Can’t you just imagine the Samsung engineering team sitting around a table, pondering “what can we think up next?” Well, even if you couldn’t, they did. I’m not sure if the results qualify as a stroke of genius or stupid answers to silly problems, but the new Samsung Dual View camera has not one, but two, LCDs.

Your normal LCD is a big, beautiful 3.5-inch screen with touch sensitive controls that make scrolling through pictures feel just like an iPhone. But next to the lens on the front of the camera is another smaller 1.5-inch LCD display. Why two? Samsung gave three good reasons why you’d want a second lens in front.

To snap the proverbial YouTube photo: Come on, you’ve all tried to put yourself in the picture, right? Typically you’re working blind because there’s no preview when you turn the camera on yourself. Now…snap, that’s me in front of the Eiffel Tower, without having to bug anyone to take my photo for me. Personally, I like using swivel LCD cameras for this purpose, but I’m waiting to see the general response.

The group shot: It’s usually my husband that gets stuck running into the group photo, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. Come to think of it, the beeping red light takes everyone by surprise, so we all look kind of surprised. With the Samsung, you can set the camera on a tripod and set the self-timer. The back LCD preview will count down like a blastoff. Not too sure whether it works in bright sun, but it was effective in our darkened room.

The baby decoy: You know how the photographer is always trying to get the uncooperative baby to look at the duckie and smile? Well the duckie is now built into the LCD preview. In baby picture mode, the baby sees a clown (with other images available via download). If the baby has watched Stephen King’s IT and notices the clown’s resemblance, prepare for a lifetime of therapy bills.

In addition to the two lenses, there are lots of other things that make the Dual View TL225 and TL220 impressive. A 12.2 mega-pixel CCD and 27mm wide-angle Schneider Kreuznach lens with 4.6x optical zoom are top of the line. The Dual Cameras will be available this fall for $349 for the TL225 and $299 for the slightly more compact TL220.