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It's amazing to see the technological advances in everyday point-and-shoot cameras. The speed at which they are improving is seemingly overtaking the development and improvement of digital SLRs.  For example, take the Sony Cyber-shot T70. Don’t be fooled by it because behind the sleek, small design and frosted pink color (it does come in white, silver & black as well) lies a mean 8.1 mega pixel picture taking machine. Sony has maximized space for the 3" widescreen LCD display by making it a touch screen for menu and controls. Four buttons on the top are all you need: power, playback, zoom and the shutter release. After just a few minutes of using it I found it simple to make selections on the touch screen and navigate the menus. The resolution menu is slightly deceiving, and I initially shot a bunch of pictures only to discover I wasn't at the full, 8MP capacity. You are offered different shooting modes and aspect ratios, but they aren't listed as large, medium or small, and they don't show the final pixel dimensions. The aspect ratios are 3:2 (standard 35mm/ DSLR ratio), 3:4 (standard point-and-shoot ratio) and16:9 for widescreen. I was shooting on 16:9, because you use the entire screen to compose the picture. Upon downloading I was confused that my dimensions were only 1920x1080 when I was expecting about 3500x2300. If you set the ratio to 3:4 you will be using all 8MP. 3:2 comes close, and is a good option if you like to print a lot of 4x6s because you won’t have to crop the image at all.  Also mixed in with the ratio settings are options such as 8M, 5M, 3M, VGA… but they are not categorized, just mixed in with the different ratios. These options stand for the mega pixels used, and VGA is 640x480 (about cell phone camera resolution). This confusing menu is the one main problem I have with the camera. It is misleading and unless someone is looking for it they may never know they are not using the full potential of the camera. Better features about the camera are that the sensor is a "Hole Accumulated Diode" which allows more light in through each pixel. It therefore can take much better quality low-light images; they are supposed to show less noise. Even when shooting on ISO 1600, there is noticeably less noise than standard digital pictures I’ve seen. There is also an image stabilizer which helps prevent camera-shake in low-light and natural light scenes. The Carl Zeiss lens has 3x optical zoom and the camera will shoot up to 15x smart zoom. The smart zoom is described as being different from digital zoom because it crops into the image, rather than trying to extrapolate pixels which degrades image. However, this does lower the resolution, leaving you at as low as VGA (640x480) size. There are different "scene" modes for easy shooting. They include: Beach, Snow, Fireworks, Action (High Speed Shutter), Landscape, High Sensitivity (High ISO), Soft Snap, Twilight, Twilight Portrait and Smile Shutter. Most of these modes are not standard and take some getting used to. Even with the descriptions, you may have to read the manual to fully understand what a mode like "soft snap" accomplishes. In general, with point-and-shoot cameras, the modes can be used in lieu of a manual setting to determine the aperture and shutter speed. For example, if I wanted a shallow depth of field by using a wide aperture, I would select a standard portrait mode which makes the subject sharp and background blurry. I couldn’t easily find a standard portrait mode, and the "smile shutter" didn't want to work without a face in the picture. However, when you are actually shooting people, the face-detection algorithm can recognize up to 8 faces, and can also be selected by touch.  It does have a nice Macro mode, which lets you focus very close to your subject. I was able to get a lot of really crisp details, and achieved the shallow depth-of-field look I had searched for. Be sure to check out our other article on Digital Macro photography. The Sony lets you create MPEG movies with no time limit, simply as long as your memory card can hold. You can also set the quality for these short films. There is a speaker included on the camera so you can play back recordings and hear all the details. You can also play slideshows with built-in music, or load your own MP3s on the camera for personalization. You can also exhibit the slideshow to family and friends by hooking the camera up to your TV. With the proper cables, you can even show HD quality images on an HD TV. Another bonus feature that in all actuality isn't worth too much is the in-camera retouching. This feature will only create low resolution images so you can't do much afterwards, but it could be fun to play around with for slideshows by adding clip-art hearts or converting to black & white. It does use Sony's proprietary memory stick pro II duo instead of a standard SD card. This may limit your options when buying additional memory. Also, make sure you have the right kind of card reader if you don’t want to plug the camera into your computer to download. The final verdict is that the Sony has my recommendation. I was pleased with the crispness of the pictures and how vibrant the colors were. Even as someone who primarily shoots with a DSLR, I would keep a camera like this at all times in a pocket or handbag for those unforeseen photo-ops, and times when you don't want to lug a large camera and few lenses around. If you decide to go for the Sony T70, do take some time to get to understand the menus and know that you are using all the capabilities of this tiny but powerful camera. |
