time!
Light trace feature works exactly the same as astrophotography or any other long exposure photography type deal - it just opens the shutter for an extended period of time and takes in light over that time leaving those traces where the light went and as an added bonus upping night time image quality to a whole 'nother level by lowering iso therefore reducing noise.
Samsungs phone & video quality was wild back then. I rmbr buying the Samsung Instinct HD because of the HD Video specs and mini hdmi port. I still have it, trying to get it to run again to use for fun. The Samsung Upstage was also another favorite.
I suspect you are a pro and know everything there is about light trails already but, it's a cool feature where the shutter keeps open for a long time so more light could enter as such lights are seen as trails. Better to use in on the other lane as the high beam really messes up the shot. The tail lights on the other hands gives a magnificent result
i dont know how to explain it but... the way the photos are taken by the camera look like they are from the 2010s, and the videos it takens are reminiscent of late 90s to early 2000s , its a digital camera photo style. It looks so fun and punchy - even the ratio of the picture, like you can tell its not taken by a smart phone from the current era.
@@johnzoid74Nice 👍 btw another suggestion for cool phones would be the Xperia play, its a PSP GO like "gaming phone" but it runs android and doesnt play PSP games (could be emulated tho its a weak spec phone) but games ports of ps1 games for it, games that were available on symbian OS and more, maybe also htc one M8? 😍
The light trace thing is just a long exposure, you can basically do it with any camera, just close the aperture, lower the iso and crank up the shutter time
4:00 Ayeeeee!!! A fellow SLC'er! 😄 Also, there's practically nothing worth photographing on State Street. 🤷 Shit's mostly just a dump of rundown old buildings/businesses and fast food joints. Sorry, not sorry lol. 🤣 (Photographing the mountains instead = smart idea haha.)
I was in college when this phone came out and my classmate had one. It was new and for some reason the lens got stuck and won't close no matter what so we went with her to some various repair shops to get it fixed but no one knew how to do it at that time. So I decided to borrow it from her and gently tap the lens against some steel bar while we were walking and it fixed it. 🤣 But despite it working again, she still had it replaced with an iPhone.
'Light trace' works by exposing the sensor to the light source for extended period of time. 4 sec, 8 sec, 16 sec, up to 30 sec. In real camera you can control the exposure time, even going as long as infinity with bulb mode. In photography this is called long exposure. Long exposure is used for a bunch of different things, mainly for shooting in the dark, for light trail (what you did), astrophotography, star trail, and for artistic photography. Have you seen waterfall photos that look like mist falling instead of water? Or beach that looks like sea of clouds? Those are long exposure photography.
Cant see a comment so, light tracing, i.e. long exposure, is where the shutter stays open for longer, and captures any movement of light in the same photo. This is true all the time, pretty much. The difference here is the shutter may be open for a few seconds, as opposed to the usual 1/50 or 1/100s, so hundreds of times longer. To do that, the shutter blades have to really narrow down so that the photo doesnt end up hot white (overexposed) to control the amount of light let in per second.
light trace is just a really slow shutter speed, that's why the phone suggest you to use a tripod. you can do a really cool light painting with that features :D on a real camera just set your shutter speed to 15s or 30s depending on the light condition, and or if your phone have a long exposure or light trace mode, just use it
In 2013 I had the Samsung S4, for the time that was a pretty decent phone. But yeah camera tech on phones has now come a long way that we don't really need an entire dedicated 16mp camera in the phone :-)
I remember back in the day I wanted that phone so bad! Even though I had a blue s4 which took great photos and videos, but having the digital camera phone factor plus the optical zoom was incredible! Having a s24 ultra now I can see why the same concept wouldnt work now but it still brings me fond memories I wish I could find a good condition one to buy and have fun with
This phone was awesome. It was more of a camera that allowed calling. Galaxy Zoom received Kit Kat update (Android 4.4) in 2014 as the last update. I briefly had this phone after Note 3 (another beast), but it attracted too much attention and looked goofy in places. Went for another iconic phone after that - Note Edge.
@jOhnZoid, men, I love this video. I do remember this phone and it's amazing seeing that still works. By the way, I'm from Brazil and I already subscribed in your channel. Seeya!
I would absolutely buy an updated version of this. It was definitely ahead of its time. It looks less ridiculous now compared to the phones with the huge camera bumps.
