Sony MVC-CD350Sony updates its CD-based digicam line with a new 3 megapixel model.<<Optics :(Previous) | (Next): Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests>> Page 6:Exposure & FlashReview First Posted: 06/18/2003 |
Exposure
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Three still exposure modes offer varying levels of control: Auto, Program, and Scene modes. In Program mode, the camera controls the basic exposure, but allows you to determine all other variables, such as ISO, white balance, and flash.
In addition to the aforementioned main exposure modes (Auto and Program), there
are seven preset Scene modes that adjust the camera for shooting in specific
situations: Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Landscape, Soft Snap, Snow, Beach,
and High-speed Shutter mode. Twilight mode adjusts the exposure to capture a
bright subject in dark surroundings (neon lights would be a good example), without
washing out the color. Because Twilight mode usually employs a slower shutter
speed, a tripod is recommended to prevent blurring from camera movement. Twilight
Portrait uses Twilight settings but also fires the flash to capture portraits
in dark settings. Landscape mode uses a smaller aperture setting to keep both
the background and foreground in sharp focus, allowing you to capture broad
vistas of scenery. Soft Snap lets you shoot skin colors in brighter and warmer
tones, adding a soft focus effect to minimize wrinkles and blemishes. Snow mode
preserves color in snowscapes, recording clear and sharp images. Beach mode
does the same for seascapes, preserving the blue of the water. High-speed Shutter
mode uses a fast shutter speed to stop motion in bright settings.
For normal exposures, the CD350 uses a "multipoint" metering system,
meaning that the camera takes multiple exposure readings throughout the image
to determine the best overall exposure. For high-contrast subjects, a Spot Metering
option (controlled by a button on the back panel) takes the exposure reading
from the very center of the frame. A center crosshair target appears on the
LCD monitor (inside the focus brackets), to show the location of the spot exposure
reading. For metering off-center subjects, you can take your reading of the
subject you want metered, then use the AE Lock feature by half-pressing the
shutter button to lock the exposure reading. Once exposure is locked, you can
recompose the image and release the shutter.
Exposure compensation can be manually adjusted from -2 to +2 exposure equivalents
(EV) in one-third-step increments. The camera's light sensitivity can be set
through the Record menu to Auto, or 100, 200, or 400 ISO equivalents, increasing
the camera's low-light shooting capabilities with higher ISO settings. White
Balance (WB) can also be controlled in all exposure modes, with available settings
of Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent, and Flash. As with many
other Sony cameras, the CD350 offers a Picture Effects menu, providing a little
in-camera creativity. Settings like Solarize, Black & White, Sepia, and
Negative Art can add interest to your images by altering color or reversing
the highlights and shadows.
The CD350 also offers a menu selection for adjusting image sharpening in-camera,
providing normal, plus, and minus settings. Normal is fine for most uses, but
you might want to boost the sharpness if your shots will be printed on a low-quality
inkjet printer. On the other hand, the lower sharpness setting may be useful
for images that you plan to manipulate in Photoshop or any other image editing
application. In these programs, you typically want to apply sharpening at the
end of the manipulation process. There are similar settings for Saturation (color
intensity) and Contrast. - Given that I found the default contrast of the camera
a little high, the low contrast option should come in handy.
Finally, a 10-second self-timer can be activated by pressing the down Arrow
button on the back panel. Once the shutter button has been fully depressed,
the small LED lamp on the front of the camera counts down the seconds until
the shutter is released (a green dot in the LCD monitor flashes as well). You
can cancel the timer by pressing the down Arrow button again.
When you have images stored on the CD-R/RW, the left arrow key on the Arrow
rocker button (back panel) activates a quick review of the previously captured
image, and offers a delete option for removing the image. Pressing the arrow
key a second time returns you to the normal image display screen, as does pressing
the shutter button halfway.
Flash
The built-in flash on the CD350 has four settings that are activated by pressing
the Flash button on the Arrow rocker pad: Auto, Forced, Slow Synchro, and Suppressed.
Auto puts the camera in charge of whether or not the flash fires, based on existing
light levels. Forced Flash means that the flash always fires, regardless of
light level. Slow Synchro fires the flash like Forced by slows the shutter speed
to capture more of the background. Suppressed Flash prevents the flash from
firing, regardless of light levels. A Red-Eye Reduction mode is activated through
the Setup menu. Red-Eye Reduction fires a small pre-flash to reduce the occurrence
of red-eye effect in people pictures.
