The Samsung L77 - 7 MP, 7X Zoom, and Much More in an Ultra-Slim Digicam

The Samsung L77 is a slim 7 megapixel digital camera with 7X optical zoom, image stabilization and numerous other desireable features in an extremely small, attractive package, with steet pricing well under $300. I’d been considering replacing my 6 year old 2MP Kodak DC3400 for a while now, hopefully with a smaller pocket sized model. After reading recent reviews and seeing the Samsung L77 on sale at Circuit City for under $230 recently (with a 1GB sd card and case), I decided to pick one up.

Notable features, included those that lead me to purchase this model include

- 7 megapixel resolution AND 7X optical zoom that does not extend away from the camera
- EPS (Electronic Picture Stabilization)
- 2.5” TFT color LCD
- 640 X 480 quicktime movie mode (and zoom works in movie mode)
- Uses a proprietary, but inexpensive rechargeable 660 mah Li battery
- Uses sd cards
- Small size, World's thinnest 7MP camera with 7x optical zoom, according to Samsung
- Zoom lens stays completely contained within camera
- 11 scene modes, special effects, built in editing, and more.
- No optical viewfinder (which I regret)

Summary

With the L77, Samsung tried to pack as many features as it could in a slim, light digital camera without sacrificing the high megapixel/zoom/image stabilization features that make larger mainstream models popular. The slim size, completely contained zoom lens and intuitive controls are among the strong points of this model, and make it, at first glance, a camera you want to love. With use, however, it is pretty easy to find holes in the camera’s performance, limited battery life, poor image stabilization, missing optical viewfinder and limited flash range being the key weaknesses. Some tradeoffs were unavoidable in a competitively priced camera this size, and most of the ones Samsung chose aren't surprising. If you can accept the tradeoffs (not completely avoidable in a small model like this), you’ll like this camera. Ex the weaknesses mentioned, this model’s performance and feature set is quite good for a $250 slim and light digital camera. If you are looking for a reasonably priced camera that you can easily stick in your pocket or purse for casual use, this is a model worth considering.

In the Box

Only the basics are included with the Samsung L77, a hand strap, usb cable, A/V cable, rechargeable battery and charger, software cd, and separate English and Spanish manuals. No case or memory card was included. The Samsung has about 20mb of onboard memory, suitable for only a dozen shots.

The manual provides an easily understandable overview of the camera, and a basic explanation covering all its features. However, I’m not a big fan of the manual. I found myself searching through it many times looking for information on the different features. An index is desparately needed. A lot of the “fine” detail you really need to take advantage of all the featuers is included. For example, all of the scene modes are mentioned, but there’s no explanation of how each works. There a scene mode for taking pictures of children, but I can’t say how its different from other modes.

The NP-700 660mAh Li rechargeable battery is fairly small, not much larger than a single AA battery. I get 100-120 shots per charge. I’ve been using the controls and LCD screen more than you'd expect as I put this camera through its paces, and Samsung rates the battery at 160 shots. Fortunately, this battery is used in several models, and is widely available for $20 or less. Samsung offers brand name replacements for $20, and generic replacements are available on Ebay for less than $10 shipped. I purchased two for $15 shipped, so that I can always keep one on the charger. Like the battery, the charger is small (3" X 1.5" X 1"), and will fit along with the camera in most camera cases.

Controls

The L77 is a comfortable camera to use. Despite being smaller than a deck of cards, the LCD display is fairly large (2.5”), the controls are neatly arranged and easiliy accessible to even my clumsy fingers. The camera fits neatly into my hand, as well as my shirt pocket. The battery and sd card are loaded into separate compartments on the bottom of the camera. The power button, on top next to the “shutter” button, powers up the camera and LCD display almost instantly. Navigating the menus is equally quick. The 2.5” LCD display is very good, easily readable except in very bright sunlight, where I miss the option of using an optical view finder to frame pictures.

