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We don’t see many compact cameras like the L23 these days, with its AA batteries and bulbous body to accommodate them. Then again, not many cameras are this cheap. Bear in mind that rechargeable batteries aren’t included when weighing up this camera against models with Li-ion batteries, though.
The lens is surprisingly well specified with its 5x zoom range, starting at a wide-angle 28mm equivalent focal length. Most of the other specs reflect the low price, with a basic VGA-resolution video mode and barely any control over photographic settings. The menu includes a continuous mode and white balance control – including a custom white balance option – but there’s no way to adjust the ISO speed, metering or autofocus. Even face detection is absent, except in the Smart Portrait scene preset, which combines it with a gimmicky smile-detect function.
The lack of control would be fine if the L23 picked the best settings automatically, but in low light with the flash suppressed it invariably resorted to excessively long shutter speeds, which led to blur. It’s no surprise that a camera this cheap doesn’t include optical image stabilisation, but without it there’s little hope that shutter speeds as slow as 1/6 seconds will result in blur-free shots.
Photos taken in bright light had their fair share of troubles, too. There was a noisy fuzz hovering around high-contrast lines, which we put down to excessive digital sharpening that accentuated noise as well as details. Noise permeated darker areas of photos too, although the camera’s reluctance to venture beyond ISO 200 meant that noise was rarely disastrous.
Excessive digital sharpnening add a noisy fuzz around high contrast lines, losing some detail in the process
Wide-angle shots exhibited barrel distortion, which is particularly disappointing considering that the camera evidently uses digital processing to remove this distortion (it’s applied for live previews too, but not while zooming). Weirdly, parallel lines looked straighter in videos than in photos. Videos’ picture and sound quality were both up to scratch and the 22-minute clip length is better than usual, but the basic VGA resolution keeps a lid on this camera’s abilities for video.
It’s unfair to be too critical at this price, but the Canon PowerShot A800 costs just a few pounds more and takes much better photos.
