Saturday, December 29, 2007
my new camera is a samsung L730
so i purchased this camera from circuitcity right before christmas, and it was $119. it dropped to $109 a couple of days later and they gave me my money back! yay for circuitcity!
i was a little bit apprehensive before buying this camera because i wasn’t sure what this camera would be like, and there weren’t reviews discussing the features that i wanted to know about. but i think more than any review i saw was the test trial i did in the store - for all the cameras, i picked them up, turned it on, shot a picture of the store, and then turned the camera around and took a picture of myself. for all the other cameras in the same price range, i have to say that samsung had the best pictures, at least on the camera lcd screen. many of the other cameras (ahemkodakahem) had grainy images especially if you tried to look at any detail behind me in the photo. when i was trying out the samsung, there was a guy standing wayyyyy behind me and his head was a little circle above my shoulder, but when i zoomed in on it you could still see much more detail than with any other camera i tried.
although i said i was test-driving the samsungs, the actual model that i wanted to buy was not on display. and circuit city would not open a box to let me preview it. i was actually trying out the L77 (with 7x optical zoom!) and the S730 (which has the same specs as the L730 except that it uses 2 AA batteries instead of a lithium-ion battery).
what impressed me the most (beyond image quality in the lcd screen) was the quickness between shots for the L77 and the L730. both were ready almost immediately to take a picture when you turned it on and then after taking a picture both were ready to take the next one almost immediately. the L730 that i have has performed a little bit slower at home (but that might be due to it already being dropped and spilled on… -sigh-), but in general i’m happy with it.
the only complaint that i have so far is that the camera turns on with the flash in “fill-in/red-eye reduction mode”. no matter what setting i leave it on it always resets, even if i just preview the picture i took and then try to take another picture. i hate having the double flash because you tend to lose the picture so i have to toggle the flash option to get to “auto” flash. also, there is no “on” flash option - you can just toggle between fill-in/red-eye, auto, red-eye, and off.
i would also prefer it to have a super-macro but i realize that most people don’t use this option like i did with the last camera. and with the macro i was able to take the following pictures, so it’s still pretty good…
anyways, i’m pretty happy with my camera. it was within my budget and it takes lotsa good pics. yeah… i like it!