LG Optimus 7 review

The LG Optimus 7 camera has that standard Windows Phone 7 feature of being able to run from the lock screen if you hit the side button. You can shoot a photo and share it to Facebook, messaging, contacts or email without actually leaving the lock screen, making getting those quick fire shots really easy and fast.

The camera shoots stills at five megapixels and has a little LED flash. It shoots video at 720p. There is also a panorama shooting mode that stitches a number of photos together into a wide, thin panorama.

The camera sports an 'intelligent shot' mode that enables it to pre-select shutter speed and aperture according to the subject and brightness. There's also a 'beauty shot' mode, which fiddles around with how people look to try to make them more photogenic. Not our favourite idea, to be honest.

Click here for full-res version

On a pleasant autumn morning, the camera had a bit of trouble coping with the bright sunshine. The overall effect is rather washed out as a result, and this is something we found generally to be a problem.

Click here for full-res version

This mosaic is always an interesting test for a camera. It's in a darkish corner of a walled garden, and there's lots of reflected light from the mosaic pieces themselves. In this case the camera struggled to balance the light and shade.

Click here for full-res version

Indoors and quite close up, the camera performed really well. This shot is crisp and clear, and there was plenty of ambient light about so that the flash wasn't needed. As lighting conditions got gloomier indoors, the flash kicked in and shots were less satisfactory.

Click here for full-res version

The LG Optimus 7 takes a series of photos automatically to stitch into a wide, narrow panorama (3556 x 730 pixels). You shoot the first photo and then get a large pointy arrow on screen indicating where to move the camera for the next shot in sequence.

Red borders sit at each corner of the screen, helping you further in framing your next shot. When you have the image in frame to the phone's liking, it automatically shoots the next photo.

When you've got five photos done, they're stitched together into a panorama. The stitching is pretty good and you end up with a traditional wide, thin panoramic shot. The only thing to note is that you have to move the camera pretty slowly through this process or you get some image blurring.

720p HD video recording is not an uncommon feature these days, but good quality video at those specs is. The good news here is that vide was not overly jerky, but as with stills the camera struggled a bit to capture enough light to produce high quality results.