Samsung WB500 Delete All Photos

I've seen this question being asked in quite a lot of places. How to delete all the photos from a Samsung WB500 Camera (see some test images here). Surely, this is as simple as just formatting the SD card? If that is the case, and people are actually asking how to remove all the images from a WB500's (HZ10W) memory card - here is how to do that. And it's very easy to achieve.

Yes, I know the picture in this post is not a WB500. But it is an old school classic, and I know you'd rather see that then an up-to-date Samsung that you're most probably holding and looking at already.

How To  Delete All Photos From The Samsung WB500 Camera

• Turn the camera on

• Press the button in the middle of the circular navigational pad called "Menu - OK".

• Choose the last option, which is "settings" and looks like a cog with a spanner at the side.

• Press down on the circular navigational pad and select the first choice, which is Format.

• Click to the right and you will see the two options appear from the drop down format menu - Yes and No.

• Pick yes, for yes you want to format (wipe everything). 

Warning: All pictures will be gone forever, so only click yes if you are sure that you want to delete everything. There's no turning back once this is done. Press OK to wipe everything, give it a second or two to complete the operation, and that's it, all done.

More Problems With The Samsung U-CA5

Looks like I got too happy too soon. I've been back and forth with this camera. It's been going strong for many years, but has recently had a few problems. After thinking it was faulty beyond economical repair, I changed the the SD card and it started working perfectly again. But now, it has become faulty again. And that's with the new 2GB (Class 2) SD Card. The problem has changed though. Last time it developed a fuzzy screen a few seconds after being powered on. This time problem is different.

The camera powers up fine, but when I take a picture the screen freezes on the image that has been taken and just locks up. Either that or it goes through the motions of taking a picture (flash, capture noise, etc) but doesn't actually capture the image. Just a frozen black screen. Very weird. In both cases the battery has to be taken out and put back in to get it to respond. This to me looks like another memory card issue, but I have tried to take pictures with no card inserted, so just using the cameras internal memory, and still I get the same error symptoms.

It looks like my U-CA5 camera has well and truly had it's day in the sun. Ten years of days in the sun to be exact, so no complaints at all. Well, except the posts I've made complaining / explaining about it! Overall, it's a brilliant camera. But, I'm glad I bought the WB500 when I did. I've been using it more and more lately and I'm getting the hang of using it. The more I use it the more it has grown on me. Film mode is good considering how old the camera is. I've been experimenting, using it as a car dash-cam at the highest possible quality of 1280HD @30FPS. It's been really good.

Specially when considering that this camera can be bought for £25 - £30 on eBay. *Update: I'm never writing about the UCA-5 again! After everything that has happened with this camera, broke, fixed itself, broke again etc etc, it has now miraculously fixed itself yet again! Now working great again. It's like the Terminator, it just won't die. Happy days!

The UCA-5 Comes Back From The Dead

Well, don't I feel a bit silly. A while back my Samsung UCA-5 starting playing up. It developed a fault in which it would turn on but freeze after a few seconds. It happened after I left the camera in a coat pocket, and throughout the day the coat was being moved around quite a bit. I presumed that the camera had been been knocked, and as a result has developed a permanent fault that would not be worth spending the money on to get fixed. I mean, it's only a cheap camera and I've had so many years of use out of it, that I thought it was finally time to upgrade. So I did.

I bought a Samsung WB500 which came with a 2GB SD card. The SD card was only class 2, so I bought a much faster 8GB class 10 card, and the difference in write speed was definitely noticeable. But then I was thinking.. My Samsung UCA-5 still uses the same 64mb MMC+ Plus that it came with all those years ago when I first bought it. I know, lol. 64mb is nothing in this day and age, and I should have upgraded it a long time ago. But I just never needed to.

Anyway, now that I had the spare 2GB card from the new camera at my disposal I thought I would try it in the UCA-5 to see if it was compatible. I put it in, turned the camera on and it is compatible. And more importantly, and the reason for this post, since I've put the new SD card in the fault has completely disappeared! To my surprise, the camera now works perfectly again. So maybe the card got knocked / shocked and developed an error.

I never for one second thought that a fault with a memory card could make the camera crash like that. The camera would come on for a few seconds and then the screen would crash and go all fuzzy. Bad cluster on the memory card perhaps. I would have thought if the issue was a card fault the camera would have just thrown up a "card error" or something similar, not just totally stop working. I think this is very strange. But more experienced users might have encountered this problem on more than one occasion.

After comparing the two cameras over the duration of a few weeks, the WB500 has many more features and modes, but the UCA-5 beats it hands-down in auto mode by being able to capture really good images without too much effort. The WB500 is much more hit and miss when it comes to auto mode. Furthermore, the image sharpness from the UCA-5's SHD lens just has more clarity than than the WB500. Even though it's only 5mp and the WB500 is 10.2mp. However, video recording is much better on the WB500, and it has the ability to zoom while filming, a feature the UCA-5 does not have.