I had the Galaxy Camera back then, I don’t know if it came out before or after this. It was amazing to have a camera with a freely extendable OS! I had Dropbox on it and some other camera apps, although many didn’t support the zoom
I owned this and the Samsung K Zoom(the S5 equivalent if im not mistaken). The image quality is brilliant,even for today. Very sharp,a nice 24-240mm focal length,brilliant OIS. The dynamic range and low light performance is kinda bad tho,not as good as the computational night mode stuff these days,and the screen is downright unusable in bright daylight. But ive used these two phones to hell and back .
I had one back in the day. I loved it. The problem is it doesn't fit in your pocket at all. Eventually my lens broke. I would buy another one though. Miss having a real adjustable aperture. It went down to like f3.5 too, not bad for a little point and shoot cellphone. I'd take one with that S21 100mp sensor.
7:28 If anyone here has a Samsung ST64 camera you can try this: In modes you select Scene > Night > FN button > Aperture: 9.2 > Shutter Speed: 8s > FN button > Shutter button (Done, You already have a photo with this effect)
Phones were so much more fun and creative back in the day, I had this phone too just didn't appreciate how good it was. It was very bulky in my pockets but what a camera!
Once again a reminder that no matter how good the software gets, physical lenses are just really awesome. Sub 100 compact cams with real optics from 10 years ago can still make better zoom pics than modern phones for 1500 bucks.
S23 Ultra has real physical 10x zoom
@@shawonahmed5775 It is NOT physical when there are no mechanical parts...
@@Unan1mouz It's an optical 10x periscope zoom lens
Have you actually looked at large prints to say that?
Granted this is a phone with compact camera put on it so it is not direct comparison with phones that we had back then but still I highly doubt it has the performance of a modern phone at least in unedited mode
@@shawonahmed5775 Yep and it will never be able to do a 9x zoom, or a 6x zoom or a 15x zoom as everything is fixed to one focal length. These cheap digital cameras are able to go for the full range (24mm-200mm and everything in between) whereas the phone cameras are fixed permanently at a certain focal length and have to use digital zooming to achieve all these other focal ranges.
Damn didn't expect that camera to be that good
right? had so much fun taking about 300 photos in macro mode testing that out because I was so impressed 😂
That was actually so Impressive from a phone from 2013@@johnzoid74
Phone cameras were WAY ahead of its time back then, we are already in 2024 with basically the same features with quad-bayer "high mp" sensors, phone camera innivation pretty much stagnated. Except for sony with their xperia lineup.
yea it has the type of lens that actual cameras use
I had this phone in 2014 and photos are still crisp in this day
When the S4 Zoom first came around, I remember always wanting one, I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen, but I wasn't able to get it anywhere in the UK. At the time I had an iPhone 4S, that I eventually changed for a regular S4, and the screen unlocking sound is so nostalgic to me, even if it was only a decade ago!
Yeah I remember these being in airports a lot around the UK, but they were so expensive for me as a kid. Always wanted one!
My sister had one in The UK. I guessed on contract at the time.
They sold them at Currys
Had the S3 around this time. First ever Android phone.
Loved that thing
The "light trace feature" is just long-exposure photography. The shutter opens, and stays open for longer than normal.
this makes sense- thanks! I bet I could write something in the air with a glow stick.. 👀
@@johnzoid74 yes you can do that it’s fun 😊
It is and it isn't - if it was just a normal long exposure, the entire image would become progressively lighter, this works in a vaguely similar way to how the 'live composite' mode works in Olympus cameras, where it takes a base exposure then progressively adds only the very lightest parts of the image (like lights, stars etc) over a period of time while keeping the base exposure the same. Pretty crazy to see that in a phone really!
@@FuzzWoof Hm, maybe, i did similar photos with my Canon EOS350D, and i dont remember encountering such a problem. Maybe i took the photos in Tv mode(Exposure priority). And i agree about the phone. I have my Canon 70d record 1080p 30fps videos, and it's kind of crazy to see a mobile phone do that
@@johnzoid74 looks really cool if you do the same thing on rivers/flowing water
I just wish Samsung would do a revival with todays technology. Imagine what would be possible. 40x optical Zoom; 8k 60fps; 4k 240fps; 1080p 720fps combined with Galaxy AI.
Also headphone jack, removable batteries, oh boy..
Few years after S4 zoom, motorola launch the Moto Z, where you could attach a camera module on it. Also 10x zoom but with 4k videos.
