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Sony DSC-S85 Sony extends its S-series Cybershot line with the S85, sporting a 4-megapixel CCD, Exposure Bracketing, and Burst 3 sequential capture. Select a topic Reference: Datasheet Cyber-shot DSC-S85 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 Cyber-shot DSC-S85 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: 6/7/2001

Exposure

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Exposure control is much improved in the S85's user interface. The strong reliance on the LCD menu system seen in the earlier Cyber-shot models has been significantly reduced by the addition of more external controls. A Mode dial on the top of the camera lets you quickly select major camera operating modes, including full Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Manual exposure modes. Additional control buttons on the back panel let you change basic exposure settings, such as metering options, exposure compensation, and AE Lock with a single button-push. Finally, a small Jog Dial navigator wheel (on the right side of the camera back) simplifies exposure adjustment even more, by allowing you to change exposure compensation, manual focus, aperture, and shutter speed, simply by turning it. With the rear panel color LCD screen disabled, many exposure functions can still be controlled via the small data readout, also on the camera's back. We found the user interface slightly tricky for using the Jog Dial wheel without the large LCD screen, but once we realized that its operation was the same as when the LCD was illuminated, things became much clearer.

Four main exposure modes offer varying levels of control: Program, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, and Manual. In Program mode, the camera controls the basic exposure, but allows you to determine all other variables, such as ISO, White Balance, and Flash. Shutter Priority enables you to set the shutter speed from 1/1,000 to eight seconds while the camera controls the lens aperture. Alternately, Aperture Priority mode allows you to set the lens aperture from f/2.1 to f/8.0 while the camera sets the appropriate shutter speed. In both Aperture and Shutter Priority modes, the shutter and aperture values will flash in the LCD panel (when the shutter button is pressed halfway) if the camera disagrees with the chosen settings. This gives you an opportunity to adjust the exposure without wasting a shot.

We were glad to see the inclusion of a Manual exposure mode, which wasn't available with the earlier Cyber-shot models. Manual exposure mode provides complete control over exposure, including aperture settings, shutter speed, ISO, white balance, and metering. In all three adjustable modes (Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, and Manual), the Jog Dial wheel adjusts the aperture or shutter speed settings.

Some additional comment on Sony's Jog Dial wheel implementation is perhaps in order here, since we suspect others may find it confusing at the outset, as we did. A yellow arrow on the LCD screen points to one adjustable setting, such as aperture, shutter, or exposure compensation, and pressing in on the wheel highlights that setting in yellow, allowing you to make adjustments by simply turning the wheel. Pressing on the wheel a second time removes the yellow highlight, so that you can move the yellow arrow to a new adjustable setting. Where we got into trouble was apparently in pressing it too quickly in some modes, which resulted in it ignoring the actuation, and made it seem like nothing was happening. It may be that there's a "debounce" delay on the pressure switch for the wheel, producing a "dead" interval after each actuation. Whatever the case, once we calmed down a little and operated the control in a more deliberate manner, we had no further trouble. In Automatic exposure mode, the only adjustable setting you can access via the wheel is exposure compensation

As noted earlier, we applaud Sony's inclusion of the small data readout LCD to facilitate camera operation without resorting to the large color LCD display. Here again though, the Jog Dial's operation proved a little confusing, with the controls at first seeming to operate in a random fashion. After a little thought, we realized that the camera was operating exactly as it would have with the LCD screen on, but that the data readout LCD lacked any highlighting mechanism to indicate which exposure variable was selected. (Note to the Sony engineers: Blinking numbers would work very well as a "selected" indicator.) Once we figured out what was going on though, we fairly quickly became adept at switching between the various controls and making setting changes. Overall, a slightly confusing implementation, but one that we applaud nonetheless. In our view, over-dependence on LCD menu systems is one of the biggest user interface problems in current digicam designs. Sony's implementation of the Jog Dial isn't perfect, but it does go a long way toward improving the efficiency of the camera's user interface.

In addition to the four main exposure modes, there are three preset Scene modes that adjust the camera for shooting in specific situations: Twilight, Landscape, and Portrait. Twilight mode adjusts the exposure to capture a bright subject in dark surroundings (neon lights would be a good example), without washing out the color. Because Twilight mode usually employs a slower shutter speed, a tripod is recommended to prevent blurring from camera movement. Landscape mode uses a smaller aperture setting to keep both the background and foreground in sharp focus, allowing you to capture broad vistas of scenery. Portrait mode uses a larger lens aperture setting to decrease the depth of field, keeping the subject in sharp focus, with the background slightly blurred.

For normal exposures, the S85 uses an "averaged" metering system, meaning that the camera averages exposure readings throughout the image to determine the best overall exposure. For high-contrast subjects, a Spot Metering option (controlled by a button on the back panel) takes the exposure reading from the very center of the frame. A center crosshair target appears on the LCD monitor (inside the focus brackets), to show the location of the spot exposure reading. For metering off-center subjects, you can take your reading of the subject you want metered, then use the AE Lock button on the back panel to lock the exposure reading. Once exposure is locked, you can recompose the image and release the shutter.

