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Sony MVC-FD87 Sony announces an affordable 1.3-megapixel digicam with basic features, good quality pictures, and a dual-media storage drive! Select a topic Reference: Datasheet MVC-FD87 Sample Images --------------------------------- 1. Intro and Highlights 2. Executive Overview 3. Design 4. Viewfinder 5. Optics 6. Exposure & Flash 7. Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests 8. Operation & User Interface 9. Camera Modes & Menus 10. Image Storage & Interface 11. Video, Power, Software 12. Test Results & Conclusion --------------------------------- Print-Friendly Review Version Additional Resources and Other Links Reader Comments on MVC-FD87 Review --------------------------------- Digital Camera Comparometer (TM) --------------------------------- <-- Digital Cameras (Home) <-- Digital Camera Reviews Index <<Optics :(Previous) | (Next): Shutter Lag & Cycle Time Tests>> Page 6:Exposure & Flash Review First Posted: 5/4/2001

Exposure
Exposure control on the FD87 is very straightforward, with a familiar user interface design used on many of the Sony Mavica and Cyber-Shot models. The camera features primarily automatic exposure control, with a handful of special exposure modes for specific shooting situations. Exposure modes (referred to as Program AE modes in the Sony manual) are accessed by pressing the Program button on the back panel, which cycles through the Automatic Exposure, Twilight, Twilight Plus, Landscape, Portrait, and Spot Metering modes. The camera controls both shutter speed and aperture in all exposure modes and does not report these settings on the LCD display. (While many consumers won't be concerned about this, we often like to know what exposure the camera has selected.)

Landscape and Panfocus modes control the camera's focus, with Landscape setting the focus at infinity for faraway subjects and Panfocus allowing quicker focus times for fast-moving subjects. The Twilight modes simply adjust the aperture and shutter speed for dark settings like night skylines and fireworks. Normal Twilight mode sets the exposure system to somewhat underexpose the image, so bright lights, sunsets, and neon signs won't wash out, but instead retain their full color. Twilight Plus makes less exposure adjustment, but boosts light sensitivity for taking pictures under even darker conditions. Spot Metering mode takes the exposure values from the very center of the composition, as opposed to averaging values from the entire image, which is useful for high-contrast subjects, where you'd rather have the exposure set for a specific highlight or dark area. When spot metering is enabled, a target crosshair appears in the center of the LCD display to help line up the shot.

Camera operation is relatively smooth, as you just point and shoot most of the time, leaving the exposure decisions to the camera. Halfway pressing the shutter button sets focus and exposure, triggering a small, green spot at the top of the LCD monitor to blink as the focus is adjusted and then glows steadily when the camera is ready to take the picture. While a few of the camera functions are controlled by individual control buttons on the back panel, most features require the LCD menu system. We always like to see the least amount of reliance on the LCD monitor as possible, but given the lack of an optical viewfinder on the FD87, the LCD monitor is our only choice. Regardless, we found the LCD menu system's setup to be very navigable, even though it requires a fair amount of button pushing to perform certain tasks.

Although there is no adjustable autoexposure / autofocus lock function on the camera, you can change the autoexposure area by simply moving the camera. Basically, you place the area you want the exposure to be based on in the center of the field of view, halfway press the shutter button to set the exposure and focus, then reposition the subject into the desired composition while continuing to hold down the shutter button halfway. Once you've framed the picture, just fully press the shutter button to capture your photo. Exposure compensation is adjustable from -2 to +2 exposure equivalents (EV) in one-third-step increments, through the Record menu. White balance is adjusted using the same process, with options for Automatic, Indoor, Outdoor, and Hold (which recalls the previous white balance setting used).

A 10-second self-timer mode is accessible through the Record menu and is available in all photography modes. Once in this mode, a half press of the shutter button sets focus and exposure, and a full press triggers the self-timer countdown. The timer will count down from 10 seconds by flashing a small LED on the front of the camera, which accelerates at two seconds.

Sony has also included its Picture Effects menu, which allows you to record images in sepia or black-and-white monotones, as well as apply creative filters such as Negative Art and Solarize. These effects appear "live" in Record mode, meaning that the LCD monitor previews the effect. A Date/Time function enables you to record the capture date and time over the image, and a Sharpness feature adjusts the overall image sharpness in levels from -2 to +2.


Flash
The FD87 is equipped with a built-in flash that Sony rates as effective from 11.9 inches to 8.3 feet (0.3-2.5 meters). In our own tests, this rating actually seemed quite conservative, as we found the flash to be very bright all the way out to 14 feet.

A flash button on the back panel of the camera cycles through Automatic, Red-Eye Reduction, Forced, and Suppressed flash modes. An icon displays on the LCD monitor to identify each mode, except for Auto, which has no icon. Auto puts the camera in charge of whether or not the flash fires, based on existing light levels. Red-Eye Reduction fires a small pre-flash to reduce the occurrence of red-eye effect in people shots. Forced Flash means that the flash always fires, regardless of light level, and Suppressed Flash prevents the flash from firing, regardless of light level.

You can adjust the flash intensity to High, Normal, or Low through the Record menu. This option makes the flash more accommodating to varying light levels or different subjects. We liked the fact that we could adjust exposure for the flash and ambient lighting separately, a feature that makes it easier to achieve more balanced exposures.

Special Recording Modes
The FD87 features three recording modes for still images -- Normal, E-Mail, and Text -- accessible in the Record settings menu, under the File submenu. The E-Mail option records a still image at 320 x 240-pixel JPEG size for easy e-mail transmission, in addition to a full-resolution file at whatever image size you've selected from the menu system. Text mode records a black-and-white GIF-formatted image file, perfect for recording meeting notes or white boards. The Text (GIF) format records a high-resolution black-and-white image with a great deal of compression (that is, the resulting images take up very little memory), but the penalty paid is the very long processing time required to reduce the full-color image capture to the black-and-white GIF format.