The Nikon 1 J1 is the second of Nikon’s new compact mirrorless system cameras featuring a new 10.1-megapixel CX sensor and a new lens mount. Nikon has wisely put ease of use and image quality at the core of this shooter. The J1 is, however, cheaper than the V1, which could make it even more popular, the question is, does the price drop come with a compromise?

The new Nikon 1 system cameras use an all-new CX format CMOS sensor and is distinct from the DX (APS-C sized) and the FX (full frame, 35mm) format sensors Nikon has in the shops already. The J1 is the sibling compact system camera to the V1 we’ve already. Together they represent a milestone in Nikon system camera development.

As with the V1, ease of use, compact design and image quality are the core attributes of this camera. The J1 represents a lower rung on the ladder of this new system, and as such it is less expensive. It does have a few specification tweaks that aim this model at the larger, point’n’shoot end of the market.

It’s worth noting that both cameras are very similar, so much of what has been written about the V1 remains true of the J1 too. This cheaper model features a greater livery range though and is available in white, black, pink, silver (tested here) and red.

The J1’s compact design uses the same fast AF system as the V1 and Nikon claims it is the world’s fastest hybrid AF system. It achieves this by combining phase detection AF and contrast detection on the sensor, alongside a new EXPEED 3 image engine to help deal with all the image and video data this camera can produce.

As with the V1, you get a combination of ultra-fast, full-resolution shooting at up to 60fps. There’s also 1080p, full HD video capture with the possibility of capturing full-resolution stills during recording. The J1 has the same (as the V1) stunning double slow motion modes of 400fps and 1200fps.

The small CX sensor format and 10.1-megapixels resolution help make all that high speed and data processing possible, keep image noise to a minimum and also help maintain image quality. Nikon wanted to combine all these elements in a system that delivers the best balance of image quality, speed, easy use and compact size.

Build, Style and Handling

The J1 weighs just 234g (body only) so is 50g lighter than the V1 and it comes with more or less all the same controls and features as the V1, including a large 921,000-dot, 3-inch colour screen that is as superb to use as the V1’s. Unlike that camera however, the J1 does not have an additional viewfinder, electronic or otherwise and so you’re reliant on the screen on the J1 for all playback and composing tasks.

The build is nicely robust but like the V1 before it, it’s rather blocky looking styling may not be too everyone’s taste but does make the camera nice to hold and use. The double zoom lens kit we were sent to review included the included the 10-30mm F/3.5-5.6 zoom and the 30-110mm F/3.8-5.6 zoom lens. The CX format has a 2.7x magnification factor to apply to these focal lengths meaning the duo of lenses cover a range of 27mm to 297mm in a form factor that is remarkably compact, particularly the 30 to 110mm zoom.

Both lenses are sharp and both benefit from Nikon’s Vibration Reduction (VR) system, which is pretty essential at the longer focal lengths, and as with the V1 the J1’s lenses can fit on V1 and vice versa. However, one thing the J1 lacks is the dust reduction system that sits in front of the V1’s sensor, but this is not the only thing removed to help keep the J1 a less pricy proposition than the V1.

The V1’s accessory port has gone, replaced on the J1 with a rather funky and cleverly designed periscope-style pop-up flash. When switched on via a small switch at the back of the camera on the left side of the monitor, it springs clear of the body by three centimeters. That’s high enough to help prevent problems from redeye that can plague smaller cameras with a flash close to the lens axis. It’s clever and makes sense, but it also means the flash is vulnerable when in its up position to being knocked.

In terms of control, the top plate has three familiar controls from the V1, a shutter, a video capture and a square on/off button, while to the left there’s the flash unit. The lack of the accessory/hot shoe means you cannot use the new SB N5 Speedlight, the ME-1 microphone (though it has built-in microphone) or the new GP-N100 GPS unit.

The J1 can use the 10-100mm Nikkor VR PD-Zoom (power zoom) lens and accepts the Nikon F-Mount adapter so you can take advantage of any existing F-mount lenses you may have, albeit at the expense of the 1 system’s compactness. Interestingly, the camera strap lugs are much nicer than on the V1, being formed as part of the camera body. The camera’s back plate has the same smattering of controls as the V1, in an identical layout in terms of design and functions.

The mode dial has positions for the natty motion snapshot mode, a clever feature that allows you to shoot a series of images with a slice of slow motion video sandwiched in between. There’s Smart Photo Selector, a mode that automatically picks the “right” mode for the scene in front of the lens, and it gets this right mostly too. There are also macro, portrait, landscape options, all being chosen via these controls. However, if in doubt, the cameras defaults to an Auto mode, so it still can hedge its bets but still get you the shot.

Images and video are all stored on SD/SDHC/SDXC cards. This slot is to be found under a flap on the camera base, alongside the battery. It’s worth mentioning that the battery is different to the one found in the V1, an EN-EL20 cell which provides enough juice on a full charge for around 250-shots on our tests. This is less than the V1 largely because the J1 must power the flash and the screen without the relief of a lower powered EVF to help conserve power.

Motion snapshot is great for snapping fleeting action, candid portraits of children or situations where you’re just getting a snap but to have little time to set up to get the shot. It’s a great feature because it starts capturing frames before you fully depress the shutter button. This really helps you get a great shot, where you wouldn’t on an SLR or other compact camera. When photographing people, the smart photo selector worked really well, but overall, all this automation is fast and clever enough to cope with most situations.

The still image position is next and as the name suggests, it’s for “normal” stills capture. But we also have the video capture position where you can shoot full HD video and/or the dual slow motion capture settings accessed via the Function button that sits above a small, rubberised grip pad adjacent the mode dial.

The small zoom control (in playback) to the right of the Function button also controls shutter and aperture settings when in the manual modes. Our one gripe here is its rather small and fiddly to use.

Functions, menus and more

The function button has different contextual menus for each mode. In still image capture you can choose between the electronic, electronic “Hi” and mechanical shutter modes. These two modes bring faster shutter speeds into play for more flexibility in a variety of shooting. However, it has a drawback in that using the electronic “Hi” setting you cannot change drive modes or access other features such as the AF/AE-Lock.

In smart photo selector shooting there’s no additional features in the function button menus. In motion snapshot though you can apply four audio “themes” to the captured images and video, which include: beauty; waves; relaxation and tenderness.

Next to the Function button there’s that fiddly playback zoom button that magnifies images in playback or allows you to view thumbnails in grids of four, nine, 72 and calendar date options. The date view mode is actually really rather helpful.

The lower half of the back plate control panel provides you with a rotating dial for fast scrolling of images in playback and scrolling menus options. It also tilts to activate the self-timer/remote control modes, the auto exposure/auto focus lock system, the exposure compensation control and/or choose an AF mode.

The latter allows you to pick between continuous- and single-shot AF modes, or the rather funky AF area that allows you to move a single AF point around the entire screen. This allows you to focus via any one of the 141 AF points.

There are 41 AF zones that can be employed in “normal” shooting that camera can choose for you. You can override or use combined with Face detection AF, whichever suits you best. Additionally you can choose to use a single, central AF point if all that other flexibility doesn’t work for you.

Four further controls provide playback of shot footage or images as well as direct deletion of stored files. There’s a display toggle button that switches from off to basic and on to full data views. Similarly in playback, the display button will show images uncluttered by any EXIF info, basic data or combine all the data with a smaller thumb of the image, plus a histogram.

The last button is the menu display button. It is here that the meat of this cameras controls reside. To an extent, it’s a rather frustrating experience because while the camera provides a point and shoot experience, the manual controls and other features are all hidden inside the menus.

Thankfully, the menus are simple to use having just three main pages, one each for playback, capture and settings. In each you get a clean scrollable series of options depending on the mode the camera is in (motion snapshot or HD video for example) providing full access to control over the manual shooting options, ISO settings, image quality and shutter type.

Other functions provide ways to adjust metering and white balance, image quality and resolution or RAW and JPEG capture (or both at the same time), you can choose to use Nikon’s accomplished Active D-Lighting system and there’s a interval timer option among other controls.

In playback you can choose to rate or protect images, apply D-Lighting retrospectively to shots or turn off the “rotate tall” command that otherwise spins images shot in the upright format. In the settings section, denoted by a spanner icon, you can get detailed information on the battery, time zone adjustments, HDMI device control for direct output of images in the camera through a complaint HD TV and apply flicker reduction to either 50Hz or 60Hz settings.

But because the manual control options are all within menus, it’s sometimes frustrating to get a grip of. While the cameras ease of use is ideal for snappers out there, if you want to use it in a more serious way, of which it is perfectly capable, you’ll find all the control elements will necessitate frequent revisiting of the menus.

Focus and metering

The Nikon 1 system’s hybrid focusing system is very fast indeed. While using the camera, the speed is not immediately obvious, but once you start shooting fast moving subjects you quickly realise that there are not many missed opportunities due to focus errors.

The TTL metering system is also sensor-based and uses the usual matrix, centre-weighted and spot modes that provide a great balance for most shots. We found the matrix system struggled in some of flat lighting, underexposing too often while the centre-weighted option was about the best balance overall. Spot metering uses a 2mm central circle of the selected AF zone, but given the size of the sensor we found the spot to be too large for very fine control of the point you wish to meter from.

Image and Video Quality

With such a relatively small sensor, the choice Nikon made to keep the resolution to the 10-megapixel mark was a good one both in terms of the speed the camera’s performance and in terms of image noise issues. The CX CMOS sensor surely benefits from everything Nikon has learnt from its FX and DX sensor cameras. Even shooting at the top sensitivity setting of 3200, noise is well controlled but at the expense of significant amounts of detail. Meanwhile the RAWs reveal more detail but noise too. Shooting at ISO 3200 should be considered a last resort.

However, up to ISO 800 shots are remarkably clean and detailed with ISO 1600 shots only slightly less so. Metering is good overall while in terms of the white balance control, things look very good indeed, with mixed lighting being handled well.

Detail is good and all the lenses (including the 10mm prime from the V1, the 10-30mm and the 30-110mm zooms) proving suitably sharp. JPEGs are equally soft as those from V1, so sharpening in software helps out here. Colour reproduction tends to be muted in the “standard” setting with vivid providing a bit more punch and like the v1, bright point sources of light lost detail even using the D-Lighting system pre and/or post shooting.

The HD video capture is similar in all respects to the V1 with moving image being detailed and sharp, though jerky in playback, and the built-in microphone is not going to flatter a surround system but is adequate for most uses in all but windy conditions.

The 400fps five-second slow motion mode provides video with 640x240-pixels and is gives a wonderful ethereal quality with a near-3D feel. The resolution means it’s only really large enough for use on a computer screen, and it’s not going to impress 1080p fans, but it’s fun and offers an entirely new perspective on action shots. Ditto the 1200fps video mode. Here resolution drops to just 320x120-pixels and so lacks detail and true finesse, and yet seeing action at such slow speeds is super.

In terms of sharpness, the J1 creates crisp images with all the lenses - though the full zoom setting of the 30-110mm lens is a little soft around the edges - while the AF can easily hold its own with the AF on larger DSLRs, even ones from Nikon. However, lower light performance can become less accomplished although the greater depth of field afforded this camera by dint of its smaller sensor helps to iron out some focus errors, which is a help to those simply "snapping".

Given Nikon’s stated aims however, and the type of user this system is designed for, the image and video quality is more than adequate and can be simply superb in favorable conditions

Tags: Cameras Nikon Compact system cameras Nikon 1 Nikon 1 J1

Nikon 1 J1 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:37:00 +0100

Nikon’s new system camera is the company's first for over fifty years, since the introduction of the Nikon F no less, and as such represents a true milestone for Nikon. The fact that the new system uses a 10.1-megapixel CX sensor, a new lens mount and arguably jumps on the coattails of the Panasonic and Olympus FourThirds format compact system, is perhaps a rather big gamble. Or is it?

The new Nikon 1 system camera uses an all-new CX format CMOS sensor and is distinct from the DX (APS-C sized) and the FX (full frame 35mm) format sensors Nikon has in the shops already. Bu the V1 is a compact mirror-less system camera that has, says Nikon, ease of use, compact design and image quality at its core. There are currently two versions, this, the V1 and the lower priced and lower specified J1.

The V1's key attributes combine compact design (in either black or white livery) with what Nikon claims is the world’s fastest AF system. It works by combining phase detection AF and contrast detection AF, on the sensor, with Nikon’s new EXPEED 3 image engine that ploughs through all the data.

The V1 is a combination of ultra-fast full-resolution shooting at up to 60fps, 1080 full HD video capture with the possibility of taking full-resolution stills during HD video recording. This sits alongside two stunning slow motion modes of 400fps and 1200fps. Add in the small size and all this becomes key reasons for the CX sensor format and capping the resolution to 10.1-megapixels, which helps make all that fast speed and data processing possible.

Another key attribute Nikon wanted to ensure it had a complete grip of in the 1 system is image quality. This camera (and the J1) are the way they are purely because Nikon wanted to combine all the elements mentioned so far, in a system that delivered the best balance of image quality, speed, easy use and compact size and it seems they have largely succeeded.

Build, Style and Handling

The V1 weighs just 294g, body only and sports a large 921,000-dot, 3-inch colour screen that is superb to use in all but the brightest of conditions. It’s backed up by a superb 0.47-inch, 1.44-million dot electronic viewfinder that’s certainly one of the nicest we've used, and that, like the monitor, provides a 100 percent field of view. Meanwhile, its great 17mm eyepoint, makes it eminently useable even wearing spectacles.

Build is robust and solid although it has to be said; the rather blocky looking styling is a little uninspiring. The kit we had included the system’s 10mm F/2.8 prime lens which is sharp and very nice to use and provides the equivalent field of view as a 27mm (35mm format) lens.

The CX sensor provides just 13.2 x 8.8mm of 4/3-ratio real estate for image capturing pixels and sits behind (an effective) glass shield anti dust reduction system. As is apparent, the CX sensor is markedly smaller than that employed by the Micro FourThirds system cameras from both Olympus and Panasonic that boast larger 18 x 13.5mm-sized sensors.

That said the CX’s 2.7x field of view magnification factor means the lenses developed for the new Nikon 1 system can be very compact indeed and still provide a good range of focal lengths without the bulk. For example, the system’s 10-30mm and 30-110mm VR zoom lenses provide a range 27mm to 297mm in relatively tiny optics. And so while size of the sensor and the magnification factor raised our eyebrows, it does not necessarily represent a drawback given the system’s primary ethos.

In terms of control, the top plate has three buttons, a shutter, a video capture and a square on/off switch, all to the right of the EVF. To the EVF’s left there’s a cover over the camera’s accessory hot shoe for accessories that include a neat new SB N5 Speedlight, a clever ME-1 microphone and an accessory GPS unit (the GP-N100) among others.

And it is in this respect that you realise how serious Nikon is about the new system. There’s already a relatively mature set of accessories, including the lenses mentioned above but additionally there’s a 10-100mm Nikkor VR PD-Zoom (power zoom) lens in the wings as well. An F-Mount adapter is also available so you can take advantage of any existing F-mount lenses you may have to hand, which broadens the appeal still further Although, using F-series lenses here makes the camera much clunker than perhaps it would otherwise be.

It’s worth noting the V1 lacks a built in flash unit (the J1 has a funky periscope flash system built in) and it also has rather unflattering camera strap lugs that seem to hark back to the 1970s. But when you get to the camera’s back plate we find the large screen and a smattering of camera controls that include the mode dial with just four settings, which firmly brings us back up-to-date in terms of design and functions.

The first mode dial position is for motion snapshot, a clever new feature that allows you to shoot a series of images with a slice of slow motion video sandwiched in between. It's fun and great for use played back on computer and online but is less useful for printing.

The next setting on the mode dial is the smart photo selector, a mode that automatically picks the “right” mode for the scene in front of the lens, and it gets this right, with macro, portrait, landscape all being chosen well. However, if in doubt, the cameras defaults to an auto mode so it still can hedge its bets.

Images and video are all stored onto the camera’s SD/SDHC/SDXC storage that sits under a flap on the camera base alongside the battery which disappointingly is only really good for about 300-shots.

Motion snapshot was great for snapping fleeting action, candid portraits of children for example. It's also good where you're just trying to get a snap, but to have little time to set up. This works because the camera starts capturing frames before you fully depress the shutter button, as well as capturing frames after the shutter button has been pressed. This all helps you to get a great shot.

Next up is the still image position, which as the name suggests is for ‘normal’ stills capture. The video capture position allows you to get into HD video and the two slow motion capture settings. The latter are accessed via the function button that sits above a small, rubberised grip pad adjacent the mode dial.

Functions, Menus and More

The Function button has different contextual menus for each mode. In still image capture you can choose between the electronic, electronic “Hi” and mechanical shutter modes. The two electronic shutter modes bring faster shutter speeds into play for more flexibility in a variety of shooting. However, it has a drawback in that using the electronic Hi setting you cannot change drive modes or access other features such as the AF/AE-Lock features, which is a shame.

In smart photo selector shooting there’s no additional features in the Function button menus. But in Motion Snapshot, you can apply four audio “themes” to the captured images and video, which include Beauty, Waves, Relaxation and Tenderness. Next to the Function button there’s a rather small and fiddly playback zoom button that magnifies images in playback or allows you to view thumbnails in grids of four, nine, 72 and calendar date options. The latter option is actually really rather helpful.

The lower half of the back plate control panel provides you with a rotating dial for fast scrolling of images in playback and scrolling menus options. It also tilts to activate the self timer/remote control modes, the auto exposure and auto focus lock system, the exposure compensation control and/or choose an AF mode.

The latter allows you to pick between continuous and single shot AF modes or the rather funky AF area mode that allows you to move a single AF point around the entire screen. With this, you can use any one of the 141 AF points available, great for macro when on a tripod, for example. There are 41 AF zones that can be employed in “normal” shooting that camera can choose for you. You can also override or use in combination with Face detection AF. Additionally you can choose to use a single, central AF point if all that other flexibility still fails to cut the metaphorical mustard.

Four further controls provide playback of shot footage or images, direct deletion of stored files, a display toggle button that switches from off, and basic to full data views. Similarly in playback, the display button will show images either uncluttered by any EXIF info, or with basic data or a combination of all the data, with a smaller thumb of the image plus a histogram.

The last button is the menu display button. It is here that the meat of this cameras controls reside, and to an extent it’s a rather frustrating experience because while the camera provides a point and shoot experience, albeit but one with a lot of fun and panache, the manual controls and other features are all hidden inside the menus.

Thankfully, the menus are simple to use having just three main pages, one each for playback, capture and settings. In each you get a clean scrollable series of options depending on the mode the camera is in providing full access to control over the manual shooting options, ISO settings, image quality and shutter type.

