According to the CIPA standard rating for battery life, the Samsung WB150F shoots 270 shots per charge of its battery without all the Wi-Fi extras turned on. That's a bit shy of the 300-plus shots per charge we've seen from many point-and-shoot cameras, but it's still enough juice to earn a Very Good rating for battery longevity.
Shooting Modes and Features
The WB150F's range of in-camera features is impressive, but this model works best when managed through its selection of presets, scene modes, and filters. The implementation of its manual controls stumbles a bit, due to the absence of dedicated controls for adjusting manual settings. The sum of all the WB150F's parts is a camera that offers many automated and manual shooting modes, but has manual controls that feel a bit tacked-on.
The WB150F provides full manual controls over its aperture (F3.5 maximum at wide-angle and F5.8 maximum at telephoto) and shutter speed (1/2000 second to 16 seconds), along with aperture-priority and shutter-priority modes. Unlike with other manual-minded cameras, however, changing this model's aperture and shutter settings requires quite a few button presses, owing to the lack of a control wheel. After selecting 'A-S-M' from the WB150F's mode dial, you choose 'aperture-priority', 'shutter-priority', or 'manual exposure' from an onscreen menu; press the OK button; press the OK button again to adjust aperture or shutter settings; and use the up and down buttons on the camera's directional pad to tweak the settings. The whole process takes a few more steps than it would on a camera equipped with a control wheel and dedicated Av, Tv, and Manual settings on the mode dial--a factor worth considering if you hope to use its manual controls extensively.
Likewise, using the camera's manual focus controls entails a trip to the menus and a bit of finessing. After pressing the Menu button in A-S-M mode, you navigate to the Focus settings, select 'Manual Focus', and use the left and right portions of the directional pad to bring a magnified view of your scene into focus. Though it works, it requires a few more steps than similar cameras equipped with a dedicated focus-control button, a scroll wheel, or an adjustment ring around the lens.