That was a sick design. Where people could buy mods what they wanted to improve their phones. Wish samsung do something like that nowadays, with huge zoom and DSLR quality for galaxy.
Fps and resolution is limited the most by the chipset
@@BatMouse-1989That smartphone failed because nobody wants to spend extra 200-300 dollars on the 600-800$ smartphone.
Very few people who bought DSLR have lenses other than stock 50mm and telescope/zoom lens.
8k ? Lol you know how much a 8k camera cost especially at 60p
man...this was when samsung was COOKING.I remember when this came out it blew my mind how cool the camera was. I like digital cameras but having a android phone combined with it made it incredibly useful. the Nokia 1020 was another crazy camera with a smartphone slapped on it (love for you to go over that too). Also YES I MISS THOSE LITTLE SOUNDS. I know some thought they were cringe back then, but they gave samsung so much more character than they do today.. Just the unlock sound gives me so much nostalgia.
The reason why samsung added a ton of features was probably because back then, apple was dominating.
@@HerobrineLolzAnd now apple is copying Samsung / Android features
11 year old me wanted this phone so bad. No idea what i would've used it for, but man did I want one.
Being able to change the battery was SO useful. When one was low you just swapped it out. Now you've gotta carry around a heavy external battery to charge up the battery in the phone. So much less inefficient. I saw plenty of people not knowing you could buy spare batteries though and would still be charging up the phone from an external battery.
Luckily we are going back to swappable batteries soon enough (by 2027, another EU enforxed thing).
@@PhazonBlaxor I think the EU only sais the batteries will have to be "easily removable" as in, you could use a screwdriver or something. Idk if most companies won't just do malicious compliance (apple 100% will) by finding some loop hole to still make removing the battery annoying.
@2727daqwid Actually, they also said batteries have to be easily replaceable with "no tool, a tool or set of tools that is supplied with the product or spare part, or basic tools." So "easily" replaceable really means easily here.
@@PhazonBlaxor Huh okay, I wonder what companies will do. This actually may drive some innovative designs hopefully.
This is why i'm in android team since day 1
so why?
it would be a shame if every mainstream android phone became like apple and turned into fashion product slab of glass devices.
@@heroninja1125 check out nothing phone! It's still a slab, but it looks like they are at least trying. I've just got the np(2) and I have a tone of fun with it's little quirks and weird features. Ohh, and the Flips are fun too! I had the Flip3 from Samsung for 1.5 year, and I absolutely loved it. It did have issues with the screen, but I believe the new ones have resolved durability to the point you can daily them for 2 years at least, and Samsung will replace the screen for free with extended warranty - only downside is that flips are an expensive business lol. On the other hand you have that Motorola razor that I think is like 700-800$? That's still expensive, but closer to a reasonable price, around flagship price.
Samsung should come out with an updated version of the zoom digicam form factor using their 200mp sensor. Digicam enthusiasts would love it
They could never get away with this kind of stuff today, it's not aesthetically presentable and the moving parts pose a huge risk - which is exactly why they started adding multiple cameras instead. And digicam enthusiasts are really a niche audience that are just going to buy actual digital cameras anyway. Everyone already has a main phone, and this is simply not fit to be used as one.
I mean we already have 10x optical zoom anyways so i dont really see the point
But back then it was so awesome!
@@Neopumper666 One thing that I would like to highlight this was that this was a continuous optical zoom. At the moment, anywhere between 3X and 10X ,say 7.5x, is pic from 3x cam digitally zoomed in
@@__JiG__SaW__ Yeah the MKBHD crowd going muh phone too thick iPhone patented thin muh better muh great Samsung bad boo
@@methamphetamememcmeth3422 I mean, I did use the S4 Zoom back in the day as a secondary phone and it really is uncomfortably too thick. It's like pocketing a compact digital camera from the 2000s. The pictures it took were good, but I really didn't use the zoom feature often enough to justify having to carry this unwieldy bastard around everywhere. It just made me wish I had a normal sized phone with at least comparable image quality, but no crazy zoom to make it so big. And going back to the iPhone was exactly that.
I owned this phone back in the day and upgraded to Samsung's next iteration, the *Galaxy K Zoom* , which I loved. I also owned the Galaxy Camera which again was ahead of its time. Samsung simply did not promote these devices enough for them to be truly popular, which is a shame because they took amazing pictures.
