If there's one glaring omission in the feature set, however, it's optical image stabilisation. The electronic image stabilisation does an adequate job, but the 34x zoom lens really demands OIS. Don't plan on using the full length of the zoom unless the SMX-F34 is mounted on a tripod and, in that case, shut off the EIS.
Unimpressive video
The SMX-F34 produces video in line with other camcorders in its class. The video is soft and generally grainy-looking, with interlacing and compression artefacts. Low-light performance isn't great, either, exhibiting more of the same. The autofocus is slow regardless of lighting conditions, but, in dim light, it does plenty of hunting on top of being slow. Colour is okay, as is exposure, although highlights are usually blown-out.
Having said all of that, the SMX-F34 isn't necessarily any worse than other sub-£200 standard-def consumer camcorders on the market. If you still live completely in a low-resolution world, the recordings are destined for video-sharing Web sites, or you simply want to capture the moment no matter how it looks, the SMX-F34 should be satisfactory.
Photo quality is pretty poor, but, again, that's to be expected with such a low resolution. You'll be able to capture an image, but it won't be good for much more than Web sharing or, if very well-lit, prints of 2 by 3 inches.
Conclusion
Read enough user reviews of current standard-def consumer camcorders and you'll see one comment frequently pop up: "My mobile phone takes better video than the [insert camcorder name here]." Depending on the resolution of your phone's camera, that may hold true with the Samsung SMX-F34. But you won't find a phone -- or a pocket camcorder, for that matter -- with a 34x zoom lens, 16GB of storage and an SDHC card slot for expanding the storage capacity.
Additional editing by Charles Kloet
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