While the menu navigation is a little unusual, the menus are easy to learn, and provide very quick access to every feature, generally with 3 button pushes or less. The optional onscreen display provides most of the info you’ll need, in the form of icons, text and numbers around the edge of the display. Memory space, battery life, scene mode, quality settings, date, time, and image quality can be displayed. There’s also a nice indicator bar that shows the optical and digital zoom.

Capturing Images with the Samsung L77

Capturing images in bright lighting is almost instaneous, while getting a focus lock in dim lighting takes 2-3 seconds. Pushing the shutter button half way causes the camera to auto focus. The focus lock is indicated on the screen and by an audible beep. Then pushing the button all the way down captures the image and activates the flash. In some lighting, there’s an annoying split second delay before the capture and flash, enough that you can move the camera or your subject can move enough to ruin the image. The half second delay is something you have to get used to with this model. Recharging the flash and writing the image to the flash card (2.5mb images @ 3072 X 2304 resolution) also takes 3-4 seconds, leaving you to capture shots about once every 6-7 seconds in dim lighting. Time between shots is about half that in bright lighting where's there's no focus or flash recharge time.

Most of the time I find the images look very good, accurate appropriately saturated colors, a reasonably good level of detail, and consistent image quality from edge to edge across the image. I didnt' detect any distortion when using the highest zoom. When viewing images full screen on a 22" LCD monitor, graininess becomes detectable on ISO levels around 400, typical when taking indoor shots at 15-20 feet, and the level of detail drops off at the higher iso settings. No graininess is noticed, and detail is excellent when you stay within the range of the flash, about 10'. The graininess and lack of detail becomes really significant at the highest setting of 1600. Iso 1600 shots are are suitable only for small prints, where the decreased amount of detail is less noticeable.

I took some side by side shots, in in sunlight (all distances) and in indoor lighting (of items less than 8' away), comparing the L77 and my wife’s Canon A620 (a model that has gotten great reviews from almost everyone). In those cases, I was surprised at how comparable (and excellent) the image quality was. Color accuracy, the level of detail, noise level, and the realistic quality of the shots were all comparable, and you'd have a hard time concluding the Canon images were better. As you get past the range of the L77's flash indoors, 10' at most, the L77's images start to suffer, with slightly less detail and some graininess. The Canon focuses faster, has almost no shutter lag, and has a much better flash, making the Canon a more "all around camera" that can handle a wider range of enviroments, particularly when you're taking indoor shots at longer ranges or in dim lighting. However, the Canon A620 is a significantly larger, heavier camera, with less optical zoom that costs a bit more than the L77.

The L77 offers users 4 main modes, AUTO, PROGRAM, EPS, and MOVIE. I keep my camera in auto mode almost all the time, and find that the L77 takes consistently good images, if I’m careful to hold the camera steady and try to take the best advantage of the ambient lighting. The L77 also offers 11 scene modes, optimized for specific situations. These modes are nightscene, portrait, children, landscape, closeup, Text, sunset, sunrise, backlight, fireworks, and beach/snow.

EPS Mode (Image Stabilization)

Samsung claims the EPS (Electronic Picture Stabilization) mode on the L77 is the leading solution for preventing image blur. An embedded Gyro-sensor recognizes hand shake data when the picture is taken, automatically adjusting the image for perfect clarity. In practice, the L77’s EPS is a disappointment. Turning on EPS disables the flash. This result in long shutter times in all but the best lighting situations (good sunlight), much, much longer than what is required when you’re taking flash assisted pictures. I’d like to be able to take advantage of the EPS mode when I take shots at partial or full zoom (2X-7X) in indoor lighting at distances of 8-20 feet. In those situations, in auto mode, the L77 will use a shutter time of 1/50 to 1/200th of a second, and will take excellent images if hte lighting is good, and if I take care to hold the camera steady when I’m using zoom. But since the L77 doesn’t have a viewfinder, I must frame pictures by viewing the LCD display, which I find makes it more difficult to hold the camera steady than when I’m using cameras with an optical viewfinder.

