Although I have much experience with cameras, camcorders, and digital images, I have never owned a digital camera before. My main camera has been a Nikon 6006 SLR, so I am pretty picky about quality.
After extensive research, I settled on the DSC-T1. It is exactly what I expected, and almost exactly what I wanted, but allow me to elaborate because it may not be exactly what YOU want.
I was tempted by larger digital cameras (and I will eventually get one of those too). For example, the Panasonic Lumix is few bucks cheaper and has more controls, a BIG lens, great image stabilization, and 12x optical zoom (digital zoom is meaningless). It is even possible to get a medium size 5MP digital camera with 5x optical zoom and better pictures than the dsc-t1 for much less. However, I concluded that I would rather have a good camera with me 24x7 than leave a great camera in the car or at home. I was SO right. I have already captured SO many photos I would have missed. I carry the camera at all times in one of those silk bags that come with Oakley sunglasses.
I considered other small cameras like the Casio Elixim Z4, but it does not have video in US versions. The Canon S400 is very good, but it is slower and thicker with a much smaller LCD, and a newer version is coming out April 30th. No ultra compact that is clearly better than the DSC-T1 is on the horizon.
In addition to ultra compact size, I wanted at least 4MP, at least 3x optical zoom, quality video ability, speed, ease of use, and flexible shooting modes. This camera has 5MP, 3x optical zoom, excellent 640x480 video mode, speed, ease of use, and shooting modes flexible enough to accommodate everything from action to night images.
Video is in MPG files, which can be played back on the free Real Player. It is not possible to zoom while shooting video, but it is possible to zoom before recording begins or when recording has been paused.
I haven't tried the software that comes with it yet. I run Windows XP, and I just place the dsc-t1 in the cradle, turn it on, and it appears as another disk drive in Windows Explorer. I can copy files from it and paste them onto a hard drive. I can then delete the image files from the camera to free up the space on the memory stick just as if I were deleting files from any Windows folder.
Apparently slowness is a problem with all digital cameras except for a few of the most recent ones, and the DSC-T1 seems fast to me. This may be the result of the newer and faster Duo Pro Memory Stick technology. Get the 256MB Duo Pro Memory Stick. The 512MB stick costs three times as much. Don't bother with a spare battery. They are too expensive, and the battery life is OK. You don't want to be frequently opening the delicate little battery/memory doors on digital cameras anyway.
Don't worry about having no optical view finder. They just make cameras bigger. The 2.5 inch LCD is bigger than any other digital camera and is quite sufficient.
Such a small camera is a little tricky to hold SECURELY without getting in the way of the lens, so if you tend to drop things, then you WILL eventually drop this unless you use the wrist strap at all times, which partially defeats the convenience aspect. I still haven't attached the wrist strap because I am extra careful, but someone could still bump into me while shooting. On the other hand, I don't want to overstate this problem because the camera is quite durable/graspable when the lens cover is closed.
Almost every indoor picture with the kids has at least a hint of red eye. I consider about 60% of them to have too much, but I still get more quality shots than I have time to email, so I really can't complain. BTW, 5MP jpeg files are about 2MB each, which makes email a challenge. Less than one out of ten indoor pictures seems grainy. It is actually possible to take decent pictures in total darkness when using the flash because the auto focus works in the dark, which is not true for every camera.
It is possible to use one of the modes that forces the camera to 100 speed to guarantee maximum resolution (0% graininess), but you may have to brace the camera well for the slow shutter speeds that result. In fact I took some good pictures from my front porch at NIGHT by bracing the camera, but this will take more practice. Note that such pictures did not use a flash because a flash is useless beyond a few yards away, and only works WELL up to 6 feet away.
One pleasant surprise was the excellent sound quality. I carried a digital voice recorder 24x7, which would fill up until I had time to manually transpose my notes and delete them forever to free up memory on the recorder again. Before that I used the very expensive little Pearlcorder L400. It was less convenient to transpose from a tape, but at least I could keep the tapes forever. Sound quality on all of them was poor. Whereas, with the DSC-T1, I discovered I could take hours of VIDEO notes in 160x160 mode with perfect sound quality and then just copy these files onto my hard drive to keep forever. This is when I knew I was keeping the DSC-T1.
0 comments:
Post a Comment