This looks incredible. If Samsung made an S24 version of this, I'd be the first in line to by one. Modern smartphones have come some way toward making up for this lack of an optical zoom feature with dedicated 3X and 5X telephoto lenses, but this still seems better.
... You do realize that Samsung has already matched this thing's 10x optical zoom capabilities inside of a standard smartphone form factor with the S22/23 Ultra's periscope lenses, right??? O_o
This form factor simply isn't necessary anymore for good optical zoom performance. Lens design and manufacturing has come a long, LOOOOOOONG way since this thing came out.
This kind of phone design simply doesn't make sense anymore without a dramatic camera sensor size upgrade vs standard phones, and if you're doing that you're basically just going to end up with a full size DSLR running Android for its OS (which would be FLIPPIN' AWESOME, don't get me wrong!), not a smartphone with a zoom lens on it. 🤷
@@Cooe. Not quite. The S23 Ultra has a fixed 10X telephoto lens, but you can't precisely adjust it like you can with this phone. If you want full resolution at exactly 6.8X zoom, you can do that on this old phone. The S23 Ultra does not have that capability.
Those "old school" flashes were so much better, I remember being on nights out with my old Nokia cybershot and those kind of flashes would light up the whole club for a fraction of a second, so indoors in the dark with lots of movement you always got perfectly sharp and well lit photos, LEDs are nowhere near bright enough for that
Even worse sometimes . My cheap A10 has better flash than my own expensive Nord phone , but it's company specific as some phone have quad flash at 200$ but only that specific feature , specs are not good but , some phones really choose 1 feature to do best and it's nice for those who like that.
nothing better than the sweet taste of nostalgia! which throwback smartphone should be next up? 🤔
Nokia 3310 plz
nokia 1020 that also had a really cool camera
Galaxy Note 3. nostalgic to me
i have the galaxy k zoom and i love it so much its my daily driver alongside my pc and i loooove it!
You gotta check out the nokia lumia 1020 next if you have the chance. Samsung made the s4 zoom as a direct response to the 1020.
I actually had one and I loved it lol... It was both my daily and my camera for streaming... I mean, a 1080p 30fps / 720p 60 fps cam is all you need even today... What made it better was the 64gigs of storage and the fact that you could add another 128 gig sd card. Even after upgrading I kept that phone as a travel cam until it fully died on me...
The old school flash (Xe) is much much better than today's so-called modern led flash.
I think the most interesting thing to see is that while the pictures quality are really nice, there isn't that overprocessing looks of today's phones pictures. Honestly, I think it's so much better
This channel is awesome. It's like dankpods style mixed with micheal reeves editing and it works very well. Great job👏
haha starting to hear this more often. thanks! Dank if u see this.. lets talk
@@johnzoid74 toi toi is op
Love from Turkey man I love ur content
my nostalgia...... now subscribed.... im crying, i use to have this phone on AT&T
man those android sounds bring back memories. my first higher end phone was the s4, it was a sprint phone that i had to flash the imei on so i could use it on boost. ah the wild west of modding phones i dearly miss.
I'm amazed just by the fact that you could take fully manual pictures
This kind of technology would be way more improved in actual days.
u can do the light tracing trick on any phone just go to pro mode make ISO the lowest possible and lower the shatter speed so the phone will capture light for about 15 sec before generating the picture so that light trace is actually the positions that the car lamps were in that 15 secs
of course, but this phone is from 2012 and the feature was fun for its time. not trying to convince anyone to purchase this over an S24
Awesome content. Love from Manaus, Brazil :)
Tudo bem? My wife is from Manaus! Small world! 🌎 🇧🇷
MAN THATS SO FUCKING AMAZING!!! btw I am braziliam too 😂❤❤❤
Say to your wife: "Ei amor, os brasileiros amam meus vídeos!❤❤"
I have a sealed boxed Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom! I have also the Samsung Galaxy NX120 digital camera (objectives can switch).
Please keep making these, also, for this kind of products is the reason i like and respect Samsung
Man, as others have pointed out, its amazing how much its held up for being a product of its time. It would definitely be cool to see an updated version of something like this with modern tech in a smartphone, just to see the results and how a mainly hardware supported camera system would compare to the AI infused software camera systems that are popular today. The only other example that i could think of that has done this with modern tech would be the xiaomi 12S Ultra concept phone which allowed you to install an additional lens on the rear cameras of the phone, just like a regular camera. I believe the quality was very good, but it was exceedingly expensive.