Other functions provide ways to adjust metering and white balance, image quality and resolution or RAW and JPEG capture (or both at the same time). You can choose to use Nikon’s Active D-Lighting system; incidentally it is just as accomplished here as on the V1’s larger DX and FX brethren, or there’s a interval timer option among other controls.

In playback you can choose to rate or protect images, apply D-Lighting retrospectively to shots or turn off the “rotate tall” command that otherwise spins images shot in the upright format.

In the Settings section, denoted by a spanner icon, you can get detailed information on the battery, time zone adjustments, HDMI device control for direct output of images in the camera through a complaint HD TV and apply flicker reduction to either 50Hz or 60Hz settings.

But because the manual control options are all within menus, it’s sometimes frustrating. While the camera’s ease of use is ideal for snappers out there, anyone that wants to use it in a more serious way, which in terms of performance it is perfectly capable of, will find all the control elements will necessitate frequent revisiting of the menus.

Focus and Metering

Nikon has made much of the system’s hybrid focusing system and its speed. And it is, indeed, very fast. Interestingly, while using the camera, the speed is not immediately obvious whether the focus speed is, well, faster than other camera or not. But once you start shooting fast moving subjects or subjects moving across, or towards, the camera you quickly realise that there are not many missed opportunities due to focus errors. The dual-phase and contrast detection AF systems, incidentally both housed within the sensor, work very well indeed.

The TTL metering system is also sensor-based and uses the usual matrix, centre-weighted and spot modes that provide a great balance for most shots. I found the matrix system struggled in some of the flat lighting, underexposing too often while the centre-weighted option was about the best balance overall for how I used the camera and my subjects. Spot metering uses a 2mm central circle of the selected AF zone, but given the size of the sensor I found the spot to be too large for very fine control of the point you wish to meter from.

Image and Video Quality

With such a relatively small sensor, the choice Nikon made to keep the resolution to the 10-megapixel mark was a good one. This is obvious both in terms of the speed the camera’s performance and in terms of image noise issues.

The all-new CX CMOS sensor surely benefits from everything Nikon has learnt from its FX and DX sensor cameras, so even shooting at the top sensitivity setting of 3200, noise is very well controlled but at the expense of significant amounts of detail. Meanwhile the RAWs reveal more detail but noise too, so shooting at ISO 3200 should be considered a setting of last resort.

However, up to ISO 800 shots are remarkably clean and detailed with ISO 1600 shots only slightly less so. Metering is good overall, but the spot metering zone is a little too big for precise control. In terms of the white balance control, things look very good indeed, with mixed lighting being handled well and the neon lights of Shanghai city’s skyline proving no real problem.

Detail is good and all the lenses we tested, all proving suitably sharp, with JPEGs looking slightly softer than we'd like by default, as do images taken at the full zoom end of the 30-110mm lens.

Some astute sharpening in software helps out here. Colour reproduction tends to be muted in the “standard” setting with vivid providing a bit more punch; the one major problem we did find was with bright point highlights, which bleached out any detail very quickly indeed – even when using the D-Lighting system pre and post shooting.

As for the HD video capture, the moving image is detailed and sharp though rather jerky in playback although the built-in microphones are not going to be ideal if you have a top notch surround sound system. They do pick up loads of wind noise, but are otherwise adequate.

The 400fps five-second slow motion mode provides video with 640x240-pixels and is gives a wonderful ethereal quality with an almost 3D feel. The resolution means it’s only really large enough for use on a computer screen. However, it’s fun and offers an entirely new perspective on action shots.

Ditto the 1200fps video mode. Here resolution drops to just 320x120-pixels and so lacks detail and true finesse, and yet seeing action at such slow speeds is nevertheless quite mesmerizing.

In terms of sharpness, the fast focusing system does its job in brighter conditions where the V1 will easily hold its own with larger DSLRs, even ones from Nikon. However, in lower light the performance can become more hit and miss.

Given Nikon’s stated aims however, and the type of user this system is designed for, the image and video quality is more than adequate and can be simply superb in favorable conditions.

Tags: Cameras Nikon Compact system cameras Nikon 1 Nikon 1 V1

Nikon 1 V1 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Wed, 19 Oct 2011 10:05:00 +0100

Nikon’s Coolpix S1100pj is only the second camera in the world to feature and integrated projector, the first being Nikon’s Coolpix 1000pj; this is its update and replaces the previous model in the Coolpix range.

The new Nikon Coolpix S1100pj has in its heart a 40% brighter, 14-lumen projector with a built-in stand and a much improved 3-inch touchscreen that combines a simple control interface for access to menus as well as allowing you to touch a relevant area of the screen to focus at that point and quickly take a snap in a single touch.

Another one-touch operation is for shooting HD 720p movies with sound, of course, and fast playback for both stills and video via the built in projector, of which more shortly. The camera’s other main features include a 14.1-megapixel sensor and a 5x zoom lens with Vibration Reduction (VR) built-in to help reduce camera shake, which it does rather well.

Available in black (tested here) silver, green and a rather smashing purple colour, the one immediate issue we believe might be the camera’s price, which at a penny short of £350, means you certainly pay for the addition of that clever but costly projector.

Nevertheless, the camera is fairly easy to use for most tasks, with a large shutter release and combined zoom control, on/off button and projector focus/on/off dial on the top plate. Each of these key controls is simple to use particularly the projector focusing achieved with a simple twist of its focus dial. A small stand flips out on the base of the camera and allows you to stand the camera on a flat surface and project onto a blank wall very easily.

The projector feature was a real winner over Christmas (when we tested the camera) drawing gasps of amazement from friends and family alike, but projection quality is only okay in anything other than a darkened room, particularly the video projection, but it still lacks detail compared with looking at images on a PC, for example.

Further gasps of amazement followed however, when we revealed to the watching audience how much the camera costs, but to be fair, this is a truly amazing bit of technology that certainly appeals to the younger generation and has real potential in nightclubs and at parties where the fun element you pay for in the projector really hits home. 

The business user is another area Nikon have tapped into here because in a nice touch, the camera can project any computer file, be it image, video or, a text document. Broadening the appeal of the S1100pj into the business community is a good idea as it could easily be used for small slideshows or presentations and the fact there’s still no competition from any of the camera makers gives it a real chance to grow into this market sector. And when looked at in this way, the increased price of the camera, thanks to the projector, is far less than you’d pay for a “proper” business projector and the incumbent kit associated with that. (Sony have just announced a Handycam with integrated projector, but that’s yet to hit the market.)

The rest of the camera is however fairly run of the mill. The lens is ensconced vertically inside the camera’s left corner behind a large protective shield that slips out of the way when you turn the camera on. The built-in flash sits centrally on the front of the camera and while it’s small and underpowered, the location away from the lens axis should help keep redeye issue at bay, but it does not always prove to be the case, as redeye did appear in some of my shots, even with the redeye reduction flash mode switched on.

The projector’s port is directly below the flash but the only other external controls are the one-touch video button, a button to get to the Scene shooting modes (there are no manual controls, as such, apart from +/-2EV of exposure compensation) and a playback button, each of which sit on the back next to the screen.

Two touchscreen tabs on the left and bottom of the screen access controls for flash for the former and camera settings for the latter; flash control of auto, redeye reduction, off and slow synchro modes are on offer with the lower tab providing control for the resolution, focusing modes (including a clever smile timer that waits for everyone in shot to smile before firing the shutter automatically) among other items.

These include Face Detection AF allows this technology to also carry out Blink Detection that warns you if anyone has their eyes shut in a shot allowing you to reshoot the image. Movie setting are here, as well as controls over portrait shooting where you can apply three levels of skin “softening” to help get a more flattering effect.

Deeper controls are got at via a small spanner icon where monitor settings, date imprint, AF assist set up, VR control, a movie light, sound settings and memory format functions can all be sorted, among other features such as the controls over the blink detection warning system.

A Scene mode virtual button activates a new menu with four options: Easy Auto mode, where the camera picks the “correct” setting for the scene being shot (macro or portrait for example); a full Auto mode, then Smart Portrait where the camera can assess the person and the camera orientation among other things to get a good portrait snap with the minimum of fuss.

Confusingly, another Scene button then activates a list of a further 17 settings such as panoramic, landscape, sports and museum modes, to name a few, for the more usual camera modes typically offered on most cameras in some combination thereof.

A question mark appears on this screen too and this activates a Help Selection system; touch an option, such as Landscape and a new page appears offering information on the subject and how the camera will set itself to deal with scene mode you’ve selected. In Landscape you’re informed: “Use for landscapes pictures. The camera focuses at infinity”, which should give you a good idea of what the Help system has to offer. Either way, novice or more accomplished, this is a neat and helpful system and provides real back up for the novice user unfamiliar with the settings or the camera’s modes and what they mean.

The camera’s 28-140mm 5x zoom NIKKOR lens is sharp and offers a versatile focal length range while the 14.1-megapixel RGB CCD sensor has too many pixels for my liking as image noise becomes a problem at settings above ISO 800; the top sensitivity setting of ISO 3200 is almost unusable.

The skin softening system can be applied at capture and in playback via the projector but it can be destructive to finer details when shooting with it on, so use with caution. Colour and detail at lower sensitivities is very good though at ISO 400, shadow detail is marred by image noise and blockiness.

We also noted highlights seem to be compromised at ISO 400 and over, particularly if skin softening is applied as well, so a little experimentation was needed to get a good balance between the softening, sensitivity and detail in highlights.

On more general scenes, such as landscapes or when snapping indoors without flash, the camera fared much better but we still worry about the lack of finer detail at low ISO and full zoom where some of our ISO 80 images in daylight and outdoors of a snowy landscape, were oddly soft at full zoom. It was not camera shake though, as the VR was on and shutter speeds were easily fast enough to cope, at around 1/1000th sec.

White balance (WB) control was impressive, even under mixed lighting, so the WB performance is certainly very good indeed so that’s a big plus in our book and all those images and videos are stored on SD/SDHC/SDXC storage placed alongside the battery under a flap on the camera’s base; there’s an additional 79MB of internal storage as well good for just a couple of snaps.

Related links:

• Photos - Hands-on with the Nikon Coolpix S1100pj

Tags: Cameras Compact cameras Nikon Nikon Coolpix S1100pj 14 megapixels

Nikon Coolpix S1100pj originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:24:30 +0000

The Nikon Coolpix S5100 is stylish new 12.2-megapixel digital compact that combines small size with big features, including HD 720p video, Vibration Reduction and Nikon’s clever Smart Portrait system, so just how well does it perform?

The new S5100 looks every bit the stylish yet very compact camera that combines good looks with good features. Available in six colours, black (tested here) pink, red, silver, purple and blue and costing £179.99, there’s a broad choice of finishes for most tastes and the price level makes it competitive too.

Key kit you’ll be buying if you do plump for one of these little beauties starts with the 12.2-megapixel RGB CCD, a 1/2.3-inch sensor that sits behind a versatile 28-140mm F/2.7- F/6.6, 5x optical zoom that provides scope for most general snapping scenes. The lens also has Nikon’s Vibration Reduction (VR) anti camera shake system, which works very well and provides around two stops of leeway in terms of hand holding shots at lower shutter speeds or at longer zoom ratios. 

A HD video mode is a must these days and so the S5100 has a 720p HD video capture mode with sound, that provides a smooth video capture performance even if it rather lacks in detail. Eighteen scene modes that combine the usual modes such as landscape, portrait and night scene with sunset, dusk and dawn and panoramic modes among others. Nikon’s Smart Portrait mode backs this up and helps get attractive portrait shots by applying a degree of skin softening at either high, normal or low levels with an off mode to back that up. Set to the top setting however and detail can be very compromised, which is worth bearing in mind if you don’t want to loose detail in more than just a person skin!

Smart Portrait also combines a Smile Timer with Blink Detection that provides an automatic mode that fires the shutter when your subject is smiling with a system that alerts you if the person has blinked in a shot allowing you to quickly reshoot the photo. Now this is clever and apart from the caveat on image detail at higher skin softening levels, it’s a real plus to have at your disposal particularly when at, say, a party or when in a nightclub where there’s not always time to get everything needed coordinated properly for a fun photo.

Face detection AF and subject tracking allow you to quickly get sharp snaps of people or track them moving across the frame keeping them sharp for the moment you press the shutter button while a new flash system looks good but as is common on such cameras the flash is rather underpowered so ideal only as a fill-in in daylight or smaller scenes in lower light conditions. New motion detection and tripod detection systems provide further back up and stability options that dovetail into the camera’s VR system very nicely indeed, helping warn you if you need to use the VR (if it’s off) or a tripod for example.

There’s also an auto mode detection system that when active, is denoted by a sweet little “Scene” with a heart icon on the screen that changes to macro, portrait, landscape or whatever the camera decides the scene before should be recorded as. It a system that works well enough with the least reliable setting appearing to be the Macro mode which can be fooled by smaller subjects with lots of detail.

In terms of handling, the camera’s small size does not compromise its use, though the on/off button that sits next to the combined shutter release and zoom lever is a tad small for larger fingers. The camera’s 2.7-inch colour screen is very nice to use even in brighter, direct sunlight and as there’s no optical viewfinder, that’s a key aspect of the ease of use. Disappointingly however, the screen is not widescreen but the more usual 4:3 aspect ratio, but this is probably a nod towards helping keep the price down as well as an aid to retaining the camera’s svelte lines.

The remainder of the controls on the camera’s back includes the usual four-way jog control for flash, self-timer, exposure compensation and macro modes, as well as scrolling menus or images. An “OK” button in its centre is used to confirm menu choices and pick your selected shooting options for example. A scene selection button advances you through the various shooting options and scene modes, including the Smart Portrait settings, but a complete lack of manual control, other than the +/- 2EV exposure compensation provides only a very small measure of control over difficult lighting.

A dedicated delete button sits alongside the Menu button while a playback button sits beneath a rather small and fiddly to use one touch video mode control. Press this once in any setting and the camera will start to shoot video, pressing it again switches it back to stills shooting mode. This is very simple and more importantly very fast to use so helps you snap or record footage quickly and easily.

This camera sits within Nikon’s new advertising blurb under the “I Am Fun” banner so it’s core targets are teenagers, families and given the range of colours it’s available in, almost certainly women. The 21mm thick, 135g weight make it handbag or pocket friendly too so this makes it an ideal choice.

The NIKKOR 5x zoom lens pops quickly out from the face of the camera when you turn it on, but cannot be zoomed during video capture, not unusual perhaps for this type of camera but rather disappointing none the less. The overall startup time however is rather disappointing at around seconds; that said once it is on, the camera is responsive enough to keep most snappers happy.

The small lithium ion rechargeable battery sits under a flap on the camera’s base that also comprises a slot for the SD/SDHC external storage with about 32MB of internal storage backing this up, though that’s only enough for one or two shots at most. Interestingly, the battery is charged in camera, via a USB connection to a supplied power plug or perhaps via a laptop if you’re on your travels. The lack of a charger also helps keep the price down as it minimises peripherals the camera needs and as it adds versatility to the charging methods as well that’s no bad thing in our view.

Image quality at the top resolution JPEG setting is good offering bags of detail though a tad more sharpening than the default setting available can help glean yet more detail out of my shots, so perhaps this Nikon’s sharpness is a tad on the conservative side.

White balance and colour were well controlled and represented the subjects photographed well enough with colour on the natural side of bright. The sensitivity settings available top out at ISO 3200, but this is ambitious and although not as bad as the Nikon Coolpix S1100pj also reviewed, image noise is evident from ISO 400 and above; ISO 800 is just about usable and both ISO 1600 and 3200 should be left alone.

Highlights can be quickly burned out in brighter scenes and shadow areas became blocky even at lower sensitivities and pixel fringing was also an in high contrast scenes. In gloomier scenes, images appeared to be quite flat and, dare we say it, murky-looking, although it is made worse by higher sensitivity settings, keep the ISO below ISO 400 and it’s not as problematic. 

Metering is good overall; we found the best balance attained by using the centre-weighted mode for more general scenes, the matrix metering mode strangely seemed to less reliable.

Tags: Cameras Compact cameras Digital cameras Nikon 12 megapixels nikon coolpix s5100

Nikon Coolpix S5100 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 14 Jan 2011 10:28:04 +0000

Pentax’s K-5 DSLR is its new semi-pro model built around the Pentax K-7 top end model. Like that model, the K-5 has a host clever kit for the high-end or advanced amateur including some neat improvements and an excellent overall specification and huge range of compatible Pentax K-mount lenses; its ruggedised body and lens means the K-5 is a very good camera indeed.

Key competitors for this market sector include Olympus’ new E-5, the Nikon D7000 and D300s and Canon’s EOS 60D. To that end the K-5 is one tough hombre with a weather proofed body inherited from its top end sibling, the K-7, to which it appears to be identical but its 16.3-megapixel sensor is actually the same as that found in both Sony’s A55 and Nikon’s D7000 models. The K-5 has, however, a few new and interesting tweaks over the K-7 that make it stand out and compete more effectively against the competition.

The most notable of these is an improved sensitivity range, which now stretches from ISO 80 to ISO 51200. Combine that with a much-improved SAFOX IX auto focusing set up and a 77-zone matrix metering system and suddenly the K-5 starts to look every bit the semi-pro model it’s meant to be.

The inclusion of a 1080p Full HD movie mode is probably more or less what you’d expect from today's DSLRs but is able to shoot at 25fps, what’s more impressive, however, particularly given the high resolution sensor, is the (up to) 7fps stills shooting mode.

The K-5 weighs in at 660g (without battery or SD/SDHC memory card) and with dimensions of 97 x 131 x 73mm; it has the same dust, weather and cold proofed bodywork as found on the K-7. It has a stainless steel and magnesium and steel alloy body and a shutter designed for “100,000 releases” says Pentax. In the hand therefore, it feels nicely weighted and very strong.

The sculpted hand grip provides bags of grip too thanks to its rubberised surfaces, giving the overriding impression the K-5 is as capable of cracking Christmas walnuts with a single tap as it will be at taking stunning images with a single snap, no matter what the weather conditions.

To activate the camera there’s a Nikon-alike on/off switch that surrounds the nicely weighted shutter release, itself sat in front of a large (back lit) data LCD and ISO and exposure compensation buttons. Over the other side of the hot shoe and rather underpowered pop-up flash is a neat mode dial and nestled below, the metering mode switch.

A locking button on the top of the mode dial prevents accidental changes in use and while a little fiddly to use, it is all so well put together it just helps ooze handling confidence. Here you can choose between a suite of creative modes including Bulb, X-Sync flash and a combined Shutter and Aperture Priority mode that adjusts the ISO to ensure you get an as metered exposure.

