Nikon L77 Brochure

priced at or near $200 are among the CR
Best Buys in our Ratings. And you can
now find respectable compacts with fa­
miliar brand names for less than $200.
There are also more digital SLRs priced
under $1,000, including two head-to­
head competitors that cost $600.
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CONSUMER REPORTS
0
NOVEMBER 2007
DON'T BUY TOO BIG OR TOO SMALL
Almost all cameras in our Ratings
took decent pictures. Your choice will de­
pend a lot on whether you favor small
size or extra photographic power and
flexibility Compact cameras, too big for a
pocket but small enough to fit easily in a
image quality by relying on t he lens
it self. Digit al electronically magnifies
a section of th e image from the
sensor, almost always result ing in a
degraded image.
grow sleeker, and many have an LCD that
dominates the back and has better screen
resolution than ever. Some models have
LCDs that swing out from the camera
body and swivel, helping to compensate
for the traditional viewfinders many
models now lack.
Other features trickling down from
large models to quite a few small ones
include manual controls and the ability
to save images in the RAW format which
stores the captured image before it has
been processed and converted into a
file by the camera's built-in software.
That maximizes your ability to control
characteristics such as sharpness and
color balance.
Consider a high-priced compact or
SLR-like camera if you want lots of con­
trol over exposure and composition or
you want to shoot close-ups of distant
CR BEST BUY The Samsung L77, $250, offers 7-megapixel
resolution, an electronic image stabilizer, and a nonprotruding
7x optical zoom-rare in a camera less than an inch thick.
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