Exposure compensation can be manually adjusted from -2 to +2 exposure equivalents (EV) in one-third-step increments, in all exposure modes except Manual. As noted above, you can access the exposure compensation adjustment when the LCD is disabled, solely through the Jog Dial, but this can be a little confusing. The easiest thing to do is to simply press the +/- button on the back of the camera, which immediately enables exposure adjustment in any camera mode in which it's permitted. The S85 also offers a new Exposure Bracketing feature that takes the same image at three different exposures: one normal, one overexposed, and one underexposed (by +/- 1.0, 0.7, or 0.3 exposure equivalents, selected through the Setup menu). The Exposure Bracketing mode does not work with flash, and it restricts itself to only "acceptable" exposure settings when used in Program mode. (For example, when we photographed a subject in low light, the camera gave us two images at f/2.3 for 1/30 second and one at 1/60 second. It did not provide a 1/15 second exposure, because that shutter speed falls below the normally accepted handheld exposure range.)

The camera's light sensitivity can be set through the Record menu to Auto, or 100, 200, or 400 ISO equivalents, increasing the camera's low-light shooting capabilities with higher ISO settings. White Balance (WB) can also be controlled in all exposure modes, with available settings of Auto, Indoors, Outdoors, and One-Push (manual setting). The "One-Push" white balance mode is the same as "manual" white balance options found on many higher-end digicams. One-Push allows you to set the camera's white balance by pointing it at a white card and telling it to use that color as a reference. In our testing, this worked very well, and the S85's manual white balance option seems to be one of the best we've seen to date. As with many other Sony cameras, the S85 offers a Picture Effects menu, providing a little in-camera creativity. Settings like Solarize, Black & White, Sepia, and Negative Art can add interest to your images by altering color or reversing the highlights and shadows.

The S85 also offers a menu selection for adjusting image sharpening in-camera, providing a range of sharpness values ranging from -2 to +2 in arbitrary units. The default value of zero is fine for most uses, but you might want to boost the sharpness a bit if your shots will be printed on a low-quality inkjet printer. On the other hand, the lowest sharpness setting may be useful for images that you plan to manipulate in Photoshop or other image editing application. In these programs, you typically want to apply sharpening at the end of the manipulation process. While we like to see fine gradations of sharpness control in digicams, we felt that the control in the S85 was perhaps a little too subtle. We'd prefer a little more range in this control. (But we have to admit that if the choice is between too much sharpening adjustment and too little, we'll opt for the more understated approach every time.) Finally, a 10-second self-timer can be activated by pressing the down Arrow button on the back panel. Once the shutter button has been fully depressed, a small LED lamp on the front of the camera counts down the seconds until the shutter is released.

When you have images stored on the Memory Stick, the left arrow key on the Arrow rocker button (back panel) activates a quick review of the previously captured image, and offers a delete option for removing the image. Pressing the arrow key a second time returns you to the normal image display screen, as does pressing the shutter button halfway.


Flash
The S85's built-in flash has three settings activated by pressing the Flash button on the Arrow rocker pad: Auto, Forced, and Suppressed. Auto puts the camera in charge of whether or not the flash fires, based on existing light levels. Forced Flash means that the flash always fires, regardless of light level, and Suppressed Flash prevents the flash from firing, regardless of light levels. A Red-Eye Reduction mode is activated through the Setup menu, and works with both Auto and Forced flash modes. Red-Eye Reduction fires a small pre-flash to reduce the occurrence of red-eye effect in people pictures.

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. In Normal mode, flash range extends from 12 inches to 9.75 feet (0.3 to 3.0 meters). In our testing, we found the flash reasonably effective all the way to 15 feet. Flash exposures were a little bright between eight and 10 feet from the target, but maintained a good intensity level out to 13 feet. Intensity declined slightly at the 14- and 15-foot distances, but we felt the flash was still usable even at that distance. We felt that the Low flash intensity was best for close-range portrait shots, as the Normal and High settings tended to wash out the color and overexposed highlight areas.

Flash distribution appeared relatively even at the telephoto setting of our viewfinder test shot, except for a small hot spot in the center of the target. At the wide-angle setting, flash distribution was also good, with only a very small amount of falloff at the corners and a tiny hot spot in the center of the target.

An external flash sync socket is located on the left side of the camera, directly above the digital and video jack compartment. A "cold" shoe mount on top of the camera eliminates the need for a flash bracket. The only complaint we have here is that the external flash connection is only compatible with Sony's FL-1000 accessory flash, instead of the normal range of standard external flash units. This would be fine if an adapter were available to connect conventional flash units to the camera, but as far as we know, no such adapter exists, nor does Sony have plans to market one. While it's true that a third-party "dumb" flash unit would lose all the exposure-control benefits offered by Sony's own units, we suspect that many purchasers of the S85 will already own an external flash unit as part of their film-based kit, and would like the option of using it with the S85, even with restricted functionality.