The usual Program, Shutter and Aperture Priority and Manual modes are there too as is the green point and shoot mode and the Movie shooting mode. But more on these shortly.

On the back we find the 100% field-of-view, 0.92x magnification optical viewfinder and this is both bright a crisp with a sliding dioptre adjustment. The 100% field of view means what you see through the finder is exactly what will appear in the photo you take and so you (in theory at least) should never suffer from unwanted elements creeping into your shots, which is a big bonus indeed.

The superbly detailed and clear 3-inch colour screen boasts 920,000 dots providing more than enough detail for critical focus assessment and is okay to use for both Live View (LV) and when assessing settings or in menus in bright conditions.

Other controls include the LV button AF selection and activation controls plus controls for the impressive self timer/drive modes, white balance (WB), flash and capture modes the latter includes adjustable settings for bright, monochrome, natural and portrait modes among others.

A central “OK” button selects choices you make in the menu button at the bottom of the back plate alongside which sits the Info button. Here you can fire up a range of display choices including direct access controls over camera settings, a clever auto level head up display or just information on current camera settings.

The direct access system is navigated using the four-way jog buttons and OK button so perfectly sensible, ditto menus and settings within menus, all are adjusted via the four-way jog buttons.

We used the K-5 in cold temperatures, around -2 on a day’s shoot at Leeds Castle in Kent, for example, but the K-5 can operate without any problems in temperatures down to -10, according to Pentax and this is something of great importance for battery life as the cold affects that more than almost anything else. Needless to say, the battery was fine and is still going strong on it’s first full charge and after over 300-shots.

While the K-5 is aimed at the more advanced user, it does not feel too intimidating, even though it sports a lot of external controls (25 in all) many of which have multiple uses depending on the mode you’re in or what you’re trying to adjust. But the layout is good and logical so you never have the feeling you’ll be overwhelmed by the task of camera set-up.

Thankfully the K-5 has neat explanations for custom settings within its menus, which helps. The info display also provides icons and text for each set-up option, this helps familarise you with the controls quickly too and there are five user programmable settings as well, so you can effectively set the camera five different ways for oft used settings depending on what you’re shooting.

The SMC Pentax-DA 18-55mm standard zoom lens used for this test is, well, standard fare in terms of its features, though build matches the bodywork being protected from dirt and water ingress and it has special easy clean coatings on the glass.

But the focal range is really only good for very general shooting chores and the F/3.5-F/5.6 aperture range is slow, so, if you’re serious about your photography you’ll need to treat this lens as a “getting started” optic only, the fact that the K-5 can use all Pentax K-Mount optics however, means there’s a huge range of older and new lenses out there making it a massively versatile system indeed.

The camera’s relative complexity is largely hidden well until you get into the menus, whereupon a lot of the features at your disposal reveal themselves either in the four banks of custom settings or through the many possible set-up options for items such as highlight and shadow compensation adjustments, HDR snapping or the digital filters and extended bracketing options, which include bracketing for everything from the WB to saturation, hue and contrast among others.

The digital filters are fun digital processes the camera can perform such as apply a retro look to a shot, applying a soft focus effect, a toy camera “look” and other fun stuff such as isolating specific colours to a starburst or fisheye effect.

Disappointingly none of these features (or the cross processing effect of the HDR capture modes) can be used if shooting in either the Pentax PEF RAW or Adobe DNG RAW modes, even if combining them with JPEGs!

Now, we can understand this thinking to a degree because if shooting RAWs you would not want to apply a digital effect to it, otherwise it is then not a RAW file. But why not apply the effect to a JPEG and shoot a RAW too, just as you can when shooting on an Olympus, such as the E30? On an Olympus DSLR you can combine Olympus Art Filters (their version of Pentax’s digital filters) as JPEGs with RAW.

Apart from the usual array of shooting options mentioned earlier, the K-5 has a couple of other modes that are both unusual (at least on non-Pentax gear) and useful. The first is the Aperture and Shutter priority shooting mode and the second is Sensitivity Priority mode. The latter will select an appropriate aperture and shutter speed combo for the ISO you’ve set, whom you can shift in half or 1/3rd of a stop steps via the rear control dial.

This mode allows you to quickly set an ISO (say you need to consider the impact of any potential noise issues (more on noise later) without having to tinker in menus which is ideal in rapidly changing lighting, for example.

In Shutter and Aperture Priority the opposite happens; the camera picks an ISO based on your shutter and aperture settings, and this is very cool as it provides a third way (the ISO sensitivity) to control exposure and Pentax is, we believe, still the only camera manufacturer that provides this useful and powerful feature, something that first appeared on Pentax’s K10D and then the K20D.

There is so much in this camera that is good yet there are another couple of standouts that include the excellent focus confirmation system the camera employs when shooting LV shots. Once the camera has focused on the scene it instantly activates an enlarged section of the scene that has been focused upon. This lets you quickly check it has picked the correct part of the scene and check it will be sharply rendered too.

Yes it ads a modicum of time to the focus process but we found it useful and a time saver overall in not having to go back and take another shot, particularly useful for portraits and/or macro work to give a couple of examples.

In LV mode, the Info button can also be used to magnify the subject by six times too, this is great when undertaking tripod mounted work and as indicated earlier, in LV mode you can adjust most of the main shooting controls, including aperture, exposure compensation and ISO all directly from the 3-inch display too.

One of the other key aspects of this Pentax is of course its ability to shoot Full HD movies with sound; the fourth Pentax to shoot HD movies it is, nevertheless, the first to do it at 1080p.

The camera can record at up to 25fps and shoots in the Motion JPEG AVI format, able to create clips of 25-minutes in length or around 4GB. Downsides include only mono sound recording, but there is a socket for an external stereo microphone, which you’ll have to buy separately. Unfortunately, you’ll also need to ensure the camera’s mode dial in set to the Movie mode position before you can record a movie, unlike many of the camera’s competing models, which can start recording at the press of a button.

Adding further to the movie making complexity, you’ll also need to either press the AF button on the back or half press the shutter release to carry out focusing beforehand too, then fully depress it to start recording. A further press of the shutter release ends recording. You’ll have to manually focus if you need to change the focus point while shooting (Nikon’s D7000 model has live AF during movie recording) so pre-focusing is the key here and certainly not the most user-friendly option.

Aperture settings are fixed during recording (unless you use a lens with a separate aperture ring, rather than the body integral control) and you cannot change shutter speeds mid-shoot either so you rely entirely on the camera’s auto-exposure and metering system to get it right.

Under a weatherproofed cover is space for external storage on the handgrip side of the camera, below is the equally weather protected cable release port. On the opposite side of the camera is large ruggedised flap that hides the AV out, DC in and HDMI ports, the latter for direct connection to a HD TV with the (optional) HDMI mini-cable, it a shame that’s not included in the kit given the price you’re paying.

One of the other features we really think is useful given the camera’s compatibility with older optics is a feature that could be a bit of a bridesmaid given all the other kit to shout about. It is the AF Adjustment, housed deep within the custom settings.

Sounds boring but we have to disagree and here’s why. If you own older or pre-digital Pentax lenses and you want to use them on the K-5 but you’re not sure they’ll focus correctly on a DSLR, this feature provides a powerful tool to set-up and ensure they focus correctly. You can alter the focus point of each lens using a focus target for critical assessment, then test it again and repeat until you’ve adjusted the lens to focus properly, saving time (and probably money) in not having to send the camera and lens to be calibrated by the manufacturers and saves on buying new optics too.

The camera is responsive and particularly fast when focusing thanks to the new 11-zone SAFOX IX AF setup and you can keep shooting at 7fps. But slightly disappointing is the time it takes to write a RAW file, around 2 seconds on my tests (with a JPEG for good measure) so you can continuously shoot 20 RAWs or 22 JPEGs which is still rather good given the 16-megapixel resolution files you’ll be buffering over to the card with a RAW around 15.5MB and high quality JPEGs of around 6.6MB each it is no mean feat.

Once you’ve captured images, the K-5 also has a broad range of playback options that are particularly useful, you can compare two images side-by-side, with a zoom mode while you have RAW development tools as well for JPEG or TIFF format copies of the RAW all done in-camera.

You can set-up an index print from up to 36-shots while a very useful feature is one that allows you to set the camera’s WB to an image you’ve already recorded. The Save as Manual WB mode is a powerful mode and one that can be great for helping sort out any colour casts derived from mixed lighting situations, for example.

And so we arrive at the nitty gritty of any camera test, the image assessment. Having used the K-5 for a few weeks now, we can report we’re very impressed. Noise at higher ISOs is well controlled, in fact apart from some slight mottling at ISO 800; noise does not really appear until you get to ISO 1600. At ISO 3200 and 6400 noise is detectable but not intrusive viewed on screen.

Viewed at 100% on screen and images shot at ISO 12800, 25600 and 51200 have noise issues running from bad to very bad indeed and while it’s nice to be able to shoot in near darkness, the images are not much to write home about we’re afraid.

Metering performance is good, although we found the 77-segment setup underexposes a little, switch to centre-weighted and it is less so.

Having said that, colour and saturation are very good across the board, though JPEGs seem quite heavily saturated at the default “Natural” setting. The level of detail is very good indeed partly due to the new 16.3-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor although it’s worth saying here, better lenses (than the 18-55mm standard zoom supplied and tested here) will glean even finer levels of detail and presumably will also help reduce the amount blue and red fringing evident on some high contrast parts of our images, the latter being just about the only demerit we can think of in this area.

Tags: Cameras DSLR cameras Pentax Pentax K-5 16 megapixels

Pentax K-5 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 10:51:00 +0000

The Nikon Coolpix S80 is Nikon’s latest touchscreen controlled digital compact that features a 14-megapixel CCD sensor, a large, high-resolution (819,000 dots) 3.5-inch OLED touch sensitive screen and a 720p HD movie mode with stereo sound.

The first impression the S80 conveys is one of attractive minimalism, the ultra-compact styling looks very nice indeed and yet, as we’ll see, it is not without flaws. The S80 also gives a strong impression of being born of a smartphone, such as the ubiquitous iPhone, thanks to both its shape and the large OLED touchscreen. This screen is the key component to, well, just about everything on the new camera, as it is both the viewing and composing tool as well as the user’s main interface; the touchscreen drives everything.

On the camera’s front there’s a slide away panel that has been given a clever, smooth-yet-grippy surface to help use it; the Nikon logo is also slightly raised to help you grip when you pull it aside to power the camera and reveal the lens, a tiny (it must be said, underpowered) flash, the stereo microphones and a small AF assist lamp.

The problem with the sliding panel became apparent within minutes. Pulling the camera from a camera bag for the first time, a tiny bit of dirt had lodged under the panel and this dirt proceeded to scratch its way across the face of the camera every time we used it. Despite efforts to minimise the problem - and ages trying to clean under the front sliding panel - the face of the camera is now scratched. No matter what we did, we could not stop dust and dirt from collecting under the panel, so beware.

The camera’s rear is totally dominated by the high-resolution OLED touchscreen. However, the touch screen’s sensitivity is not on a par with, well, the aforementioned iPhone for a start and like the scratched face of the camera, it too gets scratched easily.

The sensitivity issue (or rather the lack thereof) meant we needed to use either multiple presses to activate the mode or feature of choice or it would register the presses slowly, not relaying the information to the camera’s brain fast enough, so you’d end up going into the wrong mode by mistake.

The biggest problem with the S80 in terms of control is that all “hard” controls have been subjugated entirely, the one “hard” button on this camera is the shutter release, and as we’ll see, even this is redundant in certain modes. The shutter release is however large and nice to use, if you do use it that is.

We write that because all the shooting options and shooting controls are (or can be) displayed on the screen, where the 4:3 ratio of the sensor displays the scene to be shot very crisply and it’s easy to see even in bright conditions too, which is actually a big plus of the OLED technology.

Soft buttons feature on both sides and the bottom of the screen as well, and if you want to shoot at 16:9 aspect ratio (the same ratio as the screen) the resolution drops to 10-megapixels in doing so. 

As discussed, power up comes from the sliding cover, but the lack of a hard playback button means in order to look at images on the camera you must slide the cover over to turn the camera on to get at those images, which are stored on the SD/SDHC external storage or the S80’s 79MB of in-built storage, the latter only good for 11-top resolution images.

Said storage is slotted under a flap on the side of the camera alongside the rechargeable battery that must be charged (by PC or by charger) within the camera via the supplied USB cable and akin to a mobile phone.

Disappointingly, the 35-175mm 5x zoom lens, which has one element using Nikon’s premium ED (Extra Dispersion) glass, is nowhere near as flexible as that used on the S80’s forbear, the S70. That camera had a more flexible 28-140mm zoom. The S80’s lens is vertically stacked inside the camera body so does not protrude on power up, helping keep things compact and helps improve the camera start up time too.

However the maximum aperture range of F/3.6 to F/4.8 is not particularly bright, and while a built-in neutral density filter helps avoid overexposure (and as with most small digital compacts) there’s no actual physical aperture to control depth of field, so control of depth of field is out.

Although, you do get Nikon’s excellent image stabilisation system, or Vibration Reduction (VR), that uses a sensor shift system that is very effective and helps you get hand held shots in low light or longer zoom ratios without needing to bump up the ISO to levels that would affect image quality due to noise, which we’ll discuss shortly.

The lens is zoomed using two soft buttons on the lower right side of the screen, which is both slow and needs you to use a rather contorted finger position; you cannot zoom and have your index finger on the shutter release! Another problem here was to safely grasp the camera while zooming; the fingers of the left hand kept straying in front of the lens, even though the lens is positioned away from the left extremity (from the front) of the camera’s face. We had to reshoot several shots that featured one of our fat digits. 

A soft button at the bottom of the screen activates a pop-up menu of options including self-timer, resolution settings and the neat Touch Shutter system. When active you can touch the screen at any point and the camera will focus at that point and fire the shutter immediately. This is fast and great for getting things snapped quickly, depending, however, on the screen’s variability in terms of its touch sensitivity.

A very useful subject tracking AF mode where you touch something within the scene you’re shooting and the camera will lock the focus to it, joins the Touch Shutter. Once locked on, if the subject moves, so does the focus point tracking it unerringly across the frame.

A final focus mode is a simple Touch AF/AE set up, which, in other words is an AF point selection by touch mode - the shutter does not fire. It must be said however, that the focus system does not like low contrast scenes, any bright light or glare as again, the focusing system is challenged. Backlit subjects and the focusing is challenged and anything moves too quickly in the frame, even when tracking AF is used the focusing system is challenged. Use of the shutter release instead of these touchscreen AF modes to set the focus point, and things are both slower and not much better! 

ISO, drive mode and white balance are also adjusted from the bottom pop-up menu, as well as the exposure compensation control. However, accurate use of this tool is very difficult indeed as sliding the compensation slider that appears (you get +/-2EV) is frustratingly inaccurate. The slider needs to be bigger to make it easier to use for both those with fat fingers and due to the vagaries of the screen’s sensitivity.

To the left side of the screen you get a flash mode soft button with options that include night portrait with flash, to forced and auto flash. Flash is joined by a macro mode soft button and this is a disappointment as the closest focus point is a measly 7cms and zooming does not help as the reduced aperture as you zoom in means slower shutter speeds, and an increased likelihood of camera shake even with VR switched on.

At the top left of the touchscreen are the playback and camera shooting mode soft buttons. The former we dealt with earlier, but a couple of extra tools appear in playback. You can quickly assign a score to your images (zero to five stars) from a pop-out on the right or you can tinker with the image via a pop-up menu from the bottom.

Here you can add images to folders, delete, use a slide show, lock, print and edit your shots, all are possible. The edit option provides a series of quite powerful options from saturation and exposure control to cloning, adding frames or removing elements, all in camera. You also get Nikon’s excellent D-Lighting and Quick Retouch modes to help too. In playback, cleverly, the screen allows you to use “gestures”, where sweeping your fingers across images will scroll through them while “pinching” the screen to enlarge or reduce a section of the displayed image.

The shooting mode soft button activates yet another menu - providing access to the auto, easy auto and scene mode selector. In the latter you get 17-scene modes filled with the usual choices from portrait and landscape on to food, panoramic (disappointingly without auto stitching) and firework modes, among others.

Smart portrait is yet another shooting option (but it’s actually a real boon) within the shooting mode menu and is akin to Face AF. It recognises faces and when they’re focused, it takes a picture for you immediately, which is fast and very useful as it also senses the camera’s orientation and so can optimise the shot for either landscape or portrait format pictures.

The S80’s main set-up options can all be reached in both playback and shooting modes by hitting a small spanner icon. Therein you find the extra choices for date and time set up, storage formatting, VR settings (on, Hybrid - a combination of sensor shift and high sensitivity are combined - and off), TV settings such as automatic, auto HDMI detection and HDMI device control options and PAL movie output too. There’s a blink warning tool as well, which can help reduce shots taken with people with their eyes shut, as the camera will alert you if anyone in a shot has their eyes closed, so you can quickly re-shoot the image.

And so, the Coolpix S80 combines a host of neat functions and features within a software controlled interface making the camera’s ethos of point and shooting a reality for subjects with people to the fore. But what are the images and the video quality actually like?

In terms of still image quality, the S80 performs best in bright conditions and on more general snaps or those where people are in the frame. This is partly down to the camera’s light measuring tools - of which more shortly - and the way the camera has plenty of snapping features designed to help take people pictures, such as the Smart Portrait and the Touch Shutter modes.

Colour capture is good, though on some shots of autumn leaves the colour seemed to be boosted beyond the natural, which was a little odd as we’d not changed anything in order to do that, so that’s still a mystery. The white balance is good and provides good control to shots under the correct WB settings for the type of ambient light. Mixed lighting is less accurate, but not bad overall.

Sharpness is rather inconsistent, and we’re not sure if it’s a combination of the lens or the focusing being slightly off, but either way, it’s at its best when snapping general scenes. It’s when we get to the sensitivity and ISO control that things get more worrying. If you don’t control the ISO, leaving the ISO Auto mode to its devices, it will use whatever sensitivity it can to get a properly exposed, shake free shot, which in the face of it is good. But if ISO Auto is given its head, noise can become an issue and detail drops dramatically as higher sensitivities are used, as we’ll see.

The S80 houses an RGB CCD sensor and can achieve ISOs of up to 6400, but disappointingly, noise is evident in all shots above ISO 200 but above ISO 800, noise gets worse and ISOs higher than that and the word we’d use is “bad”, at best. Set to ISO 1600 and 3200, then the word is “rubbish” while for ISO 6400, images are basically unusable. Given Nikon’s pedigree in limiting noise issues on its DSLRs, the S80 could really do with some of that techno trickery here, or it should be provided with a CMOS sensor, whose noise characteristics are less problematic.

