We took a Day Off Work to Test out the Galaxy K zoom… well, sort of

Samsung has been working with a number of eager and interested college reporters all around the world, called “Global Samsung Storytellers.” Their role is to bring you Samsung news from around the world that you may have missed. Recently, JH Han went on a day trip and he took his Galaxy K zoom with him to test out some of the key features. Hope you enjoy it! 

It is summer, which means it is time to turn on your vacation mode is on. Recently, I went on a “trip” down to the countryside with a mission to answer the question, “Can Galaxy K zoom bring the game?”

Long story short, it does, and much better than what you might expect.

To really show you how you can use the Galaxy K zoom, I literally went everywhere, from the rivers and ocean to the mountains, taking pictures of everything from peaceful reed beds to Asian belvedere, capturing sunsets and shorelines. I definitely took some selfies as well, but I will keep that to us.

So let’s start this trip. From the beginning, we really tried to imagine as if we were on a vacation. And the first thing we noticed is the Galaxy K zoom can actually help you pack lighter. The 20.7 megapixel BSI CMOS sensor and a slim body (16.6mm at its slimmest and 20.2mm at its thickest) are definitely quite convenient for traveling.

Anyway, Yeosu was my destination. This beautiful city consists of 300+ islands and is located midway along the southern coast of South Korea. And I took the train to the one of the furthest places I can go.

One of the first places I visited was a hermitage called Hyangiram. This hermitage is 1370 years old! The history of it is pretty impressive, but the view is really breathtaking. I needed to take out the Galaxy K zoom and capture it.

While I am at it, I also wanted to test out the famous 10x optical zoom of the Galaxy K zoom. Yes, that is the head of a dragon. You probably wouldn’t have known if we didn’t zoom-in. Not only can you recognize that it’s the head of a dragon, you can clearly see all the facial features of it.

The next thing I wanted to test was the AE (Auto Exposure) / AF (Auto-Focus separation) separation. This feature lets you adjust focus and exposure separately. How do you use it? All you have to do is tap, adjust values, press, and press, and then hold a focus or an exposure frame to lock it into place. However, the real question you want to ask is not how, but when!

If you look at the photo above, you notice that inside of the hermitage came out pretty dark. So what I did is manually re-select the focus and exposure area to brighten up that specific area. Then boom! I was able to get everything the way we wanted in a single picture, without having to sacrifice any definition or brightness.

Since I had to hike up a steep hill to get to the hermitage, we eventually had to hike down. So I decided to go to Suncheon Bay Cyber Ecological Park, which, using the downward momentum, only took about 5-6 hours. Was it worth it?

Yes, it was. What you are looking at are the green reed beds. What a peaceful scene, right? I enjoyed every step of the walk through the path. Along the way, I randomly spotted the foreshore as well.

What do you think? You like it? Oh, wait. Let’s zoom in with our favorite 10x optical zoom.

Here you go. Can you see those cute creatures? Those are blue spotted mud hoppers (Boleophthalmus pectinirostris) and mudflat crabs (Chiromantes haematocheir). As you can see, 10x optical zoom is a real thing guys; it works and it works well. We really feel like you can have a lot of fun with it.

Having some fun with the serious mission of testing out the Galaxy K zoom, the concept of time quickly became irrelevant, until I realized that the sun was setting, which was when I finally realized that it was time to head back. However, the sunset was so visually appealing that I had to share it with you… like a pro.

The Pro Suggest mode offers 5 optimized filter settings: sunrise, dusk, purple sunset, silhouette-like sunset, red sky. So we used all of them to show you the differences.

Which one is your favorite?

As I headed back home after a long de-stressful day at work, we realized we totally forgot to show you another important function of the Galaxy K zoom, the ‘Night Mode.’ So I will leave you with one more photo I took using the Night Mode.

I definitely enjoyed testing out the Galaxy K zoom. If you like to take pictures and you are all about making memories more tangible, Galaxy K zoom would be a great choice for you. As you can see from our “vacation” shots, portable and powerful are the two words that best sum up the Galaxy K zoom.