Samsung announces L74 Wide digicam By
Michael R. Tomkins, The Imaging Resource (Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 12:17 EST)The second of Samsung's pre-PMA 2007 Show announcements is the L74 Wide, a $350 camera with some fairly impressive features.
The L74 Wide has a seven megapixel CCD imager coupled to a Samsung NV-branded 3.6x optical zoom lens with a useful 28mm wide angle. At wide angle the lens is reasonably bright at f/2.8, although as you reach the 100mm telephoto the maximum aperture becomes a rather dim f/5.8. The Samsung L74 Wide has an exceptionally generous 512MB of built-in memory (450MB available for photos), as well as both SD / MMC and SDHC card storage. Images are framed on a whopping 3.0" LCD display with a higher-than-average 230,000 pixel resolution. The Samsung L74 also includes the company's face detection technology, coupled to both the autofocus and autoexposure systems to ensure that your subject's faces are correctly focused and exposed. One more unusual feature is the ability to capture video with sound at just a few pixels shy of SVGA resolution, although in this mode the framerate is limited to 20 frames per second. In the lower VGA and QVGA resolutions, the L74 Wide can manage 30 fps. Power comes from a proprietary Lithium Ion battery.
The Samsung L74 Wide digital camera goes on sale this Spring, priced at $350.
3072 x 2304 (7.1 megapixels) 3072 x 2048 (6.3 megapixels) 3072 x 1728 (5.3 megapixels) 2592 x 1944 (5.0 megapixels) 2048 x 1536 (3.1 megapixels) 1024 x 768 (0.8 megapixels)
January 30, 2007 – Samsung today announced the launch of the compact 7 mega pixel L74 Wide digital camera, equipped with a 3.6x optical zoom and 28mm wide-angle lens support for wider images, its ideal for tech savvy consumers looking for a high quality easy to use camera to take with them on their travels. The L74 Wide is equipped with a convenient Tour Guide function which provides travel information covering 4,500 regions in 30 countries– helping users to plan trips and find their way while on the road. Equipped with 450 MB of internal memory, the L74 Wide can store all the information travelers need to get them where they’re going safely and on time.
The L74 Wide, with a 3.0” Touch Screen LCD, includes Samsung’s Face Recognition AF & AE, which detects the subject’s face, automatically adjusts auto focus and auto exposure to ensure better composition and image quality in portraits and other shots featuring people. The AF function instantaneously recognises the faces of subjects and accurately focuses on them. The AE function then takes over, setting the appropriate exposure to ensure the highest image quality. Also the touch screen LCD perfected with Samsung’s original Flash GUI (Graphic User Interface) enables the user to access the diverse function intuitively and easily.
The L74 Wide also features Samsung’s proprietary ASR image stabilisation system which helps to capture the best possible images even in dimly lit conditions. Combined with the ability to capture in MPEG-4 SVGA quality the L74 Wide can take compelling moving pictures and once taken the camera allows for pictures to be edited rather than the user having to wait until they sat at their computer.
The stylish Samsung L74 Wide is the ideal travel companion – providing everything travelers need to capture and share crystal clear images with both ease and style. The L74 Wide will have and MSRP of $349.99 and will be available in North America in Spring 2007.
Samsung Opto-Electronics America, Inc., Secaucus, N.J., is the U.S. subsidiary of Samsung Techwin Co., Ltd., Sungnam Kyungki-Do, Korea. Samsung Opto-Electronics markets a full line of auto focus cameras, zoom and digital cameras for the amateur as well as the professional under the Samsung brand name.