Unfortunately, the metering system employed by the S80 is rather hit and miss too. We believe it’s marred partly by the Neutral density filter that’s automatically employed on bright scenes to prevent overexposure and by the fact the area being metered is either too central or very small; only slight movements of the camera around a bright light source (when composing) can make dramatic differences to your shot, which becomes either wildly under or overexposed.

It is underexposure that seems the norm however and we had to dial in 1/3rd of exposure compensation in order to get a chance of a properly exposed shot for most scenes. The noise problems and metering foibles really take the gloss of the S80’s image performance.

HD movies fair better with detail being very good and noise issues not so intrusive overall, but the stereo speakers pick up mechanical noises from the lens focusing and from your fingers moving over the camera as you shoot, while the metering seems to have similar problems to stills shooting it’s not as dramatic.

Tags: Camera Compact cameras Digital cameras Nikon Nikon Coolpix S80 14 megapixels

Nikon Coolpix S80 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 25 Nov 2010 10:46:00 +0000

The G12 is Canon's new premium PowerShot digital compact and while it inherits most of the key feature of its predecessor, the G11, it also builds on these with some neat new equipment. The new kit includes a control dial on the front for enhanced handling, 720p HD movie capture, Hybrid Image Stabilisation and SDXC external storage compatibility.

The PowerShot G12 is a chunky beast and although blocky in style, the camera is replete with advanced shooting features. It also boasts retro-style controls across the top plate, one on the left for exposure compensation (+/- 2EV), and a nested double dial for shooting modes, including a full suite of manual controls as well as auto modes, dual custom settings and sensitivity settings up to ISO 3200, more on these later.

Of course, in terms of handling, you get the on/off button and a combined shutter release with lens zoom control, and each of these controls are sensibly placed and easy to use, particularly with illuminated indexes for the exposure compensation and ISO settings via orange LEDs; the on/off button is illuminated using an attractive green LED.

The squared off lines of the G12 are lightened by a slender handgrip that is designed to aid handling further along with the excellent 2.8-inch multi-angle 461,000-dot LCD that is great for composing and focus assessment too, but it's also a real boon shooting at high or low angles and is also great for close up work.

But it is the grip that worries us, as it's rather too small. The result, particularly when you use the new control dial on the front is the camera feels unsteady in the hand and while the shutter release is nicely weighted, as is the zoom lever surrounding it, the overall effect leaves you feeling less than confident, particularly about dropping the camera!

Cleverly though, you can set-up the camera so that you can use either the new front control or the rotating adjustment control on the camera back for adjustments, so there are multiple options available for using and handling the G12 and that's a big plus.

The G12 can be thought of as a professional snapper’s back-up or as an enthusiast's DSLR-lite snapper because its features and usability fit well within the DSLR bracket. Another significant aspect of the G12 is its excellent build quality, something that is characteristic of all the “Gs” and certainly the stocky build and strong design give it definite “walnut crackabilty”.

Other headline features include a crisp Canon 5x optical zoom lens, which has a versatile focal range offering a 28mm wide end with a 140mm full zoom. Lens distortion, overall, is not significant, but there's slight barrel distortion at the wide zoom.

The lens' aperture range still does not reach the dizzy, F/2 heights that were available to the old PowerShot G6, but with a maximum aperture range of F/2.8 to F/4.5 it still allows for some control over depth of field. 

One other element that's significant in terms of its inclusion is a “proper” optical viewfinder, which backs up the display. It's clear and crisp and has a good dioptre adjustment and while it’s certainly true it lacks the data feedback available on the display, it helps when trying to conserve power from the NB-7L rechargeable battery pack. Incidentally, even after almost a week of use, even in some very cold conditions, that battery is only just starting to show it needs recharging. 

Another of the new features is the 720p HD movie capture mode. The first question we had was “why not 1080p capture?” to which Canon retorts, that tech would make the G12 even more expensive than it already is, which seems sensible. But hang on, there are many less well-specified, less expensive digital compacts out there that have 1080p HD movie capture, but even so, the 720p mode the G12 has is still pretty good.

If you have a HD TV, the G12 has an HDMI port - this sits under a flap alongside an AV Out and USB 2.0 socket plus a port to attach a remote control - meaning you can watch video directly from the camera on your flat panel TV. The G12 can shoot superb quality moving images with sound via the built-in stereo microphones, but unfortunately the built-in ‘phones pick up unwanted sounds from motion, from moving your fingers on the camera and also the lens moving/focusing.

And talking of the lens, the G12 sports an adapted Hybrid Image Stabilisation providing up to 4EV of advantage for hand held shots, at least according to Canon. We feel that's a bit optimistic on our tests, but is still invaluable for keeping shots steadier than otherwise possible in low light or at longer zoom lengths, without reverting to a tripod. Another bonus of this Hybrid IS system is that you don’t need to delve into higher ISO settings as quickly as you might, and this helps keep at bay problems associated with high ISO image noise for longer.

It must be said that image noise is well controlled thanks to the new Canon HS system, but only up to ISO 800 because above that setting, things get to be trickier, although not drastically so. If you use the camera at ISO 3200 or the boosted ISO 12800 mode, however, let's just say don't bother! 

At the heart of the G12's image and video processing system lies Canon's DIGIC 4 processor. DIGIC 4 allows fast processing and better noise reduction and overall, improved image and HD video performance.

DIGIC 4 also powers some of the “intelligent” features found on the G11 such as i-Contrast, that increases the dynamic range in images to reveal better detail in shadows without losing detail in highlight areas. Like the G11, it works well and also contributes to another new feature, High Dynamic Range (HDR) shooting mode.

In HDR shooting, you need to mount the camera on a tripod because the camera takes three images, one each at a different exposure setting, exposing separately for highlights and shadows. It then combines the three images, in camera, to provide an image with details in areas you'd otherwise not be able to achieve in a single exposure.

In terms of control, the aforementioned top plate controls are great to use, the raised mode dial allowing fast changes of shooting mode (manual, aperture priority or full auto to name a few) to swift ISO changes. Ditto the exposure compensation, which can be quickly applied if you suddenly encounter difficult lighting situations. 

The shutter release is encompassed within the lens’ zoom control and while on the small side, the lever is very usable, while the shutter release’s dual pressures are well weighted though the first pressure, to get the camera focusing and metering, is quite light.

The back plate is dominated by the multi-angle screen, but also houses the other main camera controls. The playback and shortcut buttons (we set this to quickly adjust white balance, one critical tool lacking a hard button on the body) sit atop the screen either side of the optical viewfinder, the top right corner houses the extremely useful AE/FE lock button, something that when combined with the improved exposure compensation control makes the G12 very responsive. Each of the buttons are cleverly angled making their use even better.

The AF point control is one of four buttons that surround the camera’s rotating jog control, making it swift for menu or image scrolling. It also provides smart control for settings such as the superb 1cm macro mode, flash settings, manual focus activation and drive modes.

The nine-zone AF set up is comprehensive providing a mix of orthodox auto and manual focusing plus Face Detection AF, servo AF and a Tracking AF mode that can fix on, and track, faces in a shot. A customisable Self-Timer provides for multiple shots and adjustment of the time delay between 0- and 30-seconds.

The Face detection system in particular performs well, even on faces in profile and the Face Select & Track is remarkably accurate and very clever to boot. But what’s even better, with Face AF selected when you half press the shutter button, is that a magnified view of the detected face appears so that you can quickly check sharpness and even when detecting multiple faces, it seems to work rather well.

Our one concern about the AiAF focus system is when not detecting faces, tracking objects or focusing on close up subjects is that it is quite slow to react. And, if you leave the camera to select which of the nine active zones it will use, it does not always select the correct or intended part of the scene you want sharp. Switching to manual AF or simply using the Flexizone AF, where you can move and use just one AF point, helps mitigate some AF issues.

In terms of capture, the ability to shoot RAW and JPEG files provides scope for tinkering and getting shadow or highlight detail out of images later on PC, if you're not satisfied with all the other controls such as the HDR shooting or i-Contrast. Shooting RAW helps to pull shadow and highlight detail out and control noise problems more accurately, but the downside is the need to post process the images. All the same, RAW capture is a fundamental feature for the more enthusiast or pro photographer and a must-have feature for such a camera.

Images are captured and stored on a single SD, SDHC and the new SDXC high capacity cards, all stowed under the same flap on the G12’s base where the Li-ion battery resides.

Continuing with images, the metering and white balance (WB) are typically excellent. The metering deals with most subjects with aplomb, centre-weighted and spot metering provide extra control and flexibility if required, while the WB control is good too.

One slight gripe here is the auto white balance, as it struggled with mixed lighting producing a slight orange cast on, say, mixed indoor lighting. Using the correct WB for the lighting you're shooting in and for the more difficult situations, setting the custom white balance is fast and gives complete WB control.

Cracking colour capture is aided with an array of tweakable colour tools from extra vivid colour to a selective colour mode, and all let you tinker with colour for more creative effect if you desire. Of course there are a set of 19 scene modes that include a panoramic stitch assist, colour swap, fish eye effect and a mode to make subjects appear as though they're miniatures within the scene. All fun and all adding to the creative potential of the camera.

Another nice feature that builds further on the creative side of things is the addition of a built-in neutral density (ND) filter. ND filters help to balance high contrast scenes providing a better balance between highlights and shadows, or where you need to use slow shutter speed that would otherwise overexpose your shot. Added to that is an accessory filter ring that clips around the lens barrel and allows you to use additional lens filters such a circular polariser or UV filters. Other additional specialist optics can also attach to the 58mm accessory ring adding even more versatility.

And that really is the point of the G12, it is a camera offering the tools, features and versatility of a pro-level camera, but all within a package designed to facilitate all of that creative power without the bulk of DSLR system camera.

Although the Canon PowerShot G12 looks pricey, it's well specified, well made and able to produce some stunning results be they video or stills. While the AF responsiveness lets the side down a little it's an otherwise eminently capable camera that'll prove to be an ideal pro's backup or enthusiasts top model.

Related links:

• More photos - Loads of G12 pics

Tags: Cameras Compact cameras Canon Canon PowerShot G12 10 megapixels

Canon PowerShot G12 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:16:00 +0000

Powerline networking (or running your broadband internet through your mains power supply) is becoming increasingly common, and Devolo is one of the bigger makers on the market with such products. And here, the dLAN 200 AVsmart + Starter Kit, at around £110 for the dual adapter outfit looks, and is, quite pricey, but it does have some advantages for the money. For example, we can kick off one with the fact it comes with a pass-through socket, so you can continue to use the mains socket taken up by the adapter with it in place.

The AVsmart+ has a neat display showing the status of the connection which is designed to make networking easier, displaying of the connection strength to other HomePlug adapters or a connected PC. This proves very useful during network set up but is hamstrung in a very big way by the fact the display is at the bottom of a rather long adapter body.

“So what?” I hear you ask. Well for one, if the socket in your wall is low down you need to lie flat on the floor, on your tummy to read the darned display. Then the 10/100Mbps Ethernet port, located at the bottom of the adapter makes it a very snug (near impossible) fit if you have heavier pile carpet. Add to these issues the fact any device plugged into the pass-through socket on the adapter has its wiring obscuring the display! The display would have been much better on the top, for example, above the built-in pass-though socket instead of where it is. Use of the adapters in the “real” world has not been properly thought through.

Luckily, the information displayed on the screen is of limited use anyway, so perhaps it’s a moot point? For example, the indication of a weak signal does not help much because while it might be possible to move the adapter (and so all the kit connected to it as a result) to another socket, it’s just not a practical solution for a home office location, say, or a wall-mounted flat panel TV that you want to connect to the Internet via an adapter.

Once you’re past the display foibles, the dLAN 200 AVsmart+ is very similar to the rest of the Devolo HomePlug adapters with a pass-through socket. There’s a network encryption button on the bottom that’s a cinch to use as you simply, well, push the button to encrypt your network. Additional software is supplied to help you manually set encryption if you have older, button-less encryption Devolo adapters within your network, which you have set-up previously.

Firmware updates may also be required for any older adapters, but helpfully, these updates are supplied on the install software CD, which is nice. Interestingly, if you have adapters for the competing “standard” for powerline networking (there’s HomePlug and DS2) make sure they are compatible with the HomePlug standard as the AVsmart+ won’t work with DS2 adapters.

Tags: Hardware Networking HomePlug Devolo Devolo dLAN 200 AVsmart+ Online

Devolo dLAN 200 AVsmart+ originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:29:00 +0100

If good things come in small packages then Naim’s UnitiQute all-in-one Hi-Fi audio player should be the proof of that pudding, to mangle metaphors for a moment. The UnitiQute weighs in at 7.1kg and so is a heavyweight, literally and in terms of features, so it’s more than just the music that rocks. It’s also an irresistibly cute example of what contemporary music in the home is all about, according to Naim, at least.

The UnitiQute is the newest all-in-one Hi-Fi music player for the audiophiles among you, and joins its larger sibling, the NaimUniti, in the company’s range of compact all-in-one systems. The UnitiQute is designed for those needing a device that can play everything modern music delivery can throw at it: music downloads, high-resolution music files, internet radio, network music from UPnP servers, iPod/MP3 players, Wi-Fi streaming. Whatever it is, it would seem the UnitiQute can deal with it.

But the first thing that hits you as you heft the device from its protective box and packaging is the small size (87 x 207 x 314mm) and yet it is wrist snappingly weighty thanks largely to its tough die cast construction. It weighs 7.1kg and it is quickly obvious this is designed to be set-up and “installed” and then left in place. Portable music player this is not.

You get a neat remote control, batteries and accessories including speaker cable adapters to get the system set-up and a screw in antenna for the networked, wireless connection. The remote is sturdy and streamlined and allows you to control all major functions across the “Qute” range of features - be it multi-mode radio, amplifier, UPnP audio interface for your network and a USB/iPod interface to play, and crucially control the MP3 device from the system with its remote control.

The UnitiQute has a built-in stereo pre-amplifier and four SPDIF digital audio external inputs so you can connect up existing audio kit to the ‘Qute and control it all from the one device. You get 30 Watts per channel (into 8 Ohms) driving one pair of speakers via sockets on the rear panel. For this test we had a pair of Naim’s superb n-SAT speakers and despite a mix up on the supplied speaker cables (the ‘Qute needs specific fixings due to its compact dimensions), these connect up using robust cables with specific connectors that can only be used one way, cleverly ensuring you get everything connected up without any hitches.

The multi-mode radio includes an FM and DAB tuner and an internet radio player with 40 saveable presets across all modes, which sounds a lot but given the sheer scale and number of FM, DAB and internet radio stations available, could become limiting in the long run. The radio is easy to tune and set-up, and again, the clear green display aiding its use well. The DAB tuner is good and easy to use as well with the n-SAT speakers making the most of the digital radio signal. 

The UPnP audio interface is one of the ‘Qute’s most powerful assets as it allows you to wirelessly connect the system to your local home network and stream music from a media server or your PC, or Apple Mac’s iTunes music library making the thing even more flexible. Using the iTunes library streamed across a home network, streaming music was fast and easy once you’ve entered the set-up mode via its dedicated key denoted by a small spanner icon.

As with the set up and the features on the remote control or device itself, you scroll around using the four-way jog buttons that surround an OK/List button, which are used to select an item or activate a list of options from a selection. A dedicated Exit key gets you out of any settings or menus, allowing you to quickly get back to playing music or listening to audio books.

A nice touch when entering the set-up mode and listening to music is UnitiQute continues to play; the volume, mute, play, pause and stop keys all remain operational too so you can tinker and adjust without disturbing your listening enjoyment.

And complimenting the UPnP capability is the USB/iPod interface on the front of the unit. Here your digital audio files can be accessed and played directly from a USB memory stick; the ‘Qute can play USB-stored music files of up to 24bit/96kHz resolution. The audio files any USB stick contains will be identified and are immediately available for browsing, and are displayed on the screen as scrolling text. Selection and playback is easy from the display using the remote. The UnitiQute can control any connected iPod too, the cool, greenly glowing front display making the job easy and simple to do.

To cap off the flexibility quotient of the ‘Qute, analogue audio connectivity is not forgotten either. Two analogue inputs allow CD players or portable music players to connect through the rear panel’s phono sockets and/or a front-panel mini-jack alongside a headphone socket.

Other expandability options are also achievable thanks to the system’s pre-amplifier output, which means adding an external power amplifier, or perhaps a subwoofer setup, the UnitiQute quickly becomes the hub of a broader bandwidth audio system since you have full control, particularly over the bass side of things on a subwoofer system, meaning you can really grow the system. Attention to detail is paramount for Naim and touches such as the Naim logo on the front doubles as a clever mute button.

Tags: Audio Hi-Fi Naim Naim UnitiQute Streaming

Naim UnitiQute originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 22 Oct 2010 14:54:00 +0100

The Sony Bravia KDL 46NX703 sits within Sony’s Network range of new Bravia HD TVs and is suitably equipped with a wide range of connection options including integrated Wi-Fi support, a big improvement over the optional (at extra cost) Wi-Fi dongle of yore. Other connections include four HDMI ports, two on the rear and two on the side. There’s a D-Sub PC jack, Ethernet port, USB socket an RGB Scart connection and both Composite video and RF inputs.

This TV is of Sony’s so called “Monolithic” design where the single, integrated bezel and panel appear to be made from one piece of glass. Its large, black, slim and the slab-like design is rather reminiscent of the mysterious alien monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s classic movie, 2001 A Space Odyssey, (on its side, obviously) so we say it certainly ticks that box; we think it looks simply stunning. In fact watching that movie on this TV is rather eerie…

Anyway, the slim-line design is helped by this set being the first of Sony’s edge LED lighting design, more on this later, but that and the slab-like Monolithic styling make for a striking combo indeed.

And if you buy the rather arresting accessory desktop stand/speaker bar, the TV slots in and can lean back slightly allowing you to create an even more striking look. The TV comes with a more traditional black or white bezel that encircles the slim line screen, black being the usual colour for the Monolithic Sony sets and the version we had to play with here.

The impressive network connectivity is at the heart of the set’s design though and backs up the built-in Freeview HD digital tuner offering your free HD broadcast content, allowing you to get access to media files from DLNA certified PC’s (those able to act as a media server) or able to stream video from Sony’s now rather notable schedule of Bravia Internet Video content.

The 46NX703 comes packed with picture processing power courtesy of Sony’s Motionflow 100Hz technology that really helps keep fast paced imagery smoothly rendered. This is backed up by the company’s Live Colour system and Bravia Engine 3 system to help make the most of the source content.

