Sony DSC-F505VSony updates their popular DSC-F505V with a 3 megapixel sensor (2.6 million effective pixels) and all-new electronics!<<Image Storage & Interface :(Previous) | (Next): Test Results & Conclusion>> Page 11:Video, Power, SoftwareReview First Posted: 06/01/2000 |
Video Out
US and Japanese models of the DSC-F505V come with an NTSC A/V cable
for connecting the camera to a television set (European models come with PAL
connectors). You can switch the camera between NTSC and PAL modes via the record
menu. All of the playback options are available through the video port, so you
can view a slide show of still images or watch your recorded movies with sound.
You can also use the television set as an enlarged version of the LCD monitor
when composing images, helpful when trying to manually focus macro shots, or
in a studio environment where you may need to get out from behind the camera
to work with the subject.
Power
The battery power system is
one of the real highlights of the DSC-F505V in our opinion: The DSC-F505V runs
from an InfoLITHIUM battery pack (S series), which is rechargeable. The camera
comes with one battery and a charger/AC adapter. Sony estimates that a fully
charged battery pack provides about 80 minutes of recording and about 116 minutes
of playback time. The accompanying AC adapter plugs directly into the battery
compartment and is heavily recommended when playing back recorded images or
downloading to a computer. So what's the big deal about the batteries? Two things:
First, Lithium cells don't self-discharge the way NiMH batteries do. This means
that you can charge up the battery, stick the camera in a drawer for a month,
and find the battery still fully charged when you pick it up again. The second
BIG plus has to do with the "Info" in InfoLITHIUM. - Each battery pack includes
a tiny "gas gauge" chip in it, which tracks how much power is flowing in or
out of the battery. The camera talks to this chip, and between the two of them,
they figure out how long the battery's remaining charge will last at the current
consumption rate. This is really great!
We've so often picked up one of our cameras and wondered how fresh the batteries
are before setting out. Even starting with fresh batteries, we've more than
once ended up with the batteries dying on us right in the middle of the best
shooting conditions, at the peak of the action, etc. (A corollary of Murphy's
Law is clearly that your digicam batteries will always die at the worst possible
moment.) Being able to see how many minutes of life the battery has left in
it makes it easy to prevent these sort of mishaps. (And we found the indicator
to be pretty accurate overall.) We couldn't conduct as extensive power measurements
on the DSC-F505V as we usually do with digicams we test, because the camera
wouldn't stay running if it couldn't see the InfoLITHIUM chip. Nonetheless,
we can report the following battery life numbers, based on the InfoLITHIUM battery's
own power-remaining reporting with a full charge:
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| Capture Mode, w/LCD |
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| Image Playback |
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Included Software
The DSC-F505V comes
with USB cables for connecting to a PC or Macintosh. A software CD packaged with
the camera contains PictureGear 3.2 Lite, the means for transferring images from
the camera to the computer. PictureGear is a basic program that allows you to
download images, copy images, zoom display, print slides and play movies.
PictureGear is compatible only with Microsoft Windows 95, 98 or NT4.0 only. Sony
does include a USB driver CD compatible with Macintosh, so you can download
images to a Mac without the PictureGear software. (This information is based on
the original F505 model, we're assuming the F505V version will be the
same.
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