When taking pictures indoors in EPS mode, the flash is off and the shutter times are increased to 0.6 to 1.0 seconds. These times almost guarantee blurry images, which the EPS can’t overcome. I’ve found no situations where the EPS has been useful in indoor lighting. Outdoors, in bright sunlight, the EPS does help a bit, but it doesn’t work as well as the optical image stabilization on other cameras I’ve tried.

Program Mode

Program mode provides users access to exposure compensation, white balance, iso (50-1600) settings, and light metering (multi, based only on the center of image area, or biased to the center), while leaving the L77 to select shutter speed and aperture. A continuous shooting mode, a shooting mode that takes a series at different exposures, and a programmable interval shooting mode are also options. I expect only a small fraction of the target market for this $250 small and slim point and shoot digital camera would use these options, but the L77 is trying to cover as much of the market as possible with its feature set.

I tried taking some indoor shots at higher iso settings. The 800 and 1600 iso settings clearly showed lots of graininess when I viewed the images on my 19” LCD monitor. The graininess was less noticeable when on 4 X 6 prints of the ISO 1600 shots, though you could still see some granularity and less detail. I could detect some graininess in pictures taken at any iso setting above 200 when viewed full screen on my monitor, though the graininess doesn’t get to be annoying except at ISO 1600, and the 400 and 800 settings are quite usable for 4 X 6 prints

Movie Mode

The L77 can record movies at 15 or 30 frames per second, and 640 X 480 (VGA) or 320 X 240 (QVGA) resolution in quicktime MP4 format, with audio. Movies taken indoors in average lighting show bright accurate colors, but the video is a little grainy, perhaps like VHS recording on the lowest quality setting. Its suitable for full screen playback, but not much more. In full sunlight the image quality is much better, though you can still detect some slight digital blockiness. The microphone is very sensitive, the audio is not “tinny” at all, but there’s always a background hum in the audio.

Scene Modes (Macro’s)

Though I haven’t uses all of the scene modes, a few comments on some of the ones I’ve used:

Backlight..........................I tried taking several outdoor shots, midmorning, of different trees, flowers and other items with the bright sun in the background. Using the backlight mode improved the images significantly, images taking in auto mode were washed out due to the bright sunlight, but backlight mode the images were better, you really couldn’t tell the sun was a factor in the images.

Text..........................If you want to take a picture of a page of a book, or of a document, and want to be able to read the text, the Text scene mode can provide a much improved image, if the ambient lighting is very good. Text mode disables the flash. If you’re in even slightly dim indoor lighting, auto mode works better, where the camera makes use of the flash. You’ll usually get a “camera shake” warning on the LCD screen in these situations, letting you know its better to use the auto mode. In good lighting, the images taken in text mode of black print on white paper are more readable than images taken in auto, the contrast is better and any glare from the white background is minimized.

Close Up..........................I’ve used the “Close up” macro to take pictures of collectible coins and other small items. This mode works well for me, the images contain significantly more detail, especially as you zoom in on the images.

Night..........................The L77 uses really long shutter times (15 seconds) to capture images after dark. This mode only works if you have a fixed support for the camera to eliminate blur. The images are quite good in very low lighting, and the L77 picks up a lot of background detail beyond the flash range if there is a small amount of ambient lighting (moonlight, etc). If it is very dark, the images only show what is within the range of the flash.

Other Features

Several editing options are built into the L77, and can be applied using the camera’s controls.

- The L77 will apply several “effects” to your images, saving the images in black and white, sepia, red, green, blue tone, as a negative or in RGB tone.
- You can adjust the focus of different parts of an image, highlighting the subject, for example.
- You can combine up to four shots into one image, inlaying one image onto the corner of another image, for example
- Borders and frames can be added to images

The L77 will save voice recordings, either stand alone, or connected to image files.

The L77 supports PictBridge printing, I’ve connected the L77 directly to two different Canon printers using the included USB cable, to print 4X6 images without using a PC.

Several self timer modes are built into the L77.