You can adjust the flash intensity to High, Normal, or Low through the Record
menu. This option makes the flash more accommodating to varying light levels
or different subjects. We liked the fact that we could adjust exposure for the
flash and ambient lighting separately, a feature that makes it easier to achieve
more balanced exposures. In Normal mode, flash range extends from 31.5 inches
to 8.2 feet (0.8 to 2.5 meters).
Movie and Sound Recording
In any of the CD350's still capture modes, you can record short sound clips
to accompany images. This option is available through the Record menu by selecting
the Voice Record mode. You can record up to 40 seconds of sound for each image
by holding down the shutter button. By pressing and releasing the shutter button
quickly, you can record for only five seconds.
The Movie mode is accessed on the Mode dial on top of the camera by selecting
the film frame icon. You can record moving images with sound at either 640
x 480-pixel VGA resolution or 160 x 112-pixel "email" resolution.
Standard quality resolution sizes record movies in the MPEG VX format. Sony's
advanced MPEG VX technology means that the CD350's movie durations are limited
only by the available space on the CD-R/RW discs. (That is, there are no arbitrary
limits imposed by buffer memory limits.) At 640x480 resolution, maximum recording
time is 5 minutes, 51 seconds, while at 160x112 pixels, movies can run as long
as 89 minutes and 11 seconds. This is pretty impressive, as only a very few
digicams currently on the market support full VGA-resolution movie recording..
(Sony is very careful to not bill the CD Mavicas as "camcorders,"
and for good reason when you compare their capabilities with "real"
camcorder models. Still, this enormously extended recording capability is pretty
unique.)
Another notable feature of the CD350's movie recording capability is that you're able to use the optical zoom lens while recording movies. Most digicams with audio capability don't let you adjust the zoom setting while recording is in process, to prevent noise from the lens motor from interfering with the sound track. The CD350's lens motor is quiet enough that Sony left the zoom enabled during movie recording. - Not to say everything is perfect though: In very quiet environments, the CD350's microphone can easily pick up the lens motor noise, as well as the soft noises of the CD drive's operation.
Clip Motion
This is a slick little feature that I really enjoy, which first appeared a couple
of years ago on the Sony DSC-P1, and now seems to be a pretty standard option
on all the latest Sony models. The Clip Motion capture mode turns the CD350
into an animation camera, recording up to 10 frames of still images, which are
combined into a single GIF file for animated playback. Frames can be captured
at any time interval, with successive presses of the shutter button. When you've
captured as many photos as you need, you just press the center of the Arrow
rocker pad to tell the camera to finish the sequence, and it merges all the
images into one animated GIF file. Available image sizes are Normal (160 x 120
pixels) and Mobile (120 x 108 pixels), and the number of actual captured frames
may vary with image size (Mobile is restricted to two frames) and available
CD space. (You have a maximum of 10, but could be constrained to fewer if your
memory is very full.) Files are saved in GIF format, and are played back with
(approximate) 0.5-second intervals between frames. Unlike Movie mode, flash
is available with Clip Motion. (Note though, that the GIF format only permits
256 colors, far less than millions the camera normally captures.)
MultiBurst
MultiBurst is a newer recording option I first noticed on last year's DSC-P51
and DSC-P71 Cyber-Shot models. The mode captures an extremely rapid burst of
images, stored as a single 1280x960 frame on the camera, which are played back
as a single movie (giving a slow-motion effect). You can select between Fine
and Normal quality settings, and available frame intervals include 1/7.5, 1/15,
or 1/30 second. When viewed on a computer though, the images simply appear as
a single 1280x960 image with the individual frames arranged as 16 small sub-images
within it. MultiBurst is a great tool for doing short-duration time/motion studies.
(Think golf- or tennis-swing analysis.)
Special Record Modes
The CD350 gives you several recording format options for still images. Through
the Record menu, you can select TIFF for uncompressed images, Voice (mentioned
above), E-mail, Burst 2, or Normal modes. E-mail mode records a smaller (320
x 240-pixel) image size that takes less time to transmit to friends and
family by e-mail. The e-mail image is recorded in addition to the image size
selected through the Record menu's Image Size option. (The TIFF option likewise
records a maximum-resolution TIFF image in addition to a JPEG at whatever size
and quality setting you've selected.) Burst 2 mode allows you to take a maximum
of two frames in rapid succession, at 0.5 second intervals. Since Burst 2 mode
images are captured directly to buffer memory, the frame rate is independent
of image resolution or the amount of information to be recorded, but the tradeoff
is that only two frames can be recorded without pausing.
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