Touch the Future Now at Staples
CNET editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 10/03/2007
Usually, a big zoom means a big camera. It's only natural; the larger a lens, the larger the body you need in which to put the lens. That's why Samsung's L77 surprised us. This slim little camera sports a beefy 7x optical zoom that doesn't even pop out of its body.
At less than an inch thick and just 5.5 ounces with battery and SD card, the L77 is one of Samsung's lightest, most compact digital cameras. Despite its slim design, the L77 takes many design cues from larger cameras like Samsung's L74 Wide and
The L77's 38 to 266mm-equivalent lens stands out as its biggest feature while not actually standing out from the camera itself. While most powerful lenses tend to extend out noticeably from the camera body (the Samsung NV5 and NV7 OPS come to mind), the L77's lens stays completely inside the camera at all times. Thanks to this internal mechanism, the camera stays nice and slim, even when you're zooming all the way in. The zoom also works when recording 30 fps VGA video with the camera's movie mode, an important feature considering how many cameras with movie modes disable the optical zoom. Unfortunately, the camera doesn't use any sort of optical or mechanical stabilization system. Instead, the L77 uses Samsung's Electronic Picture Stabilization to measure camera shake and adjust the image in-camera.
If you want a camera with manual exposure controls, look elsewhere. While you can change basic settings like ISO sensitivity, white balance, and exposure compensation, more advanced settings such as shutter speed and aperture are kept out of your reach. On the bright side, the camera does a pretty good job of handling those settings automatically, and its various scene presets can help tweak your shot in certain settings.
After 1.9 seconds from power-on to capturing its first shot, the L77 takes a slow 2.4 seconds between each additional shot, with the flash turned off. That wait increases to 3.1 seconds with the onboard flash turned on. Its shutter lagged a scant half-second with our high-contrast target, and a less respectable 1.6 seconds with our low-contrast target. Burst mode shot four 7-megapixel stills in 3.2 seconds for a rate of 1.3 fps.
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Samsung L77:
