Two-in-one CAM

You rotate the lens body to expose the lenses of the camcorder and the still camera

The duocam has a 2” LCD screen

Camcorder mode

Still camera mode

Nobody in our office had seen a hybrid gadget–a digital camcorder plus digital still camera–such as this one from Samsung before. At first glance the duocam, as Samsung calls it, did look complicated with its many buttons: MF/AF, PB zoom, Multi display, Slow shutter, Macro, Night scene, Rotation release…. Once we read the manual, though, there was nothing stopping us from doing everything with it short of making a full-length film! 

You can start off by working in Easy mode, and then try the advanced recording features. With DSE (Digital Special Effects) you can add special effects such as mosaic, sepia, black and white, emboss and mirror effects to your video. With audio dubbing you can add sound to the original on a prerecorded tape. Other advance functions are: wind cut, shutter and exposure speed setting, fade-in/out and white balance. 

You can save your video either on a mini DV tape or on a memory stick, and still pictures on the memory stick. But, the memory is just 16MB; you’ll need to upgrade for it to be of much use. 

Buy this duocam only if you want to put it to serious use. Otherwise, at almost Rs 1 lakh, you wouldn’t want it just for the fun of it.

Juhi Bhambal