Honestly impressive 😮
The light tracing is just long exposure.
It just opens the sensor to light for like 10 seconds, so everything thats still stays still and everything that moves leaves a trail. The brighter a subject, the more that trail will be visible. So, car lights are the perfect subject
Ayy there it is! This phone always seemed so cool
More practical is the Moto Z Camera Mod.
You can put it on the phone if you need it, or you could use the phone without it and store it elsewhere.
ive watched a few of ur vids and man, it really feels like ur having so much fun making them!
haha 😆 yea ur right I’m having a blast. hope you guys are enjoying it too ❤️
I've got the K-zoom. I really loved that phone. Actually still runs pretty smooth. Great condition too. The battery's kaput though and the OS is seriously OOD. I wish someone would release a custom ROM for it
The "light trace feature" can be reproduced by going manually into the settings, decrease the shutter speed as low as possible, and adjust the ISO to fix the brightness if needed. You can reproduce this effect on pretty much any phone.
My Dream Phone😍 As a photographer, Sometimes I do not have a camera when I need insane zoom to make photos look great!
Galaxy s20 ultra to s24 got insane zoom too if that's what you need! But the funky camera mod are absent, it became more serious over the years
I had this phone some years ago. And recently I just bought it again. As a phone is already an antique, but as a point and shoot camera is really fun to use. The compact size, the zoom ring, the myriad features and options and modes… Image quality isn’t the greatest, but it’s capable of some very nice shots. And really I just like it because it’s fun to use, fun to just shoot with it. I wished Samsung did a modern version of this, which won’t happen, I know. But it’s such a fun camera that is just nice to wish for an updated version 😊
I miss the early 2010's samsung smartphones. They have a charm to them that modern smartphones don't have. The galaxy beam and beam 2 had to be my all time favorites. Great memories.
damn that camera looks good for its year and the video is even better than my redmi 12, i love this kind of video, you should make more retro phone content like the lumia.
6:08 bro why is this super cool feature not on modern phones it's a crime
When smartphone companies finally release it on a modern device, they will advertise as if it’s “revolutionary” and “AI-powered” even though it existed 10 years ago 😂
Light Trace is essentially just a long exposure shot! If you were shooting on a "real" camera you would set the shutter speed to however many seconds you want. Also commonly done with waterfalls and rivers to give the super soft foggy smokey like effect
I should be sleeping since it is 3am now but your content is too good for me to go to sleep now. You are my favourite TH-camr for tech. Watching your channel is addictive. Keep it up.
The light trace is basically a long exposure, So the shutter stays wide open for some time and it captures the light trails of the headlights and the taillights of the fast moving cars, then with some image processing, It turns the long exposure shot into the output you saw
I had this phone in 2016 and used it until 2018. I remember the camera. Mine had Android KitKat 4.4.2.
I am still using my Galaxy S4 (in white) but not the Zoom... still works for me as I don't need anything fancy.. and I just had to change the battery a few months ago. lol Newer phones these days are way too big... and you can't beat that sound!
In the fall of 2013 I was a senior in high school. These were the phones I wanted. Samsung GS4, HTC one M7, iPhone 5 and so on. Back then I had a Samsung Galaxy attain from Metro and later on an LG Optimus F6.
5:12 i gotta be honest. That is way more beautiful than what we have so called AI camera nowadays
Your content is amazing
thanks for watching ❤
I love the unlocking and locking sound. It is satisfying
I love your content bro brings back nostalgia. Keep it up from New Zealand !
I bought this phone back in 2013 and i still have it till this day. Unfortunately the phone stopped turning on a year ago and replacing the battery didnt help. I gotta get it checked at the Samsung service station however im not even sure if they will fix such an old device. I had a lotta fun carrying this phone around and people would sometimes wonder why i was pulling a camera outta my pocket!!! Ah the memories!!!
Loved this video, you are really authentic!
thanks for watching bruv!
Really Fusion of a feature camera with smartphone , I remember its launch back here in Mumbai INDIA and I loved this combination , but already had bought SAMSUNG GALAXY NOTE 2 back then in late 2012 and had to drop plan to buy this. AWESOME ZOOM..
I GUESS this design is on hold for good of CAMERA industry..