Disappointingly, despite this technology being usually rather dependable, this TV has no specific colour management system, a disappointment given the near £1700 asking price. However, there are still some powerful advanced settings to help allay that bugbear such as black booster control and adjustments to the Motionflow and Film Mode settings via the Advanced Settings submenu.

While mentioning menus, these are clear and easy to use with the Xross Media Bar of PlayStation 3 fame. If unfamiliar with that style of dual axis menu layout, it can take a little time to get used to them but once set-up, you don’t need to go into menus too often, so perhaps that’s not a major issue.

Using the remote control offers one rather odd foible however, in that two circles of oft-used controls and buttons - which seems a nice idea at first - are laid in a way which makes it easy to hit the wrong button. The control circle is designed to make use easier, but if like us you have larger fingers, it is not always the case. This is a shame on an otherwise nicely curved, well designed and laid out remote control.

Sony’s first attempt at a consumer edge LED-lit HD TV screen is pretty successful: colours are bright and, well, colourful but retain a natural look so colour is not too overblown. That means you can have vivid, richly saturated pictures if you want but crucially, extreme bright scenes and shadow areas retain details as you’d expect.

Standard and high definition picture quality is good, in fact black levels are some of the best we've seen for an edge-lit LCD TV, with the Motionflow technology removing the worst of judder and motion blur. The Bravia Engine 3 works wonders upscaling standard definition pictures too, and there’s excellent noise suppression in place as well.

A couple of niggles are evident however, the first being backlight inconsistencies which become visible when watching darker, moody imagery (the street scene in Batman - The Dark Knight (on Blu-ray), where the large articulated lorry is dramatically flipped over, is a good example) but it’s subtle and is unlikely to spoil your usual viewing experience.

Another is a surprisingly limited viewing angle (we have a Panasonic Vieira Plasma with a 46-inch screen sat alongside this Bravia, and it’s noticeably more restricting) though we doubt many users will be watching such large flat panel TVs from the side.

Also we noticed the Sony gives a noticeably less crisp HD picture than we’ve become accustomed too, but this has a less “gritty” look than is often provided by sharper screens so you may even prefer the look it provides. Either way, and suffice to say, the imagery still looks decidedly high definition, so it does not detract from your viewing pleasure at usual viewing distances.

In terms of the built-in audio/speaker performance, this is where the Sony Bravia KDL-46NX703 falls down most seriously for us. True we’re spoilt by the use of a Bose surround sound system most of the time, here the treble and voice clarity is good but bass response is frail and quickly distorts, being nowhere near strong enough for louder explosion sounds for example. We recommend you buy that Sony sound bar stand or a similar surround sound system to truly enhance the otherwise excellent viewing experience offered by the Sony Bravia KDL-46NX703.

Some of the services the new Bravia can get access to, over and above a superb Sony served media, any media server you use or USB stick carried content, includes LoveFilm and Demand Five’s streamable content with BBC’s iPlayer in the mix later too.

LoveFilm content is accessible for anyone signed up to the company’s “unlimited” packages (though not all the media available as discs is available to stream) and set up is a case of visiting LoveFilm site, entering a four-digit pin to register your device (the tele) then you select and watch the content you want.

Demand Five is much easier to set up and works well and with Sony promising even more content in coming months, it makes for a very flexible viewing platform indeed.

Tags: Home Cinema Televisions LCD televisions Sony Sony KDL-46NX703 Freeview HD

Sony Bravia KDL-46NX703 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 12:04:00 +0100

Panasonic’s Lumix TZ10 provides a compact camera environment for an otherwise long lens, richly featured snapping experience combining a 12-megapixel sensor and a 12x optical zoom with full manual control.

This test and the Leica V-Lux 20 partner share much of the same information but the cameras are almost identical but for some key elements; the Leica comes with Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 8 and a neat leather case and costs almost £240 more.

The remarkably small all-metal body and minimalist styling, particularly given the 12x zoom has some brash, silvered highlights and looks great. But what do you get for your around £255?

Well, there’s a 12.1-effective megapixel CCD beating at the camera’s heart and a superbly crisp Leica DC-Vario-Elmar zoom lens marshalling light onto it and something that ensures this Panasonic does well out of their partnership with Leica as the glass is very crisp indeed.

While the F/3.3 to F/4.9 aperture lens also provides a very versatile focal range indeed with a wide end of 25mm - great for broader vistas - and the 300mm telephoto focal length (both focal lengths in 35mm format terms) gives a great zoom, getting you in close to more distant subjects is not without problems.

For example, on the Leica we noticed at longer focal lengths, there’s slight bluish pixel fringing around the high contrast areas of a scene. On the TZ10 the same problem exists and while astute use of programs such as Adobe Lightroom or similar editing software, you can remove it easily enough, it can lower the apparent sharpness of your shots.

The slight milkiness of the V-Lux 20 images, similar to a soft focus filter on some shots, is also still here on this camera and while we believe it to be a contrast issue, evident when shooting directly into the light, a lens hood would remedy this to a degree but the camera doesn't come supplied with one.

One of the TZ10’s standout features is GPS image tagging, which means you can tag images with the geographic coordinates of where the images where shot, great for using your images on internet sites such as Google Maps or Google Earth for example, where you can show your snaps online.

In itself this is not a unique feature on the market today, but here it works very well, able to automatically add the GPS coordinates, local time and the time it was shot into each image’s EXIF data. However we found the time it takes to connect to the GPS network and get the image tags is overly long and required you to ideally be outdoors or by a window.

The camera can also display nearby places of interest, very helpful if you’re looking for more good shooting locations near to where you are already snapping and it is able to provide information on 500,000 such locations across 73 countries too, so you’ll have plenty of scope to shoot on your travels.

Organising images is faster thanks to the GPS tagging as well, for instance, using the latest version of iPhoto on the Mac (version 9.0), images tagged with the GPS data can all be automatically organised by location within the Places section within iPhoto.

Another feature that is something more and more cameras have today is the capability to shoot HD movies. As with many modern digital cameras it’s possible to record movies at 720p resolution in the AVCHD Lite format. Like the V-Lux 20, one format that the camera cannot shoot is RAW and while the lack of RAW shooting might not be a problem for the more general snapper the TZ10 is aimed at it raised our eyebrows on the more "enthusiast" priced Leica.

The TZ10 can shoot in three image aspect ratios, the camera has a 14.5-megapixel sensor of which there are 12.1 million effective pixels, those extra pixels allow room to produce 4:3, 3:2 and 16:9 aspect ratio images each selectable at a range of resolutions from within the menus. The Lumix menus are clean and crisp and use clear white text on a white background (the Leica has the opposite arrangement) but are otherwise identical. The tabbed menu sections range down the left side navigated by the four-way controller on the camera’s back. Selections of further choices appear depending on the menu you select or need to adjust.

The GPS data is the least easy to play with and uses a series of unfamiliar messages that can confuse. One word of warning is the GPS power drain. When within the flight mode, the GPS is turned off fully along with the camera but in the "normal" GPS mode it is not, so it continues to use the GPS system and can drain the battery. The odd menu messages mentioned in the V-Lux 20 test remain also.

Handling, like the Leica version is rather good, even with such a long zoom lens on such a compact camera. The top plate though much jazzier with its silver strip and brighter logos (than the Leica) houses a neat mode dial, adjacent to the shutter release and its surrounding lens zoom control. The on/off switch is a small tab-like affair off to the top plate’s right side.

The mode dial provides access to the manual shooting options, a fully automatic or iAuto unerringly selects the best shooting mode for the scene, detecting faces or landscapes say, and setting the camera accordingly. 28 scene modes provide quick and dirty settings for most subjects from babies and children, to pets, food or aerial photos shot from a plane.

Two customisable My Scene positions allow you to tailor settings for two oft-used shooting styles or subjects, so you can get at them quickly for each and is helpfully backed up by three dedicated custom settings as well. In short, you can tailor the snapping set up in two ways on the My Scene modes or set-up the entire camera for, say, manual shutter or aperture priority shooting with very specific settings available from each of the camera’s features. This makes the camera very versatile and very quick to get up and running for a given subject assuming you set up these options first of course.

The camera's back plate houses a large, 3-inch colour screen that has a nice anti-reflective coating that works well in almost any condition even near direct sunlight. This is great because there is no optical viewfinder so some traditionalists might find that a problem. Nevertheless there are ways to customise the LCD power settings and brightness controls to boost the brightness or reduce the power consumption depending on conditions, such as the Eco mode for the latter for example.

To the right of the LCD fall the rest of the main controls: a four-way jog button layout provides scrolling and navigation features fro menus or images in playback. A central OK/Menu button either confirms selections in menus or activates the menus. The four-way jog controllers are used for exposure compensation, flash, drive modes and macro photography in shooting mode.

A switch at the top of the back plate toggles between shooting and playback while just below it are two controls. One is a direct movie recording button, which makes movie shooting a dead easy to get going, and we really like the fact all the auto settings and features available to still shooting can be used in movie recording too including colour filters and the like.

Below the four-way jog control sits the display toggle button and a "Q Menu" button, this last item activates a neat and certainly quick-to-use menu that allows you to adjust all main camera-shooting settings direct from the LCD, without having to dip into the main camera menus.

Movies and images are stored on either the very modest 15MB of internal storage or SD, SDHC or SDXC memory cards, which sit under a flap alongside the Li-ion battery pack, which is capable of shooting around 300-images on a full charge. We found the battery usage to be actually very frugal in most shooting conditions but the use GPS has a major impact, as will brighter LCD brightness settings needed for shooting in bright lighting.

Focusing and metering performed as well as the Leica V-Luz 20 variant and the face AF set up that can recognise up to 15-faces in a shot ensures focus and metering is optimised for the faces rather than a bright background for example. The small built-in flash performed well but is just able to cope with subjects up to 5m away in ISO auto mode so is limited in scope but okay for a fill-in.

And speaking of ISO, the camera’s sensitivity settings run from ISO 80 to 1600, which is a little limiting but for a reason, noise at higher ISO’s is an issue and noise processing can affect detail retention, more so than on the V-Lux 20. Shots taken at ISO 1600 seem both blurred and sapped of colour and full of noise. However, the noise is not worse than can be seen on many similar cameras. Like the Leica, another disappointment is images shot at lower ISOs, though very clean and crisp, at ISO 200 or above and viewed at 100% in a photo editor, the shadows are very blotchy which makes the images appear soft in shadow areas. 

To help snapping at longer focal lengths, low sensitivity settings in low light Panasonic’s accomplished MEGA O.I.S image stabilisation system steps in to lend a more stable hand. It works very well and although it does not prevent subject blur at lower shutter speeds it can certainly help control camera shake.

The metering provides centre-weighted, spot and multiple-zone evaluative, combined with the face AF set up and tracking AF the metering can produce some excellent results, with the best overall mode, as with the V-Lux 20, appearing to be centre-weighted, which produced the best balance between subject and background and helped to retain sky detail in some shots without compromising foreground brightness.

The TZ10, while as much a mixed bag as the V-Lux 20 in some regards, does not suffer from the problem as being as pricey as a consumer DSLR and as such it is much better value and provides a superb set of features. Point and shoot or manual control, both are to hand in a camera package that can cover almost any subject quite well.

We wrote in the Leica review "For Leica enthusiasts, with a the budget to match, perhaps the V-Lux 20 makes sense, but for everyone else, we feel the Panasonic TZ10 may be the weapon of choice" and so it stands.

A leather case and £70 worth of software aside, there’s nothing the average snapper will gain for the additional cost of the Leica version of this camera and particularly in terms of image quality, which is nothing (or a very thin fag paper’s width) better in all areas apart perhaps from noise processing.

Tags: Cameras Compact cameras Panasonic Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10 12 megapixels Leica V-LUX 20

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 17 Sep 2010 16:09:41 +0100

Leica’s link with Panasonic for its digital cameras is a good one simply because if you’re going to start with someone else’s kit as a start point Panasonic’s cameras and their reputation for them is very good. After all, one of our favourite digital compacts ever was the Lumix LX3. But the Panasonic model upon which the Leica V-Lux 20 is based is the Lumix DMC TZ10 (reviewed here) and it is almost identical but for some key elements.

The remarkably small all-metal body and minimalist styling (much more minimalist than the Lumix, which shouts its features and kit proudly all over it’s bodywork) look great, and given the scope of the lens, even remarkable.

But for many, the cost of the Leica over its Panasonic counterpart might make it easy to decide which model you plump for as the Leica costs around £495, the Lumix is around £255. So, what is it you get with the V-Lux 20 and is it worth the extra 240 odd quid needed to buy it over the Lumix?

For a kick off, there’s a 12.1-effective megapixel CCD beating at the camera’s heart and a superbly crisp Leica DC-Vario-Elmar zoom lens marshalling light onto it. The F/3.3 to F/4.9 aperture lens provides a very versatile focal range indeed; a wide end of 25mm is great for broader vistas while a telephoto focal length of 300mm (both in 35mm format terms) gives a respectable zoom end for getting in close to more distant subjects. We noticed that at longer focal lengths, particularly at 300mms, there’s slight bluish pixel fringing around the (usual and problematic) high contrast areas of a scene.

We also noticed a slight milkyness to images, akin to being shot through a soft focus filter for example, which was most disconcerting and we believe it to be some contrast issue when shooting directly into brighter light. A lens hood might be a remedy but there’s not one supplied with the camera and no way to attach one that we can see.

The V-Lux 20 is also the first Leica to feature GPS image tagging which means you can tag images with the geographic coordinates of where the images where shot, which is great for internet sites such as Google Maps or Google earth, for example, where you can show your snaps online on a map of where you took them.

In itself this is not a unique feature on the market today, but here it works very well, able to automatically add the GPS coordinates, local time and the time it was shot into each image’s EXIF data.

Additionally, the camera can also display nearby places of interest where you might want to take more shots, which can be very helpful if you’re looking for good shooting locations near to where you are already snapping. The V-Lux 20 is able to provide information on 500,000 such locations across 73 countries too, so you’ll have plenty of scope to shoot on your travels.

Another benefit is it makes organising images faster as well, so for instance, using the latest version of iPhoto on the Mac (version 9.0), images tagged with the GPS data can all be automatically organised by location within the Places section within iPhoto.

Another feature that is something more and more cameras have today is the capability to shoot HD movies. As with many modern digital cameras it’s possible to record movies at 720p resolution in the QuickTime Motion JPEG format, interestingly however, Panasonic’s TZ10 on which it’s based shoots HD movies in the more sophisticated AVCHD Lite format, which seems at odds with the Leica’s premium price tag.

We believe this to be because the Leica’s prime user/target market is more the discerning stills photographer than general consumer snapper, but this just leads us to another potential issue with the Leica. It cannot shoot RAW. If, as might be the case, the V-Lux is bought as a quality back up snapper, the lack of RAW shooting might raise some eyebrows, it certainly did ours.

The camera can shoot in three formats thanks to its 14.5-megapixel sensor on which you get 12.1 million effective pixels, the extra pixels allowing room to produce 4:3, 3:2 and 16:9 aspect ratio images all selectable from within the menus which apart from being the reverse of the Lumix in terms of design and style (white text on a black background), they appear to be almost the same as those in the Lumix version of this camera.

Clear crisp text on the back background makes it easy to read and use, the tabbed sections down the left navigated by the four way controller on the camera’s back let you land on a selection of further choices depending on the menu you need to adjust. The least satisfying menu is the GPS data and set up menu where a combination of strange messages can confuse. For example, in the GPS set up menus, within the flight mode, (incidentally where the GPS is turned off when the camera is switched off but in the "normal" mode it is not so beware battery drain) the message that appears when selected reads: "GPS stops working at power off, please follow cabin attendants when you turn on GPS".

This is less an instruction to actually wander around the plane shadowing the attendant and more about a missing word "instructions" after "attendants" but is indicative of some of the pigeon English used within the menus.

Also actually setting up the GPS is a little frustrating and is best done (as with most car satnav systems) when outdoors or near a window to get a decent GPS signal.

Handling the camera to take photos or shoot movies is rather good, even with such a long zoom lens on such a compact camera. The top plate houses a neat mode dial, adjacent to the shutter release and its surrounding lens zoom control. The on/off switch is a small tab-like affair off to the top plate’s right side.

The mode dial provides access to the manual shooting options, a full auto mode (iAuto on the Lumix) selects the best shooting mode for the scene detecting faces, landscapes and setting the camera accordingly, which it does well enough. 28 scene modes can provide quick and dirty settings for most subjects from babies and children, to pets, food or aerial photos shot from a plane.

Two customisable My Scene positions allow you to tailor settings for two oft used shooting styles or subjects, so you can get set quickly for each but it’s backed up by three dedicated custom settings as well. So you can tailor the snapping the set up in two ways on the My Scene modes or set up the entire camera for, say manual, shutter or aperture priority shooting with very specific settings available from each of the camera’s features in each.

This makes the camera very versatile and very quick to get up and running for a given subject assuming you set up these options, of course. On the camera's back plate we find the large, 3-inch colour screen that has a nice anti-reflective coating that seems to work well in almost any condition even near direct sunlight. This is good because there’s no optical finder so some traditionalists might find that a problem. Nevertheless there are ways to customise the LCD power settings and brightness controls to boost the brightness or reduce the power consumption depending on conditions.

To the right of the LCD fall the rest of the main controls: a four-way jog button layout provides scrolling and navigation features for menus or images in playback. A central OK/Menu button either confirms selections in menus or activates the menus. The four-way jog controllers are used for exposure compensation, flash, drive modes and macro photography in shooting mode.

A switch at the top of the back plate toggles between shooting and playback while just below it are two controls. One is a direct movie recording button, which makes movie shooting a dead easy to get going, and we really like the fact all the auto settings and features available to still shooting can be used in movie recording too. Below the four-way jog controls sits the display toggle button and a "Q Menu" button, this last item fires up a very neat quick menu that allows you to adjust all the main camera settings from the LCD without having to dip into the menus, so it really is a quick menu.

Movies and images are stored on either the very modest 15MB of internal storage or SD, SDHC or SDXC memory cards, which sit under a flap alongside the Li-ion battery pack which is capable of shooting around 300-images on a full charge. We found the battery usage to be actually very frugal in most shooting conditions but the use GPS has an impact as will boosting the LCD brightness if things get too bright to view the screen in other modes.

Focusing and metering performed well and the face AF set up can recognise up to 15-faces in a shot ensuring focus and metering is optimised for them rather than a background for example. The small built-in flash performed well but is just able to cope with subjects up to 5m away in ISO auto mode.

