The real disappointment was burst mode, shooting 25 full-resolution shots in slightly less than 33 seconds for a sluggish 0.8 shot per second. Its 0.6-second shutter lag in good light is pretty middle-of-the-road and rises to a more mediocre 1.3 seconds with flash.

Recording to TIFF, the camera took 7 seconds to cycle between shots, one of the quickest among point-and-shoot cameras with TIFF support. With the onboard flash enabled, we could still shoot once every 3 seconds. After a speedy 2.2-second start-up, we recorded a pretty standard shot-to-shot rate of 2.2 seconds. The Samsung Digimax L85 is a solid performer, despite disappointing continuous-shooting speed.

The Samsung Digimax L85 does lack a few notable features, such as as image stabilization or high-sensitivity shooting modes for low-light shooting-it only goes as high as ISO 400. You probably won't want to use all of the L85's features, but the different options grant the camera an appreciable flexibility. Except for motion capture, all still-image modes can write TIFF as well as JPEG formats. The program mode offers a few extra tricks, such as the handy Highlight, which displays guides for framing portraits composition shooting, which combines multiple exposures so that you can be in the picture and a handful of hideous photo-frame effects. Unfortunately, the latter works only in automatic, and it simply letterboxes the normal 4:3 image, resulting in a top resolution of 5 megapixels. A Motion Capture mode quickly snaps 30 VGA-resolution photos for motion analysis, such as when you need to overthink your golf swing, and the camera offers a 16:9 wide-screen mode. These include aperture-priority, shutter-priority, and manual exposure modes, as well as automatic, program, and several scene preset modes for hassle-free operation. More mundane but useful, the L85 offers several handy shooting features and settings.

Digital flipboard samsung 85