Movie and Sound Recording
In any of the S85's still capture modes, you can record short sound clips to accompany images. This option is available through the Record menu by selecting the Voice record mode. You can record up to 40 seconds of sound for each image by holding down the shutter button. By pressing and releasing the shutter button quickly, you can record for only five seconds.

One of Sony's enhancements to the S85 is in its "MPEG EX" technology, which permits continuous recording of MPEG movies directly to the memory card in "standard" quality mode. This enables you to record movies as long as you have Memory Stick space, eliminating the 15-second maximum-length restriction that the S70 had.

The Movie mode is accessed on the Mode dial on top of the camera by selecting the film frame icon. You can record moving images with sound at either High Quality (HQ) 320 pixels, or standard quality 320 x 240 and 160 x 112 pixels. As noted, MPEG EX means that you can record standard-quality movies for as long as the Memory Stick has space. At the HQ setting,, recording time is again restricted to 15 seconds, but the image quality, frame rate, and audio sampling rate are all significantly increased. Recording starts with a single press of the shutter button, and ends with a second press. A timer appears in the LCD monitor to let you know how long you've been recording and approximately how much recording time is available. At the 320 x 240- and 160 x 112-pixel settings, the S85 records in the MPEG EX format, capturing eight frames per second, with audio sampling at 4 KHz. The 320 HQ setting captures16 frames per second, uses less image compression, and increases the audio sampling rate to 10 KHz. Additionally, movies captured in the 320 HQ setting play back full screen in Playback mode, as opposed to the smaller display shown with the MPEG EX settings.

The S85 also addresses what was previously a significant missing feature in the "movie" capabilities of digital still cameras: Editing! We don't think digicam users will want to engage in full A/B roll video editing on their cameras, but we've often found that we wanted to trim off material from the beginning or end of a video we've recorded, or to extract an interesting bit of action from the middle of a much longer clip with (how to put it politely?) less than stellar footage. The S85 provides for this via an option on the Playback menu called Divide. As its name suggests, Divide works by dividing movies into two segments. Do this once to trim away spurious material at the front of the clip you're interested in, do it a second time to remove the unwanted footage at the end. Once you've split the movie into parts like this, throw away the segments you don't need, or keep them around to show your viewers how lucky they are that you're only showing them the "interesting" parts. ;-)

After enabling the Divide function through the Playback menu, the S85 starts to play back the movie. You simply press the center of the Arrow rocker button to stop the playback where you'd like to make an edit. From there, you can scroll backward or forward frame-by-frame until you find the point where you'd like to divide the movie. You can then either delete the unwanted portion of the movie or keep it on the Memory Stick. As noted, the Divide function is great for "editing" out the best part of a movie file, as you can make an unlimited number of divides. You just can't put the pieces back together again in the camera. For that, you'll have to use the included MGI VideoWave software. The screen shot at right shows the LCD display with a Divide operation in progress.

Clip Motion
This is a slick little feature that we really enjoyed on the Sony DSC-P1, where it first appeared. The Clip Motion capture mode turns the S85 into an animation camera, recording up to 10 frames of still images to be combined into a single GIF file for animated playback. Frames can be captured at any interval, with successive presses of the shutter button. When you've captured as many photos as you need, you just press the center of the Arrow rocker pad to tell the camera to finish the sequence. Available image sizes are Normal (160 x 120 pixels) and Mobile (80 x 72 pixels), and the number of actual captured frames may vary with image size and available Memory Stick space. (You have a maximum of 10, but could be constrained to fewer if your memory is very full.) Files are saved in GIF format, and are played back with (approximate) 0.5-second intervals between frames. Unlike Movie mode, the flash is available with Clip Motion. We used the DSC-P1's Clip Motion feature to make the animation of the P1's underwater housing shown above right - This feature works the same way on the S85.

Special Record Modes
The S85 gives you several recording format options for still images, with some enhancements to the S75 model. Through the Record menu, you can select TIFF for uncompressed images, Text, Voice (mentioned above), E-mail, Exposure Bracketing (a new feature), Burst 3 (compared to Burst 2 on the S75), or Normal modes. E-mail mode records a smaller (320 x 240-pixel) image size that's small enough to be easily sent to friends and family by e-mail. The e-mail image is recorded simultaneously with an image size selected through the Record menu's Image Size option. The Text mode records a black-and-white GIF file that is perfect for taking pictures of white boards, flip charts, or meeting notes. Exposure Bracketing takes the same image at three different exposures: one normal, one overexposed, and one underexposed (by +/- 1.0, 0.7, or 0.3 exposure equivalents, selected through the Setup menu). Burst 3 mode allows you to take a maximum of three frames in rapid succession. Actual frame rates will vary with the image resolution and amount of information to be recorded.