It's funny how people are amazed by the camera quality, as if they don't realize that this is basically a digital camera with cell phone capabilities. Comparing it to any other cell phone camera is kinda silly. I'm more amazed by the fact that Samsung developed this device and released it to the market. Maybe it was mostly for marketing purposes and didn't really generate much revenue.
Really nice review though! Keep up the good work, and I'm excited to see what unique device you have found next time!
They released it for ppl who love taking photos . . .
Light trace feature works exactly the same as astrophotography or any other long exposure photography type deal - it just opens the shutter for an extended period of time and takes in light over that time leaving those traces where the light went and as an added bonus upping night time image quality to a whole 'nother level by lowering iso therefore reducing noise.
Samsungs phone & video quality was wild back then. I rmbr buying the Samsung Instinct HD because of the HD Video specs and mini hdmi port. I still have it, trying to get it to run again to use for fun. The Samsung Upstage was also another favorite.
I had this phone back in the day! I loved it!!!! I miss experimental phones which is why I’m interested in the Razr+ 2024
the video quality is amazing! I remember the S4 mini being baller at video quality for the time that I used it, but this is on another level
I suspect you are a pro and know everything there is about light trails already but, it's a cool feature where the shutter keeps open for a long time so more light could enter as such lights are seen as trails. Better to use in on the other lane as the high beam really messes up the shot. The tail lights on the other hands gives a magnificent result
thanks 👍
i dont know how to explain it but... the way the photos are taken by the camera look like they are from the 2010s, and the videos it takens are reminiscent of late 90s to early 2000s , its a digital camera photo style. It looks so fun and punchy - even the ratio of the picture, like you can tell its not taken by a smart phone from the current era.
Samsung in 2014: 10x optical zoom
Samsung in 2024: 5x optical zoom
*5x in a better looking and thinner phone
Bigger sensor on the new one
@@AbdoKashoon-do2gx "better looking" says who
@@cinemint I am talking about the phone design
Wow..always liked this kind of a "throwback" review..i'm subscribing..😁..how about you try nokia lumia 1080🤔
It’s coming ❤
@@johnzoid74 can't wait 🤭🤭
@@johnzoid74Nice 👍 btw another suggestion for cool phones would be the Xperia play, its a PSP GO like "gaming phone" but it runs android and doesnt play PSP games (could be emulated tho its a weak spec phone) but games ports of ps1 games for it, games that were available on symbian OS and more, maybe also htc one M8? 😍
The light trace thing is just a long exposure, you can basically do it with any camera, just close the aperture, lower the iso and crank up the shutter time
4:00 Ayeeeee!!! A fellow SLC'er! 😄 Also, there's practically nothing worth photographing on State Street. 🤷 Shit's mostly just a dump of rundown old buildings/businesses and fast food joints. Sorry, not sorry lol. 🤣 (Photographing the mountains instead = smart idea haha.)
I was in college when this phone came out and my classmate had one.
It was new and for some reason the lens got stuck and won't close no matter what so we went with her to some various repair shops to get it fixed but no one knew how to do it at that time.
So I decided to borrow it from her and gently tap the lens against some steel bar while we were walking and it fixed it. 🤣
But despite it working again, she still had it replaced with an iPhone.
This phone is just amazingly ahead of its time ❤
Imagine if Samsung made something like this today. It would be absolutely insane
can i buy it now?how?price?
I remember selling a couple of those when I worked at Best Buy. They weren't too popular but the customers that had them loved them.
i remember my S4 having feature s like face unlock and picture in picture where you could take a rear camera photo with a selfie at the same time.
'Light trace' works by exposing the sensor to the light source for extended period of time. 4 sec, 8 sec, 16 sec, up to 30 sec. In real camera you can control the exposure time, even going as long as infinity with bulb mode. In photography this is called long exposure.
Long exposure is used for a bunch of different things, mainly for shooting in the dark, for light trail (what you did), astrophotography, star trail, and for artistic photography. Have you seen waterfall photos that look like mist falling instead of water? Or beach that looks like sea of clouds? Those are long exposure photography.
Cant see a comment so, light tracing, i.e. long exposure, is where the shutter stays open for longer, and captures any movement of light in the same photo. This is true all the time, pretty much. The difference here is the shutter may be open for a few seconds, as opposed to the usual 1/50 or 1/100s, so hundreds of times longer. To do that, the shutter blades have to really narrow down so that the photo doesnt end up hot white (overexposed) to control the amount of light let in per second.
