Read more about the Samsung TL500 or EX-1, including detailed specs and current user reviews at classiccameradatabase.com
Some cameras fly completely under the radar. The press hardly covers them when they release, and as the years go on they get lost and forgotten about to all but the most astute old camera enthusiasts. This here is one of those cameras. This is the Samsung TL500 or EX-1 depending which market it was released under, a fantastic little advanced camera that fits into your pocket, with a fully articulating screen!
(For the sake of readability I’ll be referring to the camera as the TL500 for the remainder of this article, but know everything applies to models marked “EX-1”)
Samsung TL500 Overview
I’m not even sure where I first heard about the Samsung TL500. I think I heard about its younger sibling the EX2 first and then back traced the line up. And the Samsung EX2 was on my radar thanks to a viewer on my YouTube channel. It’s a competitor to many cameras I’ve looked at in the past and some I’ve even owned, like the Pentax MX-1, Panasonic LX3, Olympus XZ-2, etc. By the way you can find all those cameras and more listed on my website classiccameradatabase.com if you want to dive more into the specs and compare.
Before I bought it I did a quick search on online and found almost no videos about it, except a few from twelve years ago. There’s also very few blog articles from recent years around. That alone is almost a good enough reason to purchase it and share it with you from a 2022 perspective. But the camera is compelling enough to purchase on its own, and here’s why.
The Samsung TL500 has a 1/1.7″ 10mp CCD sensor with a 24-72mm equivalent lens that is f1.8 on the wide end and drops to only f2.4 on the long end. I love that it gets as wide as 24mm, as I find the difference between that and the more normal 28mm to be quite significant. And while 72mm doesn’t get you that much reach, it does cover what we like to call the normal range of photography pretty well. It’s a very practical and useful range.
Lens
While the Olympus XZ’s of the time used Zuiko lens branding, and Panasonic leans on Leica for their lenses, the Samsung has maybe a lesser known but equally experienced lens brand collaboration: Schneider Kreuznach. Maybe not as familiar to everyday digital photographers, but Schneider has a long history of making lenses for such giants as Hasselblad, Kodak and Phase One, among many, many others. So it’s super neat piece of history to see their name stamped on this camera, even if it’s maybe just marketing.
But regardless the lens performs really well in my opinion. I found it useably sharp even wide open on the wide and long end, including the edges. No embarrassing fringing or flare and just an overall nice piece of glass. This frees you up from having to worry about making sure you’re at the right setting to avoid some alien looking blobs or nasty edges.
It also has optical image stabilization instead of sensor stabilization like the Olympus XZ-1 or Pentax MX-1 has. I can’t compare performance between the two directly, but I think it worked well enough and it’s certainly better than nothing. As a do anything pocket camera I appreciate that it’s there.
Camera Body
The camera body is a bit larger than some other premium compact cameras and I think is is mostly due to this huge fully articulating screen. But despite this you can still easily pocket this in most pairs of pants.
The rubberized grip in the front is comfy but a bit small. Since the lens protrudes further anyway, I would’ve liked this to be a little bit bigger. But this is highly personal, so your opinion may vary. It does partly factor into the limited one-handedness of the camera which I’ll dig into more in a second.
As far as controls go, there’s a main mode dial at the top to choose from manual or priority modes, and one to choose shooting mode. The dedicated shooting mode dial seems like a waste to me personally, as I’m not regularly switching to timed or burst modes. I think the space could have been better used with a customizable dial.
There’s a small popup flash over on the side that works really nicely and looks great.
Settings are quickly changed by this clever front dial in the grip which I love, that spins and clicks. The dual action continues on the rear with the four way pad that has a rotating outer ring also allowing quick setting changes.
Trying to one hand this and change settings can be really a struggle. Moving my fingers to rotate either dial means loosening my grip on the camera significantly. Compare this to the one-handed champion the Ricoh GR where almost all buttons and dials are available without moving your hand from normal comfortable shooting position. I think this is mostly due to that huge articulating screen forcing buttons to cram too close to the side of the camera.
Articulating screen
But that huge screen might be worth it for some of you. Yes, it does fully articulate for low angle, high angle, and front facing shots. The availability of an articulating screen is in my opinion a feature that really sets it apart, and it’s something I use quite often for awkward angles. Is it enough to warrant the larger size and weight and button placement? I’ll let you decide.
Image quality
It took me a while to enjoy the images that came from this camera. Colors weren’t quite what I was used to out of the standard JPEG profiles, but I had two breakthroughs – shooting RAW, or the shooting the “retro” profile.
The camera shoots RAW files in the SRW format and I found them to have plenty of detail, in large part thanks to the nice lens and that tried and true 1/1.7″ CCD sensor. I only made minor tweaks to get the colors had I liked. When I did push or pull the shadows and highlights I found enough detail when I needed it.
The real hidden gem here are some of the speciality JPEG profiles. I know this is pretty subjective, but I really enjoyed the “retro” profile. The browns and oranges and contrast of this profile reminded me a lot of my Ricoh GRs positive film profile. Not at all identical, but similar. There’s a forrest profile that makes everything green and a calm profile that seems like the retro profile but cooler tones. You don’t buy a camera for JPEG profiles, but it was a pleasant and fun surprise finding these here.
What I don’t like
There were only two downsides to this camera for me. One was the battery life. I took this camera and two batteries on a trip with my family, and it was dead by the second day. Its CIPA rating is about the same as competitors, so I don’t know what’s up with that, but just an FYI. Probably wouldn’t hurt to pick up a few spare batteries.
The second thing was the autofocus. It is slow, and this is coming from a guy who loves to shoot old cameras. Not only was it slow, it would frequently give up and give me the red box signaling focus could not be confirmed more than any other cameras I’ve ever tested. For this reason alone, it makes the camera much less useful for me as I could only take pictures of my kids if they were still.
Besides those two downsides, I think the Samsung TL500 is a great overlooked premium compact camera with all the features you need to take some great pictures.
Until next time, happy snappin’
Sample image gallery
Check out the flickr gallery below for sample images from my Samsung TL500. And if you want access to RAW files, consider donating to my buymeacoffee. A donation of any amount will get access to RAW files from this and many other cameras.