And speaking of ISO, the camera’s sensitivity settings run from ISO 80 to 1600, which is a little limiting but for a reason, noise at higher ISO’s is an issue though Leica’s noise processing has kilted towards noise reduction than detail retention. Shots taken at ISO 1600 seem a little blurred as a result, as if smoothed over by the software. However, the smoothing effect is not as bad as can be seen on many similar cameras it’s just a little disappointing on this Leica.

Another disappointment was the fact although images shot at lower ISOs are very clean and crisp, use ISO 200 or above and at 100% in a photo editor, in our case Photoshop, it’s easy to see that shadows have very slight blotchiness that remains subtle until you get to the highest sensitivity settings. The overall effect is to make the images appear softer in shadow areas.

To help snapping at longer focal lengths at lower sensitivity settings or in low light, the V-Lux 20 employs Panasonic’s accomplished MEGA O.I.S image stabilisation system. This works very well and although it does not prevent subject blur at lower shutter speeds it can certainly help control camera shake.

The metering provides centre-weighted, spot and multiple-zone evaluative, combined with the face AF set up and tracking AF the metering can produce some excellent results with the best overall mode appearing to be centre-weighted, which produced the best balance between subject and background in many of our shots. 

And so the V-Lux 20 is a bit of mixed bag, but we're not sure it should be given it’s the price of a consumer DSLR. Leica claim that the camera has some bespoke internal tailoring from them in terms of image processing and the like, which may be true but does that justify the price differential between it and the TZ10? Well one sweetener that may help is the Leica comes with Adobe’s Photoshop Elements 8 image editor, which is worth £77 and is an excellent piece of software if you lack an image editor already although a neat retro leather case for the camera costs another £70!

For Leica enthusiasts, with a the budget to match, perhaps the V-Lux 20 makes sense, but for everyone else, we feel the Panasonic TZ10 may be the weapon of choice so read its review here.

Related links:

• Review - Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10

Tags: Cameras Compact cameras Leica Leica V-LUX 20 Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10

Leica V-LUX 20 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 17 Sep 2010 16:09:29 +0100

Canon’s latest addition to its Legria HF M series of camcorders is the compact, lightweight M32. A combination of extended storage, ease of use and Full HD shooting with improved creative options make the M32 look a tempting treat. But is it?

Canon’s new Legria offers a set of temptingly updated features over its M31 predecessor, but in essence, the M32 is simple update rather than entirely new model over the M31. Like the rest of the Legria range, it is designed for those wanting a Full HD compact camcorder offering enough video grunt to produce stunning moving imagery with ease of use at its heart.

And to achieve this, Canon boosted the internal storage over the M31 to very respectable 64GB, capable of holding 12-hours of continuous Full HD footage (24 hours in Long Play (LP) mode) and the external storage slot for SD/SDHC and the new SDXC cards. Thanks to a significant firmware upgrade over the M31, the SDXC compatibility allows use of higher capacity SD cards (32GB and above) for much extended shooting times for the more enthusiast videographer.

The camcorder’s 3.3-megapixel Full HD CMOS sensor can capture some stunningly detailed HD video (and excellent 3-megapixels stills to boot) and in 25p progressive shooting, footage looks very smooth and cinema like indeed when combined with a crisp 15x Canon Video lens and the DIGIC DV III processor technology.

Other features include an extended 18x zoom - in the advanced zoom mode - while advanced face detection focusing means it can identify up to 35 faces in a shot with focus and exposure automatically adjusting to keep them all properly focused and exposed. This works really well and makes shooting groups at, say, a wedding or party, a cinch.

In fact, the focusing on the M32 is very impressive (there’s no auto focus motor noise on your footage audio and, while we're here, there’s no motor noise when zooming either, which is very nice to report indeed) zipping quickly into sharp relief and seemingly able to unerringly identify the things we wanted to focus upon. Manual focus control and Touch AF - via the widescreen - all help to keep things properly focused if the subject proves more challenging or for tripod work or when working on macro subjects.

At full zoom (optical or digital) where camera shake can be a real issue, the camera’s image stabilisation (IS) is backed up by additional Powered IS activated via a button on the bottom corner of the touchscreen helps to improve stability markedly. But you’ll still need a tripod if you use the 300x digital zoom.

The metering and exposure control are both superb though low light shooting (down to 0.4 lux in the Low Light Mode) provides a more muted, noisier quality to the footage, though not intrusively so. Colour is otherwise natural and well rendered throughout.

The compact lines of the M32 mean it is nicely poised into the hand, with the aid of the hand strap that ensures it sits snuggly into your right palm. The 2.7-inch widescreen flips out and has anti-glare coatings to aid use in bright conditions, and while these coatings meet with some success, in direct bright sunlight it was a struggle to compose accurately particularly on lower contrast subjects.

However, the easy, turn-on-and-use ethos of the Legria range is ably demonstrated since powering the camcorder up and flipping the screen open you can quickly start shooting using the Start/Stop recording button that sits directly under your thumb.

The top plate zoom control falls just below your index finger, where you want it and it’s easy to use, though fine control of the speed it zooms through its 39.5mm to 711mm 15x optical zoom range could do with a touch more finesse. A Photo button - active in the stills capture mode - sits just behind the zoom control, but such tightly packed controls become an issue on any camcorder and a little more problematic to get at easily with our fat(ish) fingers.

Canon’s excellent, one-touch Video Snapshot mode allows the capture of short video clips of 2, 4 and 8 second durations and this is clever enough to allow you to copy previously recorded footage to create shorter scenes from your longer video clips in-camera.

These Video Clips can be assembled into video play lists and replayed as a movie montage including music; you can add your own MP3 tracks too to help customise this further by uploading them to the M32’s memory or playing though an MP3 player attached to the camcorder.

A switch on the M32’s right side, ahead of the Start/Stop button toggles the M32 between all-auto shooting and manual shooting. In the former, the M32 uses Smart Auto Scene recognition technology to select a suitable set-up for the scene before the lens (be it a landscape, macro or people filming) and this worked well enough. In manual mode, you decide the main settings according to the control you want or your creative bent. You can also control the filming and the zoom direct from the touch screen and it is the screen, which is the hub of all the other settings.

In manual mode, the screen displays the “FUNC” button, pressing this activates the menus. Scrolling these easy to read, but not always easy to understand, menus can become wearing, too frequently it enters a menu option when you just want to scroll through items within the list of options.

However, menus here adjust and assign most aspects of the camera features including adding digital effects to a shot that include black and white, sepia, and the fade trigger (fade out once or when closing each and every clip you shoot) as well as adjust the white balance, microphone level and focus settings.

Another frustration is once you’ve set something in a menu, you must close the menu window, which takes you back to the shooting screen; it would be nice to have an option to go back up one level of menus just in case there are other settings you want to adjust. We understand this set-up does make getting back to the business of capturing video much faster but a way to stay within the menus, once you have set an option, would be cool.

Disappointingly, the touchscreen is either too sensitive or not sensitive enough (and without rhyme or reason) and while you do get used to its foibles this can be trying particularly when you’re in a hurry when, as Murphy’s Law dictates, the sensitivity issues are more likely to occur!

The M32’s connectivity is comprehensive enough and includes both headphone and microphone ports as well as USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection, AV out and Component and mini HDMI sockets all neatly hidden below a rubber cover that nestles under your right hand. The M32 also has Canon’s Mini Advanced Accessory shoe for connection of additional kit including the Canon SM-V1 5.1 channel surround sound microphone system.

The accessory shoe is important because the built-in stereo mic suffers from audio distortion when shooting outdoors in windy conditions, for example, and because the mic, being built into the face of the camcorder just below the lens, means any slightly rough handling of the camera when shooting is picked up very easily on the audio.

Tags: Cameras Camcorders Canon canon legria hf m32

Canon Legria HF M32 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:44:49 +0100

Kodak’s latest all-in-one printer is aimed, says Kodak, at "helping you share your mobile life for less". In fact this new all-in-one is a compact, attractive looking machine combining a scanner, copier and photo quality printer with low ink costs (saving up to £75 a year says Kodak) and clever Wi-Fi direct print features for Wi-Fi enabled smartphones (BlackBerry phones to be precise). Kodak claims this is a "world first" for those devices and iPod touch or iPhone users can also join in on the fun using the Kodak Pic Flick application.

Okay enough of what Kodak says, what do you actually get?

The ESP 7250, joins Kodak’s ESP printer range at the top of the tree, a range where you pay a little bit more for the device and less for the ink, with Kodak claiming the overall cost of ownership, over a year, can enable a saving on ink of around £75 on other maker’s similar devices.

The 7250 is a neat and compact, black liveried device featuring a nice 2.4-inch LCD screen and a large, clearly buttoned flip-up control panel which graces the front. A front-loading 100-sheet paper feed tray sits beneath the front of the device, so paper must be loaded print side down, where it is fed into and back out on top of the paper tray. A 40-sheet dedicated photo paper tray (for paper smaller than A4) is also built into the same feeder tray set up and accepts 6 x 4, 7 x 4 and 5 x 7-inch paper sizes.

Paper guides can be moved to adjust for paper of varying sizes easily, though as with the 5250 test, if you put A4 photo paper on top of plain paper, it had a tendency to drag in the plain paper along with the photo paper, only load one type of paper at a time.

Some of the clever technology you pay for in the 7250 includes the wireless print function from a smartphone, but it only supports BlackBerry phones unless you download the Kodak Pic Flick App which allows iPhone and iPod touch users to print directly too.

And it’s very easy to use and once on your iPhone, for example, printing in four or five clicks. One to launch the app, one to pick a photo gallery on the iPhone, another to select a default print device and one more to "send" the file to print.

Then you have what Kodak calls the "intelligent" features where the printer can select the correct paper tray for the print job at hand as well as the automatic quality settings when using Kodak’s own paper. Back printed codes tell the printer what settings to use.

There are a raft of features for image enhancement called Kodak Perfect Touch technology, while these are only available on Windows computers they provide facial retouching as well as colour and brightness enhancements, colour restoration and redeye reduction all built into the machine.

Setting up the printer is fairly straightforward once you’ve stripped it of all its sticky tape and packing. The print head and dual, single black and combined five-colour pigment based inks slot home easily into a removable print head carriage, which sits beneath the scanner/copier platen. Once in place, the 7250 primes the ink and will prompt you to print an automatic head alignment sheet.

The software’s easy to install (we tested the 7250 with an Intel iMac) and once up and running, connecting to a Wi-Fi network proved a simple case of selecting the connection method on the 7250’s colour screen, entering the (WEP, WPA PSK or whatever you use) password and that was it. Almost as easy as connecting via the USB connection, and like the other ESP’s we’ve tested in the range, this makes for a refreshing change.

The direct print control panel is well laid out with the menus clear and easy to follow on the colour screen. Each function can be easily controlled, allowing copying, printing and scanning as a standalone device, or you can control the device from your computer.

The supplied software drivers are simple enough to follow, the print dialogues for the printer are easy to understand and the 7250 can automatically select the print quality depending on the paper type used; Kodak papers have a special "bar" code on the reverse which it uses to check the paper type in use to help set the print quality accordingly.

The machine is easy to use for the less technically minded out there, but you do have manual controls over print quality too, within the printer’s advanced driver options, but these could be a little easier to understand and control as they are hidden. This is important if you use third party media on the device, but once you know where the advanced print driver controls are, you're sorted next time around.

Kodak’s Ultra Premium Photo Paper is the best quality paper for best photo prints, but you can "force" the printer to use the higher quality settings, though more ink will be used and it may not provide the best result depending on the exact media types in use.

As with other ESP’s in the range, Kodak’s Dot Replacement print mode allows for better quality output on specific paper types, but not if you print borderless. Disappointingly and like all the other ESP’s we’ve reviewed, Dot Replacement does not support borderless printing.

However, print quality on the better quality papers is very good and suitable for the most demanding consumer, Dot Replacement or not, but it’s a shame you cannot access this setting for borderless prints where that extra detail might be useful.

We have a caveat on this though. The automatic print quality control can sometimes produce images with a striped effect and so we feel the auto quality settings are somewhat conservative, Kodak setting the machine up to use ink more frugally at the cost of producing a better print.

We found manually controlling the print quality produced better results and was faster! Yep that’s right, it’s slightly faster. Our example A4 photo print on Kodak’s Premium Photo Paper (High Gloss) took 3.5 minutes leaving the 7250 to do its quality settings automatically.

We then printed the same image manually controlling the quality (setting the paper as above) and not only was print quality better (no stripes) but it took 3 minutes dead. The same image printed using Dot Replacement took a lot longer, a lot longer indeed, at just under 21-minutes. And then a borderless print at the manually controlled setting (again on the same paper as above) took just over 4 minutes.

One thing that Kodak has not fixed, that would help reduce the frustration of that non-borderless/Dot Replacement mode, is in selecting the print settings. You can select to use the Dot Replacement technology, even with the incorrect, borderless setting and it is only as paper is fed into the printer at the start of the print job that the error is picked up by the machine.

You then get an alert about the incorrect paper selection and all you can do is abort the print process and start again using the correct settings. That is either non-borderless printing or deselecting the Dot Replacement mode prior to hitting the print button. Why not simply have warnings when you click the Dot Replacement radio button on the print driver if you have borderless selected? That would save time and make the 7250 easier to use in terms of printing.

Interestingly, print quality on lesser photo papers (in automatic mode) drops quickly with even the Premium Photo paper producing prints with distracting visible dots, akin to blotchy white coloured noise. Get round this by selecting a higher print setting manually, overriding the auto selection the printer would usually employ.

When printing text documents - with or without graphics - quality is excellent, text looks very crisp and "laser-like" while graphics pack plenty of colour and punchiness.

All this tooing a froing over print times and settings makes it worth looking at Kodak’s claimed print times, which are up to 32 pages per minute (ppm) for mono and 30ppm for colour. However, these settings are only achievable by letting the printer control things and at lowest quality settings. These times are faster than previous models (as are our timed tests for all but Dot Replacement mode photos) but a 6 x 4-inch photo prints in around 29-seconds again at the lower quality settings on offer.

Copy quality leaves something to be desired, copied images having blocky-looking darker areas in shadows. Text copies well however, while copying photos, at photo quality settings, provides prints where detail is missing or filled-in and with odd colour casts. 

In terms of scanning, scan speed is to a large degree dependent on the system/connection method you are using. However using the Wi-Fi connection, scanning took 5 minutes to scan an A4 photo at 600ppi. The 89MB file’s scan quality was good (you can scan up to an optical 2400ppi resolution) with faithful colours and good detail. 

Overall then the 7250 provides a good platform for most printing and copying or scanning needs. And while the 7250 costs a penny shy of £170, the inks cost much less than many competitors; the black pigment ink costing £6.99 and for the five-colour ink tank you’ll pay £11.99, and it is here Kodak’s claimed savings come in.

But there’s a thing to consider, to get the cost of ownership savings, you’ll need to allow the printer’s systems to control the print quality to help get at these savings, but as we’ve seen that also means you get inferior prints to the manual controlled settings that provide better prints.

As with the aforementioned ESP 5250 test the cost of ownership varies on how satisfied you are with the machine’s print quality on lower specified papers and with all auto settings.

Tags: Printers All-in-one printers Kodak Kodak ESP 7250

Kodak ESP 7250 originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Sat, 07 Aug 2010 09:10:59 +0100

Devolo’s dLAN 200 AVpass broadband adapter kit can connect your Freesat box to your broadband router via the mains electricity sockets in your home. But does it work?

For those unfamiliar with Powerline networking (for that’s what running the internet through your home’s power supply is called) the idea is that you can connect devices to the Internet via your home’s mains power sockets seems at best odd and at worst fatal for electrical appliances.

Well it's not as daft as it first seems and Devolo, specialists in Powerline networking, have created a way to connect your Freesat-enabled TV or set-top box to the Internet in order to get access to the new generation of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) features coming on stream.

The AVpass broadband adapter kit provides a connection to a free router Ethernet port and another adapter connected to your Internet-enabled TV via another supplied Ethernet cable. And this means you can receive internet TV services such as BBC’s iPlayer and online radio stations via the mains supply sockets into which adapters are plugged.

Setting up entails removing the two adapters from the box along with the two supplied Ethernet cables. Each adapter has its own three-pin mains socket so you don’t loose a mains socket when using the adapters and the adapter must be plugged in and the Ethernet cable connected to your router.

Then plug in the other adapter at the location of your Freesat TV or set-top box and connect that to the adapter with the other Ethernet cable. A small button on the base each adapter, adjacent to the Ethernet port, must be pressed to secure the network. Press the button on the router-connected adapter first, for 1 second, then the other button on the Freesat device connected adapter within 2 minutes and they’re securely connected at speeds of up to 200Mbps, although speeds will depend on your broadband service for online access. 

Fire up your Freesat TV or set-top box and tune into a channel with internet broadcast services, press the red button on your remote and bingo! On BBC channels, for example, BBC’s iPlayer is yours to view and any Internet based radio stations or any other IPTV services provided by the maker of your set-top box or TV manufacturer.

This means the services on offer will depend to a greater or lesser degree on the services provided by the manufacturer and probably more pertinently, the age of your kit. For example, some TV’s have Ethernet ports for “future features” but the TV’s manufacturer may not yet be broadcasting those IPTV services.

The network the adapters creates depends on how far apart the adapters are and that can be up to 200m of wiring distance so impressive stuff and enough for most "normal" homes. It took us about 10 minutes to get the test 200 AVpass kit plugged in and running through a Panasonic Viera Freesat TV. To expand the system, you’ll need to buy another adapter, press the small button adjacent to the Ethernet cable on the first adapter for 1 second, then the same button on the new adapter, also for 1 second. This will expand the secure network to the three adapters (in this example) with any new devices connected to the new adapter by its Ethernet cable.

Plugged into a Sony PS3 via the Ethernet connection (rather than wirelessly) worked and it’s worth noting there are integrated network filters to minimise interference from any other connected devices and to help ensure optimal connection speeds.

The dual adapter starter kit retails for a penny shy of £120, which seems a little expensive, but it's so easy to use and set-up, you’re paying for that simplicity, the adapter’s sophistication is on the inside and that’s what you’re really playing for.

Another slight gripe is one more applicable to older houses, where the mains sockets tend to be placed low on the wall, near the skirting board. This means the size of the adapters, with the Ethernet cables attached, can make plugging them into the wall socket almost impossible particularly on very low sockets. Modern houses, with their higher placed sockets, will not have this issue.

Tags: Hardware Networking HomePlug Devolo Devolo dLAN 200 AVpass Freesat

Devolo dLAN 200 AVpass kit originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Fri, 28 May 2010 22:56:58 +0100

Sigma's DP2s is a high-end 14.6-megapixel compact aimed at the enthusiast and updates the original DP2. Improvements have been made but some quirks from its predecessor remain.

