The interface of the Samsung L74
Wide is designed to operate with the touch screen, but lacks
practicality. Too many large icons occupy the edges of the
screen, making it look very cluttered, and sometimes making
it difficult to see past them. The touch screen itself is
not perfectly precise, which translates into the occasional
error, particularly as the interface has difficulty keeping
up when the selections are made quickly. Likewise, the organization
of the menus is not sufficiently logical, as exemplified by
the MENU/EFFECT division, making it needlessly complex. Similarly,
too many of the options require tapping the screen in places
that are too far apart. The result of all this is that while
the touch screen system is appealing at first, its novelty
wears off quickly, as it gets in the way of picture taking.
Finally, we observed the interface lock up on a few occasions,
requiring the battery to be removed and re-inserted to get
the camera to reboot. A firmware update is currently available,
and was loaded on this test camera (FW VER:706221 L2-74 —
65A.C818).
The Setup menu is composed of two sections
and is accessible, as well as the Sound section,
from either the capture menu or the playback menu.
The first section, SETUP1, contains the
following options:
File: serves to choose if the file names
of photos and movies are incremented consecutively or re-start
at 0001 when the memory/card has been formatted, or all
images deleted.
Language selects the interface language:
English, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Simplified
Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Portuguese,
Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Thai, Bahasa (Malay/ Indonesian),
Arabic, Czech, Polish, Hungarian and Turkish.
Date & Time: serves to set the date
and time on the L74 Wide, and the date format.
Imprint: decides whether or not the time
and date of capture is permanently imprinted on images.
LCD serves to set the intensity of the
monitor's back light: Dark, Normal, Bright.
AF Lamp: serves to turn On of Off the
AF Assist lamp that comes on when there is not enough ambient
light for the auto focus system to operate reliably.
Start Image decides if an image is displayed
on the monitor, and if so which one, when the camera is
turned On: Off, the Samsung logo or an image captured with
the camera.
The second section, SETUP2, is a bit shorter,
offering the following options:
Quick View decides whether or not an
image is displayed on the monitor immediately post capture:
Off or 0.5, 1 or 3 seconds.
Power Off: selects the time period after
which the camera shuts down automatically when it is inactive
(1, 3, 5 or 10 minutes).
LCD Save: On or Off. When On, the monitor
turns off automatically if the camera is inactive for 30
seconds.
Calibration: serves to calibrate the
touch screen, much like with a PDA.
Video Out: NTSC or PAL.
Format: serves to format the internal
memory of the L74 Wide, or if there is a card present, the
memory card. All images are erased, even those that have
been marked as protected, and if the internal memory is
formatted, the World Tour files are deleted as well.
Reset: returns all the L74 Wide's options
to their factory defaults.
A printed manual accompanies the L74 Wide, as well as a Quick
Guide to help a user get started with the camera, and a small
foldout about the World Tour Guide feature.
The camera manual is detailed, and covers all aspects of
the camera's functions and features. Moreover, detailed explanations
are provided for the software, and for printing while connected
directly to a PictBridge Printer.
Software
A single CD accompanies the North
American version of the Samsung L74 Wide. The disc contains
Digimax Master for Microsoft Windows (only for 98, 98 SE,
2000, ME, XP and Vista) and the USB driver along with the
Xvid codec to view movies captured with the L74 Wide.
Digimax Master
is an image browser that opens a window with tools at the
top, the computer's folder in a window below, and presents
the contents of the currently selected folder on the right,
using thumbnails whose sizes can be increased or decreased
at will.
Moreover, with an image selected from the thumbnails, its
shooting date can be displayed in an area below the folders.
The tools offered at the top of
the screen allow changing the orientation of an image or a
group of images, deleting images, sending them by e-mail,
printing a selected photo, or viewing them as a slide show.
Digimax Master also offers some
advanced image editing tools, but to access these tools, the
image must first be opened in a new window.
The window pane on the left offers a great number of advanced
tools to edit photos, including options to add text, make
geometric selections or use a lasso to freely select areas
to correct. Tools are offered to resize images, trim them,
rotate or invert, straighten the horizon, or even use them
as wallpapers or calendars.
Furthermore, images can be corrected
for noise, scratches, and dust. Brightness can also be adjusted,
as well as tone, saturation, exposure, tint, sharpness, and
red-eye. In addition, the program supports cloning, a powerful
correction tool.
Beyond these, tools are provided to deform images, add artistic
effects or textures, and what is remarkable is that all these
corrections can be limited to areas defined by the geometric
or lasso selection tools.
This is an excellent program and it deserves to be fully
explored.
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Interface & Software
