Reviews
Sony
Cyber-shot DSC-V3
A sensible camera from Sony?
Sony
is big on style. We saw that in their fabulous CLI PDAs, may
they rest in peace, and they even named their website sonystyle.com.
So what's a camera that looks like a nice, solid Olympus doing
in Sony's lineup? That's likely because Sony needed an answer
to Canon's mighty G6.
In
its own lineage, the DSC-V3 is the replacement of the Sony DSC-V1,
a decent product that didn't quite know if it wanted to be a handy
little compact or a serious camera. Its sleek little silver body
just couldn't accommodate all the stuff needed to run with the
big dogs. We didn't like it very much, and apparently Sony came
to the same conclusion ÷ a new approach was needed. Even if that
meant a larger and heavier new model instead of a smaller and
lighter one.
For
basics, the DSC-V3 is a compact (4.7 x 2.9 x 2.45 inches) digital
camera for folks who are serious about digital photography, but
don't want to go high end or digital SLRs just yet. The V3 has
7.2 megapixels which translates into a maximum picture size of
3072x2304 pixels÷good enough for most enlargements. In terms of
design there is nothing futuristic or unusual. This is your basic
matte-black metal body with common controls and a conventional
looking ăpower bulge.ä This makes it easy to hold the camera which
weighs just under a pound, including battery. The power bulge
doesn't actually hold the four AAs you'd expect from looking at
it. Instead, it houses an Info-Lithium battery and both a Memory
Stick/Memory Stick Pro and a Compact Flash slot. With this Sony
you won't lose your investment in Compact Flash cards. A switch
lets you select if you want to record onto a Memory Stick or a
CF card. Good idea.
When
you look at the V3 from the front it appears like it's just a
body and doesn't have a lens. That's because it has a built-in
lens protector that opens up as soon as the camera is turned on
via a clearly marked ăPowerä push button on top. The lens itself
is a Carl Zeiss Vario Sonnar with a 4X optical zoom. Its focal
length is a 34-136mm 35-mm equivalent. A VAD-VHA adapter lets
you add tele or wide lenses and a number of filters.
The
back of the camera yields a nice surprise: a large 2.5-inch LCD
that makes framing and viewing pictures easy. At 123k pixels it
is not very high-res, but it's bright and sharp. And though it's
listed as a transmissive LCD, it doesn't wash out in sunlight.
As
far as controls go, on top, the V3 has a mode dial to set the
camera into automatic, program, shutter-priority, aperture-priority,
manual, scene, movie or setup mode. On the back you'll find a
five-way nav control, with each of the four directional buttons
doing double duty by toggling other functions, like flash modes,
self-timer, macro and so on. Additional buttons toggle through
LCD display, image size, manual and menu options. The zoom rocker
is on the back of the camera in an ergonomically perfect spot.
There
are some glitches and omissions. The optical viewfinder doesn't
have a diopter adjustment. The flash is a tiny little pop-up thing
with an effective range of just over eight feet. It does, however,
pop up automatically when its services are called for. The V3
has a more powerful battery than the wimpy one in the V1, but
it's still only 4.4 watt-hours, much less than most of the competition
in this class. However, Sony's InfoLithium technology is always
better than what the specs suggest, and it conveniently tells
you how many minutes you have left. Nominally it's rated at 300
pictures with the LCD on. I'd still get a backup battery as it
takes a while to charge a pack.
On
the image side of things there are a number of improvements. First
of all, the V3 has a RAW mode in addition to TIFF and various
degrees of JPEG compression. It also has a MPEG Movie VX Fine
mode that lets you take 640x480 movies with sound at a full 30
frames per second. That requires a Memory Stick Pro card, and
a 1GB car will hold 12 minutes. The regular VX mode operates at
17 frames per second and 44 minutes fit on a 1GB card. And the
movie mode is excellent.
The
V3 has other unique features. First, there is nightframing and
nightshot, accessible through a push button on top of the camera.
Nightshot uses infrared illumination to take a picture in the
total dark. The result will be green, as if you looked through
high-tech nightvision goggles. Nightframing uses IR to let you
compose the picture but then takes a regular flash picture, with
excellent results. Second, Sony uses two kinds of digital zoom.
The conventional ăprecisionä zoom is just a 2X digital magnification
and not very useful. The second, called ăsmart zoom,ä does not
reduce image quality, but it only works when you're in lower res
modes. That's because the system uses extra pixels that you don't
use in the lower res modes. If you shoot in 640x480 you can ăsmart
zoomä up to 19X. The thing works remarkably well and image stabilization
is so good that the result is razor-sharp.
The
5-area multi-point auto focus works well (I hate underperforming
auto focus systems). In lower light situations it is assisted
by Sony's laser-based Hologram AF Illuminator.
Sony
offers a good dozen of accessories for the V3, including lenses
(wide-angle, telephoto, close-up), filters, an external flash,
chargers and a leather case. We tested the screw-on wide end conversion
and the HVL-F32X external flash that has its own LCD panel, an
adjustable bounce flash head, manual control, an extension adapter
with cord, and a carry case. For an extra $150, the F32X flash
is a must have. The lens brings the wide angle down to 23.8 millimeter.
Unfortunately, the lens barrel blocks part of the optical viewfinder
and also renders the internal flash near unusable.
Sony
often gets carried away in its quest to push the limits, both
in technology and in design. With the Cyber-shot DSC-V3 they created
a camera that's almost understated, but one that beautifully combines
technology, ergonomics, features, and performance in a compelling,
useful package. One of the year's best.
ö Kirk Linsky
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