The Sigma DP2s has almost an identical spec to its forbear, the DP2, and it is almost identical to look at as well. Key features include a sensor unlike most others on the market in that it uses the Foveon X3 CMOS sensor more on which shortly. There's a crisp F/2.8 fixed focal length lens providing a 41mm (35mm format equiv.) focal length that offers a reasonable scope for general shooting.

A new nine-zone AF system has an improved algorithm to help speed up the AF system and while it is improved the AF is not by any means the speediest we've used on a compact. There's no image stabilisation and the movie mode is a basic 320 x 240-pixel resolution offering and looks very outdated compared with the HD video capabilities with stereo sound that are offered from both the Olympus Pen and Panasonic G interchangeable lens models now available and with which it is most likely to compete.

The Foveon sensor on offer is one of the first things that marks the DP2 from the crowd in that it captures light/colour in a totally different way to the usual CMOS or CCD Bayer filter sensors of other cameras. The latter use a matrix of red, green and blue squares to convert the light into colour in the image. The X3 sensor has photosites buried within the silicone at varying depth that allow the camera to capture red, green and blue at each pixel location. This (in theory) provides much improved colour fidelity but does mean the gross output resolution is 4.69-megapixels x3 colours giving you the 14.6-megapixel quoted resolution figures.

But the other asset on the X3 sensor is its size akin to an APS-C sized sensor of 20.7 x 13.8mm making the pixels very large compared with most "consumer oriented" compacts and so less prone to noise issues, and more on that later.

This means at first glance the camera's resolution looks very modest compared to the 12-megapixel competition on the market but it's not the whole story. The lens and sensor are capable of capturing a remarkable level of detail easily akin to, say, a 10-megapixel camera.

Some astute processing of the images - from the RAW files in the supplied and powerful Sigma Photo Pro 4.0 RAW processing package - can provide you with images easily as large in terms of pixel dimensions as the competition. A downside here is the fact you need to carry out the extra RAW processing on PC, so there's an extra level of work to do back home on PC, but the enthusiasts this camera is aimed at will almost certainly shoot RAW (or consider shooting RAW more often than not, depending on the subject) anyway so is perhaps a moot point?

Nevertheless, JPEG capture and RAW shooting is offered (but sadly not simultaneously) and there are a few JPEG image niggles. Colour is very muted from the camera by default (and even using its vivid mode) with the landscape shooting mode probably providing the best overall balance, if still quite muted. This is a surprise given the Foveon sensor and the colour capture it is capable of.

The white balance (WB) is a skewed so while the auto setting does well indoors in mixed lighting, outdoors it has a yellowy green tinge. Set the correct WB setting though and it's a little better but this adds to the overall flat looking capture on JPEG.

Shoot RAWs however and you can control all this stuff later on PC and so you can easily make adjustments that can get the colour and white balance settings exactly how you want them. The Photo Pro software has been improved in version 4.0 but still has a few oddities compared to more arguably mainstream packages such as Camera Raw.

Handling is good with the camera not quite as compact as you might think, but this just makes using it a little simpler as does the clearly marked button layout which includes a mode dial with dedicated setup position along with a full range of Program, Aperture priority, Shutter priority and Manual settings with movie and audio capture bringing up the rear.

A power button and the shutter release sit either side. On the back a modest 230K-dot colour screen is a bit too reflective to use and in bright conditions it becomes very indistinct. An accessory viewfinder is available but then you loose the shooting information and it's an additional cost to boot.

A useful auto exposure lock button is great to have on hand and we used it a lot in my test as we found the metering could be a little wayward on some subjects. A small thumb wheel provides manual focusing control but it's not particularly great use as there's no view enlargement for fine assessment. A clever QD button provides a fast route to key shooting settings (otherwise stuck in menus) and although a little quirky to use (like most of the DP2s) it's actually quickly assimilated into the way the camera works.

A four-way jog button array helps you change and scroll in menus or the Quick Set (QS) button options that change depending on the menu or mode you're in. Again a little quirky but something you can quickly get the hang of. The Menu button activates the neat menus displayed as lists but here one of our main bugbears is the way the active menu option cannot be cancelled or dismissed by making the relevant selection, you have to press the display toggle button instead. That's odd to use and counter-intuitive - and frustrating - as it caught us out time and time again.

Playback image magnification is carried out with a dual button control that's akin to a lens zoom lever, which it is not, of course. When shooting the same buttons control aperture and shutter speeds for example so again, a slightly quirky control arrangement but one that's easy to get to grips with, just don't expect the lens to zoom!

In terms of overall performance, the camera is a study in methodically using the various settings and controls. While the AF is certainly no slouch and the shutter lag is not significantly worse than other compacts, compared to the Pen and G-Series models it's likely to compete with, it's nowhere near as good.

The flash, which pops-up by sliding a small lever across the top left of the display is rather modest and underpowered; it's a great fill-in not much more. The burst frame rate is limited to 3fps (JPEG and/or RAW) so again, modest compared to other cameras now on the market.

We believe this camera will be suited to those of a more pictorialist pent among you or those perhaps more likely to shoot landscapes than, say, undertake large street photography projects, although arguably the focal length may not lend itself to landscapes.

Image quality is extremely good with bags of detail, with the caveats on muted/flat colour as mentioned earlier. Processing the RAWs can get you a superbly colourful image, though please note that all the JPEG images used to illustrate this test have been made from unaltered RAWs or are straight JPEGs from the camera.

Metering while sometimes unreliable is good overall and the fast auto exposure lock control helps out here and while the white balance is certainly a little flaky, noise problems are very well controlled indeed, largely due to the comparatively large pixels. Noise is virtually non-existent at the top ISO 800 setting but there must be a reason for this somewhat restricted maximum sensitivity setting and we suspect above here things probably get a little dicey when shooting JPEGs so the sensitivity is capped at ISO 800.

Tags: Cameras Compact cameras Digital cameras Sigma Sigma DP2s

Sigma DP2s digital camera originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 26 Apr 2010 11:12:16 +0100

Pentax's Optio H90 combines minimalist "functional beauty" with a 12.1-megapixel sensor, 5x wide-zoom lens, HD Movies and advanced auto tracking AF and a Face AF system able to "see" up to 32 faces.

The H90 we tested was the white and silver liveried model, with a black back panel adding neat contrast to the smart ensemble, the slender lines and urbane character of the camera making it attractive indeed. The body has an aluminium alloy upper front section into which are embedded two, flush-fitting top plate buttons.

These are the on/off and shutter buttons; while the white and silver face is punctuated by contrasting matte black lens surround and black lens barrel, making a neat-looking counterpoint to the pristine white. A small self timer lamp and a tiny flash unit, a flash that's really only good as a fill-in given its 0.15m to 2.4m range using ISO Auto mode, are the only other items to sully the otherwise clean face of the H90.

The back is dominated by the camera's 2.7-inch screen that's actually rather good to use which is handy given the fact the camera lacks an optical viewfinder, however the viewing angle, while decent, is still not as wide as we'd like. Controls include a small lens zoom rocker switch which can move the 28 to 140mm 5x optical zoom from wide to tele end very quickly, in around a second.

Playback, Face AF, Menu and Green mode buttons surround a central four-way jog button and its central OK button. The Green button can be set to control a range of options (one at a time) such as white balance or sensitivity, to quickly get at oft-used modes, but it's limited and other controls are left deeper within menus, which is not as user friendly as it could be.

The four-way jog buttons provide fast access to 2- and 10-second self-timer functions, flash settings, macro and super macro shooting and a Mode position. This last option opens up an icon driven menu of shooting options including a range of scene modes, such as portrait and landscape as well as neat digital wide and digital panorama settings that help stitch multiple images together to create very wide or panoramic pictures.

However, the image overlay system used to help align such pictures and that the camera will stitch together for you, is rather indistinct and we found a real challenge to get right. The latest Sweep Panorama modes on cameras such as Sony's TX7, where you simply scan a scene to build a panorama, are a real step forward when you have to drop back to this method of panoramic image creation.

To help keep the camera simple to use, another shooting feature is the Auto picture mode. Here the camera picks what it "thinks" is the best camera setting for the scene you're trying to shoot, be it a close up of a flower or a portrait. And it gets the settings right most of the time and as the far as the camera "sees" them, defaulting to a general point and shoot setting if it cannot make up its "mind".

Blink and Smile detection-focusing join a comprehensive and responsive AF set-up and work very well together; smile detection being almost too sensitive, as it'll take a snap for you as soon as a face changes from moody to very slightly smiley! Blink detection is great - it'll warn you if a shot is taken and someone has their eyes closed - allowing you to re-shoot if you want.

The camera has a 1280 x 720-pixel HD movie mode coupled to Movie SR (Shake Reduction), this digital stabilisation system is also used in still shooting, called Pixel Track SR and it compensates for shake during still shooting at longer focal lengths or in lower lighting. However, the lack of optical image stabilisation is disappointing as this digital shake reduction system combines higher sensitivities with image processing that's not always as effective as optical image stabilisation and means images can be loaded with unwanted noise.

There are, however, a couple of extra neat titbits of kit included in the H90. The first is built-in movie editing (in playback) to help trim and build your HD movie before playing it on an HD TV or before transferring to PC for burning or sharing. Talking of transferring, the camera is compatible with Eye-Fi memory cards so you can shoot and stream images using your home wireless network as you go, which is both very clever and neat to use if you have that set-up.

Still image editing includes digital filters that can be used to crop, remove red-eye and apply special effects such as colour enhancements and coloured filter effects which all makes the camera very versatile and given the relatively modest price tag, a pleasing set of features.

The first thing to say about image quality is that it's very good indeed, particularly at lower sensitivities, up to ISO 400. Above this setting noise becomes more noticeable but not dramatically so, ISO 800 noise is noticeable but acceptable. At ISO 1600 and above, the noise becomes intrusive but we have to say, it's not at a level to make you wince, so Pentax have done well here in our view. Granular but retaining detail, it's not until you get to ISO 6400 that things become unacceptable, but even here Pentax's image processing has managed to hold onto a modicum of detail.

Colour and white balance are both very good and provide perfectly acceptable results; auto white balance has good control but can leave a slight orange tint in artificial lighting or a bluish tinge in overcast daylight conditions, which is a shame.

Recorded detail is superb (with the caveat on higher sensitivities, as above) and particularity so in macro shooting modes, at low ISOs. Focusing is impressively fast and like the rest of the camera's performance, its overall responsiveness is pleasing. Face, Tracking and Smile AF systems all work well and quickly, tracking AF is particularity neat and help keep faces of moving subjects sharp once you've locked onto them.

Tags: Cameras Compact cameras Digital cameras Pentax Pentax Optio H90 12 megapixels

Pentax Optio H90 compact camera originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 19 Apr 2010 08:30:00 +0100

Sony's new Cyber-shot, the TX7 has HD video, image stabilisation, a large, touch sensitive display and Sony's new Exmor R CMOS sensor boasting 10.2-megapixels. The neat design and great build are, perhaps, typically Sony, as is the price, but this little camera combines some advanced features with simplicity of use.

The first thing you may notice about the TX7 has nothing to do with its large screen or natty design; it is probably the hefty £380 price tag. It's a price that puts it - very nearly - in the realm of a consumer oriented DSLR. And so while that may be a bitter pill to swallow, nevertheless there's (arguably) a reason for the price: the TX7 is crammed full of clever kit. And Sony resisted the temptation of cramming extra resolution on to the sensor it opted instead for a more than adequate 10.2-megapixel sensor of the new, Sony Exmor R CMOS variety.

Combined with an (internal) 25 to 100mm Carl Zeiss, 4x wide-zoom lens, this sensor and lens pairing works quite well, barring some slight peripheral softness and barrel distortion, captured detail is very good indeed though noise reduction processing does smooth detail a little more than we're happy with. In such cases, we'd rather have a little more detail at the expense of noise, or at the very least, be able to control the noise processing more. You cannot.

The camera lacks an optical viewfinder, as is common in many digital compacts today, thankfully the large 3.5-inch TruBlack touch screen is a gem; sharp, colourful and (just about) usable even in bright conditions, it quickly gets clogged up with finger marks and the supplied "paint pen" or stylus is a must for those with larger fingers for accurate control of the on-screen active button and menu options.

The camera's sleek design is certainly attractive (we had the very vivid red and very shiny version to test here) but like the display, it's is equally attractive to fingerprints, a minor niggle perhaps, but another issue we had was with the slide down cover on the camera's face. The slider is an on/off control and it's fiddly and will easily wreck a newly manicured fingernail in seconds, the lack of gripping surfaces is very obvious here.

Behind that cover sit the lens, a tiny and rather underpowered flash, an AF illuminator and stereo microphones for use when shooting HD movies, for example. The latter can be shot at up to 1080i resolution and movie quality is excellent in the AVCHD or MPEG4 formats. However, MPEG4 reduces movie resolution from 1920 x 1080 and 60 interlaced frames per second to 1440 x 1080, but still, with bit rates of up to 17mbps; it's on a par with last year's HD camcorders!

Viewing these movies and images on the camera's back you find the screen encompasses the entire rear camera surface (apart from the frame of the camera's bodywork) and as such means there's nowhere to hold on to without finger smears on the display, and I found my thumb would often inadvertently activate a setting or mode. The handling takes a bit of getting used to. But the TruBlack screen technology is the same as that found on Sony's laptops and is excellent.

The on-screen display of menus and controls is clever with options presented either as traditional menus, or as pop-outs that relate to the button pressed, such as flash or self timer settings.

Build is, as mentioned, very nice and the neat placement of the shutter and lens zooming control - the latter sits perched on the extreme corner of the camera - allow easy use even for someone with larger hands. However, the small movie/stills mode buttons and the playback button that nestle just behind the shutter release are fiddlier to use.

An additional on/of button, recessed for safety, is the final external control and here again, it's very hard to use, as it is so small. On the base is a docking port that allows you to connect the camera via the supplied dock to a PC or your TV (though there's no HDMI cable in the box) and makes things a bit neater when it's perched on your desk. A charger comes with the camera too so you can charge the Li-ion battery out of the camera. Battery life is excellent by the way, having lasted around 3 days on test without needing a boost.

Alongside the battery, which slots into a port underneath a flap on the camera's base, resides the SD/SDHC memory card or Sony's Memory Stick PRO Duo cards and there's 48MB of internal storage too. It's worth noting you'll need a high performance card for shooting HD movie clips lasting more than about minute (such as SanDisk's Extreme III cards, which were used here).

Some of that clever camera technology that has gone into making the TX7 pricey includes the Sweep Panorama setting. This allows you to take a panoramic image by moving the camera around as it records slices of the scene before it, stitching them all together as it goes. It works and is fun too, although we did manage to shoot one panorama with a dog in, giving the dog two heads – she moved towards the "sweep" as the shot was taken.

The panoramic shots are played back for you on the screen as a scrolling image, which is very fun and funky. Another plus is the iAuto setting that will assess the scene in front of the lens and pick a scene mode for you. Again, it seems to get things right most times and in portraits it can automatically bias metering and focusing to faces in the shot to flattering effect. All this automation takes the need to enter menus away and makes the camera very simple to use to boot.

Other features include the Handheld Twilight mode, where up to six images are combined into one, for reduced noise performance; akin to having built-in high dynamic range (HDR) ability and it works nicely enough, though a tripod and motionless subjects work best. The built-in image stabilisation is very good at mitigating a lot of the problems in lower light situations and Sony's BIONZ image engine works a treat throughout and along with the new Exmor sensor, makes the Sweep and other funky stuff possible too. Oh and you get 12-scene modes to select manually if you wish as well should the camera not get things right first time.

BIONZ also allows Sony to throw in up to 10fps action shooting and an Anti Motion Blur mode (essentially an automatic high sensitivity mode) and the camera is pretty much as replete with kit as you can possibly cram into its tiny 133g frame.

Close inspection of images reveals slight edge softness to wider view images and these are also affected by some barrel distortion and chromatic aberration, typical of this sort of compact if not at this price point. However, colour is well rendered and that's good as there's no way to adjust colour settings, which is quite unusual in such compacts. Nevertheless, white balance control is good, though control of image quality is missing so you're left with what the camera provides. Metering is very good overall but we found it biased slightly to overexpose.

The nine-zone auto focusing system is fast and pretty accurate, particularly on faces in a shot, while macro focusing - down to a reasonable 8cm - is just about okay, since while the central area of the macro image is sharp, that aforementioned softness around the edges becomes very noticeable.

Tags: Cameras Compact cameras Digital cameras Sony Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX7 10 megapixels

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX7 camera originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:40:20 +0100

The Coolpix P100 is the first Nikon bridge camera with Full HD 1080p resolution movie capture with stereo sound, it also has a remarkable 26x Nikon ED VR zoom lens. That and a CMOS sensor packing 10.3 megapixels makes it a formidable looking bridge-style compact camera.

The camera's lens dominates the design and, with its premium Nikon ED glass, it is a substantial lump of optics indeed. But that does not present a handling problem, the camera is light in the hand and despite the extended lens protruding from the front, handling is very good thanks to the sculpted hand grip upon which the shutter release, on/off button, the lens zoom control, which surrounds the shutter button, lies. The dimensions read out as 114.4 x 82.7 x 98.6mm and it weighs in at 481g.

Aside from the 26mm to 678mm lens and the neat handgrip control layout, another key feature that's immediately obvious, is the large - and excellent to use - 3-inch, vari-angle (tilt and flip, but not turn) monitor, which makes playback of movies, image review and composition a relative breeze. The screen is clear and bright thanks to its 460,000-dot resolution. The vari-angle control means you can adjust its viewing angle from straight down or up, from 45-degree angle upwards with the screen flush against the body or, by extending the screen's strut, at a distance from the body, all great for tripod use, for example.

That is with one exception when the screen faces straight down where the tripod gets in the way. The raison d'etre for that downward angle is almost certainly ideal for overhead shooting in, say, a crowd.

Easily usable in bright conditions, the screen has a low reflection coating and is nevertheless backed up by a small electronic viewfinder, or EVF, toggled via a small button next to the EVF. The 230,000-dot resolution is just about okay but colour balance and critical image assessment of, say, focus is nowhere near as easy to do as with the larger screen.

However, at least it provides a good back-up for power conservation and/or where it's too bright to use the larger screen effectively. A small, rather underpowered pop-up flash nestles within the EVF housing and stereo speaker array (of course also, traditionally, the location of the pentaprism finder on an DSLR) and can be activated manually or automatically depending on whether you are within the automated or manual control options, more on which shortly.

A large top plate mode dial, sat squarely alongside the flash housing and the on/off button has two main sections, one for automated modes and one for manual control options. These are pretty much as you'd expect with fast access to scene modes and settings.

