Sony MVC-CD400Sony expands its CD-equipped camera line, adding a four megapixel CCD, a huge buffer memory, Hologram Autofocus, and a standard hot shoe!<<Design :(Previous) | (Next): Optics>> Page 4:ViewfinderReview First Posted: 2/20/2002 |
ViewfinderFor composing images, the CD400 features a color LCD monitor that automatically activates whenever the camera is powered on. The Display button just below the LCD monitor controls both the information and image display, turning both off or on. (Multiple actuations of this button cycles through viewfinder display with information overlay, viewfinder without information, and LCD off. (Note though, that even when the information overlay is disabled, certain critical data relating to camera operation and mode settings still appears on the LCD display. - Such things as flash, autofocus and metering modes in programmed exposure mode, and shutter and aperture settings in aperture priority, shutter priority and manual exposure modes.)
The LCD on the CD400 incorporates a "Solar Assist" (tm) feature, which I've seen on other manufacturers' cameras, and which was actually introduced by Sony a few years ago, on the MVC-FD81 camera. It consists of a small translucent window at the top of the LCD (visible in the photo above as the very bright bar on top of the LCD), which lets in ambient light behind the LCD screen to boost the effective brightness of the backlight. This feature works only in very bright surroundings, and the effectiveness will vary, depending on the orientation of the camera relative to the primary light source. (It works best when the sun is directly overhead.) Overall, I found the "assist" window to be quite helpful when using the LCD outdoors on a sunny day, making the CD400's LCD one of the most usable I've encountered for outdoor shooting. You can change the strength of the LCD backlight through the Setup menu, with options of Normal and Bright.
Back when I posted the original CD-300 review Sony emailed to inform me of their clip-on eyelevel viewfinder/magnifier for the CD Mavicas. Called the DSAC-MVC, this gadget has a complete optical system in it, including a diopter adjustment, and purportedly provides enough magnification of the high-quality TFT LCD that it's quite usable for manual focusing. US selling price is $79.95 US. I haven't had the opportunity to test this gadget extensively, but have played with it a bit at shows, and it seems to work pretty well. (It is a tad bulky though.) This optical viewfinder adapter (shown above attached to the CD300) also fits the LCD on the CD250 and 400 as well. - This could be very handy if you need to do a lot of shooting in very bright outdoor ambient lighting, or if you're in an environment where the large, bright LCD screen would be a distraction for others. (Theatre photography?)
In Record mode, the LCD monitor's information display reports a bounty of information, including image resolution, JPEG compression level, number of remaining images (plus available CD-R space), exposure compensation, f/stop, shutter speed, flash mode, and an excellent feature unique to Sony cameras: the number of minutes remaining on the battery. In Automatic and Scene modes, a half press of the Shutter button is necessary to display the current shutter speed and aperture settings, and in some capture modes, only applicable readings will be displayed.
I liked the Manual Focus display, which eschews the usual focus bar and instead reports the current distance setting in a single, numeric reading, which can be changed by turning the Command wheel (when the focus distance is highlighted on the LCD screen). The ability to set lens focus to a specific (numeric) distance can be invaluable when setting up for shots in low-light conditions. I also noticed that when you manually adjust the focus, the LCD monitor snaps into focus as soon as you select the right distance. (I first noticed this on the DSC-S75 camera.) I'm not sure how Sony managed to make focus changes so dramatically visible on the LCD, but whatever they did seems to work well, and makes the Manual Focus option much more useful than those I've seen on other cameras.
In Playback mode, the LCD monitor offers an Index display mode as well as a 1.1 - 5x Playback Zoom, which enlarges captured images for closer inspection. Once enlarged, the arrow buttons let you scroll around inside the image. The Display button controls the information and image display in Playback mode, cycling through three modes: No display, image with information, and image without information. The Playback image information includes the file type (movie or still), image size, where the image falls in the Playback index, remaining CD-R capacity, file name, date and time the image was taken, and the remaining battery power. There's also a more extensive information display, accessed by pressing the thumbnail/zoom out side of the zoom toggle again, after you've reached the thumbnail display itself. The CD400 provides an LCD brightness adjustment through its Setup menu, which changes the display to Bright, Normal, or Dark, depending on the shooting situation.
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