Would've been cool if you did a quick image quality (or video) comparison test with a modern phone set at the same megapixel resolution.
light trace is just a really slow shutter speed, that's why the phone suggest you to use a tripod. you can do a really cool light painting with that features :D
on a real camera just set your shutter speed to 15s or 30s depending on the light condition, and or if your phone have a long exposure or light trace mode, just use it
Love the picture examples you should record a whole TH-cam video off one of them would love to see the final result
I totally didn't need to watch this video, but you made it so entertaining I loved it!
Well light trace works by letting light enter the lenses for an extended amount of time when you press the shutter.
Cool video. You sound like Sam Rockwell!
You think so?
In 2013 I had the Samsung S4, for the time that was a pretty decent phone. But yeah camera tech on phones has now come a long way that we don't really need an entire dedicated 16mp camera in the phone :-)
nah i think it would be cool to have dedicated camera sensors.
I remember back in the day I wanted that phone so bad! Even though I had a blue s4 which took great photos and videos, but having the digital camera phone factor plus the optical zoom was incredible!
Having a s24 ultra now I can see why the same concept wouldnt work now but it still brings me fond memories
I wish I could find a good condition one to buy and have fun with
This phone was awesome. It was more of a camera that allowed calling. Galaxy Zoom received Kit Kat update (Android 4.4) in 2014 as the last update. I briefly had this phone after Note 3 (another beast), but it attracted too much attention and looked goofy in places. Went for another iconic phone after that - Note Edge.
@jOhnZoid, men, I love this video. I do remember this phone and it's amazing seeing that still works. By the way, I'm from Brazil and I already subscribed in your channel. Seeya!
Oi Rafael, tudo bem?! Obrigado! thanks for watching, come back for more ❤️
looks truly cool. how does the battery fare after 10 years?
actually not bad. Used it for a full day while recording the video and never had to recharge, and still sitting on my desk not dead yet
I would absolutely buy an updated version of this. It was definitely ahead of its time. It looks less ridiculous now compared to the phones with the huge camera bumps.
Love your content man
better effects than most iphones now 💀💀
Samsung was litterly cooking back then fr
Samsung was living in the future back then lmao
that camera dude just wow
One friend from the high school had this phone and the photos taken with that phone in 2013 was so fucking awesome.
I had the Galaxy Camera back then, I don’t know if it came out before or after this. It was amazing to have a camera with a freely extendable OS! I had Dropbox on it and some other camera apps, although many didn’t support the zoom
I owned this and the Samsung K Zoom(the S5 equivalent if im not mistaken). The image quality is brilliant,even for today. Very sharp,a nice 24-240mm focal length,brilliant OIS. The dynamic range and low light performance is kinda bad tho,not as good as the computational night mode stuff these days,and the screen is downright unusable in bright daylight. But ive used these two phones to hell and back .
I'm pretty sure light trace works by taking a bunch of pictures and blending them together I might be wrong
Thats how it works on new phones but this is a true long exposure setting, it keeps the shutter open for longer, taking more light in
there was a slow mo, 120fps setting in the video recorder, in the one i had. plus was limited to 20 minutes of recoding at a time.
I had one back in the day. I loved it. The problem is it doesn't fit in your pocket at all. Eventually my lens broke. I would buy another one though. Miss having a real adjustable aperture. It went down to like f3.5 too, not bad for a little point and shoot cellphone. I'd take one with that S21 100mp sensor.
The Samsug Galaxy K Zoom, which was the successor for this was like crazy, much thinner than this and had a 20 mp 10x optical zoom camera.
😮Really Camera quality is awesome
the one thing this older model does better is that welcome screen sound.
lol no question who owned it 😂 AT&T shattering windows up in there with the loud speaker
@@johnzoid74 i do love that sound
7:28 If anyone here has a Samsung ST64 camera you can try this: In modes you select Scene > Night > FN button > Aperture: 9.2 > Shutter Speed: 8s > FN button > Shutter button (Done, You already have a photo with this effect)
Phones were so much more fun and creative back in the day, I had this phone too just didn't appreciate how good it was. It was very bulky in my pockets but what a camera!
I miss that lock screen sound so much 😩 my Samsung galaxy s 4 mini did that and I miss it so much
Love ur content ❤