In the future, if I don't get a Bridge camera or an entry level DSLR, and want to stick with another small Samsung, I will definitely buy one that has an SHD lens. They seem more sharper and just better overall. I'm blown away by how long this camera has lasted me. It is one of the most reliable electronic items I have ever owned. First, I've owned it for over 10 years. And second, I thought it was dead twice. Once it was knocked off a window sill with considerable force (2 - 3 foot drop) by a cat. After that it was faulty for a while, but somehow managed to fix itself. And this time, just when I thought it was definitely dead, it turned out to be the memory card with the problem. What a great camera this has turned out to be. I've had my moneys worth many times over. But yet again, it's still going strong.

The Samsung UCA5 Finally Becomes Faulty

I've had the same camera for many years. My Samsung UCA-5 has served me extremely well. I think I bought it around 10 years ago. Within that time it has taken thousands of pictures. And for a 5 mega pixel camera the image quality has been really good. So how did this camera finally break..Well, it was my own fault. I had it in a coat pocket and was moving the coat around, and somewhere along the line it must have gotten banged, so now it has developed a serious fault.

Don't get me wrong, it does still work. But now its starting to freeze after being powered up for a few seconds. Sometimes it won't freeze as quickly and I can take some shots. When it locks up the screen completely crashes (squiggly lines or just pixelated in a random colour). Once this happens it's a case of taking the battery out, putting it back in, and then powering up the camera again. After doing this it allows the lens to retract back into the camera, giving me the chance to reset and start again.

The pixelated black screen of death

But I don't want something that's now unreliable, not as my main camera anyway. Specially when a replacement camera can be picked up for super cheap on eBay. I've had my eye on various cameras, from point and shoots to Bridges and DSLR's. However, after doing a fair amount of reading and research about cameras, I was looking at a website (KenRockwell.com) that was basically saying that (within reason) its not about the camera someone is using but the person taking the picture that's more important for getting really good images. It makes a lot of sense to me. That, coupled with some comparison tests that shocked me, has really made me think. Do I even need a DSLR? Probably not.

Comparison tests: An Olympus Trip 35 (Old Film camera) was compared to what was at the time, a top spec DSLR. The results were surprising. I actually thought the DSLR would be significantly better at everything. But it wasn't. Nowhere near. In fact, I'd go as far as to say the Trip 35 (excellent old school camera!) actually produced the better images. Same thing with another test. A Sony Ericsson K800i Cyber Shot mobile phone was put against two high-end DSLR's for that time period.

The same picture was taken with each camera. Again, the results were shocking. While the DSLR's performed slightly better on paper (Technical details), to the naked eye there was almost no difference what so ever in quality. What difference there was didn't justify the price difference between the products. Of course, if the images were blown up to much larger sizes and them printed, I guess the DSLR images would have less noise and more clarity. But how many times does anyone actually do this? Personally, I never have.

Back to my camera search. I only had a small budget for a new camera. Well, not new, used. I did want a Panasonic Leica point and shoot, like the TZ7, TZ9 or DMC LX3. However, they were selling for more than I had to spend. So I starting looking at other brands. Naturally, with my Samsung UCA-5 lasting as long as it has, I thought why not get another Samsung. So I did.

I have ended up buying a Samsung WB500 point and shoot from eBay. It's a used camera (boxed with accessories + 2GB SD card) but from the pictures it looks to be in really good condition. It hasn't arrived yet. It has a Schneider KREUZNACH (10.2MP) Lens with a 10x Zoom. Looking at the sample images and video footage on PhotographyBlog.com, it looks to have really good quality for the price, given its age. And considering how cheap I bought it for (£30 including postage), it appears to be a good little bargain. I just hope it arrives in good working order. Fingers crossed.

An update 3 years later. I moved on from this camera and have had quite a few different ones over the last few years. Canon's, a few Panasonic's (Point and shoots and an excellent Lumix Bridge camera), but recently read about lithium Ion batteries about how they can just "die" if they are not used / charged for a long time. The only camera that I own that hasn't been used or charged for a long time is my old faulty Samsung UCA5. So I thought, why not see if it still charges up..

Well it did accept a charge, and after it finished charging (light went green) I powered up the camera. And it works perfectly again! This camera has been faulty so many times but always ended up fixing itself automatically. But when it became faulty the last time I thought it was well and truly dead. Not the case. It now works perfectly again. I won't use it much though, because like I said, I have quite a few newer cameras that are admittedly much better than the UCA5. So I will just leave it there as a spare. Crazy to see it still works though after all these years. A true terminator camera that just will not die!