 | | Samsung L73 by Jon Sienkiewicz Ten reasons why you'll love this budget-priced powerhouse. Article rating: 8.68 |
The Samsung L73 is a damn nice camera. It has ten features that I find genuinely exciting, and another half-dozen good ones that sweeten the pie. Don’t misunderstand—I’m not referring to mere technical specifications (although it’s resplendent in that area, too, with a list that includes a 2.5” LCD display, 3X zoom, 7.2-megapixel resolution and everything else you’d expect to find in a high quality compact digital camera). But the real story is that it has ten features that you’ll brag to your friends about. And all of this comes at the tiny price of $169. You cannot find more value for the money anywhere.
Fun Composite Shooting
At the top of my list is the Special Effects mode. It offers several unique options, including Composite shooting. Composite shooting allows you to divide the full image frame into two, three or four equal rectangles and capture a different digital image in each, as shown below.
© 2007 Jon Sienkiewicz
Because you can shoot each panel without moving the camera, you can create a sequence and get some interesting results—with very little effort. Optionally, you can capture something entirely different in each panel. (Yes—you can do this in Photoshop. The point is that with this camera anyone can create fun shots like these quickly and easily without owning Photoshop—or even owning a computer.)
© 2007 Jon Sienkiewicz
Excellent Image Quality
Excellent edge-to-edge sharpness, very good white balance and outstanding overall color reproduction—the Samsung L73 delivers. In the field, under a variety of lighting conditions, the camera performed flawlessly.
© 2007 Jon Sienkiewicz
Even in close-up mode, the Samsung L73 shines.
© 2007 Jon Sienkiewicz
Portability
The Samsung L73 fits in your pocket or purse and feels solid. It weighs less than five ounces and measures 3.9” long by 2.3” tall—and get this—it’s only 8/10ths of an inch thick. The durable aluminum alloy body, combined with a nearly-flat-when-retracted lens barrel, imparts the feeling that the camera was built to withstand a long tour of duty.
Motion Activated Self-timer
Ever wish you could do something more useful with your camera’s built-in self-timer? The Samsung L73 has four self-timer modes. Choose between a ten second delay and a two second delay, or opt for the third mode which takes one shot ten second after activation—and another back-up shot two seconds later. But the really cool mode is the Motion Timer. In this mode, the camera detects the subject’s movement about six seconds after the shutter is pressed—then it waits until the subject stops moving before opening the shutter. A series of blinks from the self-timer lamp lets you know what’s going on. It sounds complicated but it’s not. After you activate the Motion Timer, keep waving at the camera until everyone in the shot is ready. Quit waving and the camera fires two seconds later.
Color Control Slider
In the Full Auto mode, advanced controls are appropriately limited. However, two very useful control sliders are enabled. The first allows you to shift from very warm to very cool color balance. The second adjusts brightness. For shooting sunsets and sunrises, for example, this combination is effective, powerful and simple.
© 2007 Jon Sienkiewicz
Face Recognition Technology
This technology really works—and you can watch it work. When the FR function is active, the Samsung L73 detects the face of a subject and positions the AF frame accordingly, even if the person is nowhere near the center of the composition. The camera then proceeds to optimize autofocus and auto exposure to maximize results.
Built-in Frames
The Special Effects mode also includes a set of photo frames that you can superimpose over the image before it’s captured. There are several to choose from, including the “thought balloons” shown below. I suppose they could become boring after the first few thousand times, but until then you’ll find them to be a lot of fun.
© 2007 Jon Sienkiewicz
© 2007 Jon Sienkiewicz
MPEG4 Video
In the Movie mode you can select one of four resolutions ranging from 320x240 to 800x600, at up to 30 frames per second in AVI (MPEG-4) format. That’s huge. If you’re not into little videos you can switch to the high-speed continuous shooting function and capture thirty 640x480 (VGA resolution) images in one second. Check out your golf swing or capture your soccer star practicing her moves.
Smart Touch
I’ll admit that it took me a few minutes to get the hang of menu-by-button system, but once I caught on I found it very easy and convenient. There’s a row of buttons along the right side of the LCD display, and a row at the bottom. Each button can be activated by contact, and can execute a command when pressed. The two rows of buttons align to create intersecting menu bars, so unlike conventional cameras, the L73 allows you to sidestep the tedium of scrolling through pages of options.
Ease of Use
The Samsung L73 is so simple to operate that even a Kindergarten kid can get great results.
© 2007 Jon Sienkiewicz
The following image has been resized for web publication but has not been otherwise edited. This statue of a Letter Carrier graces the front lawn of the Ridgewood, New Jersey, US Post Office.
Photograph by Maya F. Sienkiewicz © 2007 Jon Sienkiewicz
Other Things I Like About This Camera
It offers ISO 50 and, at that setting, images are silky and noise free. It delivers decent battery life and recharges quickly. The bright, 2.5” TFT LCD monitor is reasonably easy to see outdoors. On the more functional side, the Samsung L73 features a Movie Clip Stabilizer to help reduce the effects of camera shake during movie recording. And last but not least, this camera provides in-camera red-eye fix that can be applied when reviewing captured images, or optionally selected to eliminate red-eye as images are captured. ^ Back to top
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