There's the full suite of manual settings, as you'd expect, including full manual control but perhaps more interestingly, there's access to the camera's other very clever kittery. For a start you get the usual all-auto (green) setting, there's a scene auto selector which chooses a setting based on the subject in front of the lens and seems to be able to do that well.

Smart Portrait comes next and this helps to... helps toooo... now let me see, what is it again? Ah, that's it. Get better portraits. And it does this brilliantly by using a combination of technologies including face detection AF, redeye auto fix and smile mode with blink warning.

Now these last two are great, the camera will warn you if a person has blinked so you can take the shot again and it can take a picture automatically as soon as a person smiles. This is both great fun and crucially, it works!

Next up comes subject tracking that allows you to define a subject (by pressing the OK button, within the four-way jog buttons on the camera's back) so that the focusing system then tracks the subject as it (or you) move, meaning you can time the shutter release to perfection for, say, a moving subject and yet keep it sharp. And it's actually very good at tracking the subject across the frame, but if the subject moves towards the camera then it's slightly less effective at keeping things sharp.

Last up there's a User settings position which you can select for oft-used modes already set-up within the camera menu system. And that menu system is very straightforward to use, the camera being designed to offer ease of use yet with plenty of technical wizardry for you to take advantage of.

There are four main menus for camera shooting, movie shooting, playback and settings. Each has tabbed pages of options for you to use and select and cleverly, if you're not sure of what each menu item is for, then you can access a help system that explains the settings by flipping the lens' zoom control.

Okay so the camera is nice to handle and is a cinch to use effectively with a great range of clever and technically advanced features to tinker with. Let's have a look at the shooting options, both video and still.

HD movie quality is very good at a max 1080p; the stereo sound setup is nice to have but is without an external speaker, and the lens zoom operation makes a rather distracting whirring noise on your footage. At least you can zoom while filming, but the AF has a real struggle keeping up.

Movie quality is good and thanks to the VR (Vibration Reduction) system on the camera hand holding at longer focal lengths, when either still and movie shooting is just about possible ... just.

One slight issue we had is the fact there’s a dearth of direct controls on the body, frustratingly so even for ISO for example; the fast routes into flash, exposure compensation and macro shooting are the norm, but while this is a feature-rich camera, a lot of its best bits are hidden in menus.

Clever tools such as those mentioned above and others, such as the high dynamic range (HDR) capture and multiple exposure show how this camera offers a high level of advanced controls even for the less adept user if they want to use them. More advanced users might find the access to them a little slow however.

In terms of still image quality, the first thing of note is the excellent auto white balance (WB), which works really well even in mixed lighting, some of the best results we’ve seen from recent compacts and the benefit to your images is clear as better white balance makes them look more natural.

Colour is good too with the standard mode providing natural-looking (though there's the customary range of adjustment options such as vivid and monochrome you can play with) and the sheer level of detail is also excellent; the CMOS sensor is a new design that has a backlighting technology to help improve low light noise performance as it aids the amount of light each pixel receives.

The low sensitivity noise performance is very good indeed, the lower ISOs benefiting from the new sensor technology as well as the higher settings where up to ISO 800 things look very good indeed. But as you get to the higher settings things become less good, but not dramatically so. In fact this is some of the best ISO performance of a compact we’ve seen so top marks for Nikon’s boffins, as they have obviously worked very hard on this camera to mitigate noise issues, not only keeping them to a minimum, but actually managing to preserve colour detail as well, even at ISO 3200.

Tags: Cameras Digital cameras Nikon Nikon Coolpix p100 10 megapixels

Nikon Coolpix P100 camera originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Mon, 22 Mar 2010 08:30:00 +0000

The Coolpix S640 provides a simple to use, high-resolution snapper for the masses with focusing and start-up performance as claimed benefits, among other cool features.

It is a slim, stylish-looking compact digital camera from Nikon that has a high-resolution 12.3-megapixel sensor and a quartet of image stabilisation tools to help keep everything nice and steady in low light or at longer focal lengths of the camera’s excellent 5x zoom lens, which provides a good focal range from 28 to 140mm with a fast maximum aperture of F/2.8.

The quartet of stabilising features includes lens shift (optical) Vibration Reduction (VR), whilst a top sensitivity setting of ISO 6400 allows for faster shutter speeds in low light, say, or helps prevent subject blur for faster moving subjects. Motion detection mode automatically adjusts ISO and shutter speed for you, to help deal with subject movement and camera shake, removing that headache from your snapping equation. Finally, Nikon’s BSS (Best Shot Selector) automatically shoots a series of images in sequence saving the frame that’s sharpest.

Now, all that is great, but at higher ISOs particularly above ISO 1600, image noise, as you might expect, becomes a serious issue. Yes it allows you to get the shot, but is it usable at ISO 6400? If it lacks detail, clarity or colour fidelity it isn’t.

However, ISO 1600 is actually very good in this regard, well at least for compacts such as this, so that’s a bonus in terms of images shot at that setting. Below ISO 800 and things are much improved and you can limit the ISO range used (in auto settings) between ISO 100 to 400 and ISO 100 to 800, which helps mitigate noise in all-auto shooting modes, while the auto ISO range spreads things further still, ranging as it does between ISO 100 and 1600.

Handling is very nice for such a slim camera, particularly with the 5x zoom lens which is a real cracker; sharp, fast (both in terms aperture and its speed when zooming in and out) and covers a great focal range making it a very accomplished piece of glass.

Controls are simple, there’s a zoom control surrounding the shutter release on the top, alongside the on/off button. The camera starts quickly, as Nikon claims, but if you want to access a menu to make an alteration, you still have to wait around 2 and a half seconds for the systems to “boot” up before menus become active.

On the back plate, a single button accesses the shooting modes: auto (program) and 17 scene modes that cover all the usual suspects, including panorama assist and close up and backlit option among others.

A neat Smart Portrait mode (this is over and above the Scene mode’s Portrait setting) uses face detection technology alongside a special algorithm to help produce enhanced skin tones and smoothness in a shot as well as being able to recognise up to 12 faces in your photos. The Face priority AF also helps as it targets the metering and focusing points to create better people pictures.

Throw in the uncanny Smile Timer, where you can select a key subject and when they smile the camera fires and it's eerie how well that works. The Blink Proof function does not prevent everyone in front of the camera from blinking, oh no, it fires two frames in quick succession and keeps the image where everyone’s eyes are open. Both are very handy features, and fun to use or try to foil!

Playback, menus and delete are all on the back plate on satellite buttons around the jog/dial selector and “OK” button used to navigate menus, options, images and select the option of choice.

The 2.7-inch colour screen is very nice to use, which it has to be as there’s no optical viewfinder, it has an anti-reflective coating; it’s water repellent and has a brightness boost too, for shooting in very bright conditions, but in direct sunlight it still becomes a challenge to use without shading.

The focusing performance is something Nikon has made big strides forward on in this camera; general subjects can be locked onto very fast indeed and this is great for reducing the lag between pressing the shutter button and getting an image. However, the AF fails to lock onto low contrast subjects and this happened too often for our liking.

Subject tracking, which locks onto a person's face and keeps it in focus helps keep fast moving people pictures sharply rendered and it’s great for shooting your children at a party, say, even in low light when the faster ISO settings can be utilised if needed. One thing worth mentioning is the flash, which is tiny and underpowered for almost everything, higher ISOs push the performance a bit further but expect an effective flash range of only around 3 to 5 feet at ISO 100 to 400.

Images are stored on SD/SDHC storage but you get 45MBs of internal storage to tinker with as well, which is nice and dual movie modes for TV (640 x 480-pixels) or web use (320 x 240-pixels) if you're into your YouTube.

Overall, the S640 is very encouraging in terms of image quality. The combination of good lens, optical VR and low ISO image quality combine well here to produce great images. Colour and white balance (WB) are very good though the auto WB settings suffer from (the usual) slight orange colour cast under mixed lighting conditions.

The detail captured is quite superb below ISO 400, good at ISO 800 and okay at ISO 1600. Above this setting the detail is compromised by noise reduction processing and the sheer volume of image noise makes images rather murky. Metering is good for general scenes but as expected, the snowy shots have slight under exposure, so selecting the Snow scene mode helped out here.

Tags: Cameras Compact cameras Digital cameras Nikon Nikon Coolpix S640 12 megapixels

Nikon Coolpix S640 compact camera originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:00:00 +0000

The Coolpix S570 arrived alongside the S640 and provides a simple to use, high-resolution snapper for the masses, but with some problems and some neat automated tricks up its sleeve.

Costing a quid shy of £200, the S570 looks very nice (I had the silver liveried version) and comes with a 12-megapixel top resolution and a large 2.7-inch screen - though it lacks an optical viewfinder - as most compacts tend to do today as their makers try to keep 'em small.

Billed by Nikon as a camera "perfect for parties, nights out, holidays and more" it certainly boasts a high ISO setting if ISO 32,000 at full resolution. However in practice, shooting at anything over ISO 400 the noise becomes visible and over 800, it's very intrusive, so shooting in low light at higher ISOs is possible, but you may not like what you see in the resulting images.

In terms of overall performance, the camera is also lacking some pizzazz. It's pretty slow to focus in all modes other than with the fixed, central AF point in use - face AF, manual and auto zone AF selection are all very slow to lock on, and even then they don't always get it right.

Switching to that central AF zone provides faster AF service but then of course you'll need to factor-in decomposition of off-centre subjects. The speed images are spooled off to the SD/SDHD card which is also a little suspect as the camera will lock up for around 1.5 seconds (more in continuous shooting sequences where you get a burst mode of around 1fps for as long as you press the shutter button) leaving you twiddling your thumbs and missing other potential shots, but that's all quite underwhelming at this price point. Okay, so enough of the problems.

On the plus side of the equation, the S570 looks great, its menu system is easy to follow and understand and the camera handles well, albeit we found the shutter button a little too sensitive.

The Intelligent automation system works, and automatically picks the "correct" scene before the camera and is pretty accurate and saves faffing about in the scene menus. The intelligent system selects between six scene modes that most closely fit your subject - portrait, night portrait, landscape, night landscape, close up or backlit subjects, which cover most situations for everyday shooting.

There are also four electronic VR (Vibration Reduction) image "stabilisation" modes via a motion detection system that automatically controls shutter and ISO settings. But here issues with image noise can become a problem as you lack control over the ISO.

Nikon's BSS (Best Shot Selector) is a help here as it will snap a series of sequential images and saves just the sharpest one from the sequence you've taken, which is great and can take some of the disappointment out of a fast sequence of events you're trying to shoot while trying not to miss the action and get a sharp shot.

We also like the Quick Retouch mode, this works rather well at improving the balance of contrast and saturation in images you've taken. It's simple to use and can add a touch of sparkle to some shots taken on, say, cloudy or dull days.

You still get 16 scene modes if you want to select from them, such as Beach and Snow, Food and Museum modes, as well as the usual settings such as Macro and Sports modes. Nikon's D-Lighting technology helps get detail out of shadow and highlights, without compromising either and there's a neat auto picture sorting system too, which helps get you to your favourite images on the card quickly and simply.

There's a generous helping of movie modes, four of them in fact. Two 640-pixel TV settings (one high quality, one standard) and ditto two lower resolution (PC/web oriented) 320-pixel movie options also with high and standard settings.

The S570's 5x optical zoom Nikkor lens gives a good maximum aperture range of F/2.7 to F/6.6 and the 24-140mm zoom range can encompass most typical subjects - the lens is crisp and compact, so keeping the camera small in use but giving the potential to pack in plenty of detail.

The two sections of the lens's slide-away protector, which should cover the lens when the camera is off, occasionally got stuck as the camera switched on, and that seems a little problematic as we had to fiddle to get the darn thing open.

In terms of overall image quality, we've already mentioned about the high ISO noise problems, but with the sharp lens and very good white balance control (though slight orange casts can be visible in auto mode in mixed lighting) plus a natural colour performance at the default setting, these all help to get the most from shots where the camera is at its best - low ISO, bright conditions and static subjects.

Tags: Cameras Compact cameras Digital cameras Nikon Nikon Coolpix S570 12 megapixels

Nikon Coolpix S570 compact camera originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 09 Feb 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Nikon’s new flagship DSLR, the D3s, builds on the groundbreaking D3, which revolutionised the high-speed professional DSLR market on its introduction in August 2007. The D3s has an all-new FX format full-frame sensor and enhanced specification, rugged build and shooting controls. It’s expensive, much more expensive, but as with the D3, it’s certainly a whole lot of camera.

The D3s is pretty much identical to its D3 predecessor and reveals how Nikon has evolved the former camera rather than gone for a revolutionary new model. A D4 this is not which means there could certainly be one of those on the cards in the upcoming year. But speculation aside, the D3s has some significant and not so significant improvements and new features.

The new full-frame sensor is a completely redesigned affair with improved micro lens array to help enable the new high-ISO (low noise) capture settings. This includes a boosted ISO 102,400 mode for shooting in extremely low light without additional light/flash. The low noise image performance "war" between Canon and Nikon, which Canon had the march on for quite some time, were pegged back by the D3. Canon improved things further with the introduction of the EOS 5D MkII and then the EOS 7D but Nikon has pulled ahead once more with the D3s.

The Nikon D3s almost identical to the D3 in terms of size and design, the most obvious changes are the more intense green colour on the white balance (WB) and ISO buttons on the back; the fact there is now a dedicated Live View control (in which you can also get to the movie capture mode) is also another obvious change.

Other controls remain unchanged and mean if you’ve shot on a D3 (or any other Nikon DSLR for that matter) then the layout is wholly familiar. However, the camera is a hefty beast, particularly with the excellent 70-24mm F/2.8 zoom we had to play with for this test, a test carried out during the worst of the snow and freezing conditions in Kent, with which the camera and battery pack coped well.

At 1.24kg (body only and identical to the D3) and another 902g gives a camera weighing in at almost 2.3kg (with this lens) so wilting violets need not apply. What you get though is a ruggedised and weather sealed camera capable of shooting at up to 11fps (in DX format) or 9fps (in the full frame FX format) in RAW for up to 48 shots in one burst, a vast improvement on the 18 RAWs at a time from the D3.

The new sensor provides the same 12.1-megapixel resolution from the D3 and as with the D3, the upside of this (comparatively modest) resolution means the greater pixel pitch (so bigger core sensitive pixels) means an excellent signal to noise ratio, a ratio even more enhanced by the improvements to the redesigned sensor and improved micro lens array.

Image processing is controlled by Nikon’s EXPEED image engine and it is superb, and with the new sensor, allows the camera’s standard ISO range of 200 to 12800 (ISO 100 to 102,400 in boosted modes) to become a realistic and usable proposition.

Image noise is so well controlled and as with the D3, we found routine shooting above ISO 1000 no problem. Noise is only really apparent (but very subtly) at ISO 6400 and above, noise in shadows reveals blotches of blockiness at ISO 8000 and it becomes very noticeable at ISO 12,800 and above. Interestingly, areas of smooth featureless colour, such as skies, start to pick up artifacts less quickly.

While the bulk and weight of the D3s mean your average Joe might baulk at carting the camera about with it round their neck, the camera’s handling compensates; it is simply excellent with great ergonomics and easy to use/reach controls.

The integrated vertical grip helps balance the use of the camera too and houses a large lithium-ion battery pack that survived hours of snapping in temperatures as low as -5, shooting 228 images (with plenty of reviewing) and it still reads 74% at time of writing. The camera comes with a dual charger as standard too, and so it darn well should given the price of the camera.

The excellent 3-inch screen has a 920,000-pixel resolution and wide viewing angle making it a great to use, add in the large info display that’s aided by nice (backlit) top and back plate data LCDs and you have information galore. Live View is included and has AF in two modes; hand held and tripod modes and so where you need Live View to aid composition; it works a treat.

Although much of the D3s is gleaned from the D3, another feature here is the ability to shoot 720p HD movies (with built in and external sound - if you link up a microphone) at 24fps and up to the Hi3 (ISO 102,400) sensitivity setting, making movie capture in low light as flexible as it is in still capture.

The aforementioned external audio connects into a dedicated audio port under the cover on the camera’s side and the HDMI socket also located here is now of the mini-HDMI type, allowing room for the audio socket.

In terms of shooting modes, the D3s has a full complement of the manual shooting options, as you’d expect (aperture and shutter priority, program, and full manual control) and this is now enhanced with Nikon’s Scene Recognition System that uses the AE and AF sensors to assess the subject and pick the “correct” setting for the subject.

This type of mode or feature is common today within many consumer oriented cameras but feels a little incongruous here, but I suppose if it helps get better results, then why knock it? The Picture Control System is still in there and this enables tweaks to each shooting mode and allows pre-settings such as standard, vivid and monochrome and allows you to tailor the way each mode reproduces the image.

Then throw in the power of in-camera RAW processing where image size, quality, white balance, picture control settings, noise reduction, colour space and vignetting control are all available to help quickly process the RAW files, and that can help save a lot of time later, in your post-shoot workflow.

The D3s now has a “quiet” shooting mode found on the drive mode dial just below the flash, bracketing and Command Lock “turret” on the top plate. When active this helps reduce the noise the camera’s shutter and mirror mechanism make when you take a shot, but it’s a subtle difference, the most obvious change being the slower mirror return. Another very subtle but nice change is the pressure sensitivity of some controls has been enhanced and this makes it a far more positive experience using controls such as the AF-On button on the back plate.

Dual CF Type I/II storage provides ample room for your photos; you can assign which of the two cards has priority, simply use the second card as an overflow when or if the first becomes full or save RAWs to one and JPEGs to the other. However, the D3s brings UDMA media support to the party and this helps get all the data off the camera’s buffer and into the cards more quickly, vital also for shooting the massive 720p HD videos.

Image formats include JPEG (basic, normal or fine) and RAW with simultaneous JPEG capture in each quality setting and you can shoot TIFFs too. You also get four menu banks (denoted A, B, C and D, although you can name them something more meaningful) so that you effectively get four ways to set the camera up and recall them quickly by selecting the corresponding bank of menus.

This means - on top of the four menu banks - there are four custom mode banks too, on which you can layer various custom modes, again for particular camera set-ups you might use repeatedly. Added to the 43 custom options you have 344 possible set-up options in menus and custom modes.

In terms of image quality the metering is handled by a combination of Nikon’s 3D Matrix system and a 1005-pixel RGB sensor, and like the D3, it works amazingly well. However, the (predominantly) snowy subject matter we were forced to shoot (we had weeks of snow) meant the camera would still underexpose, the snow made the metering err as it “thought” everything was brighter than it actually was.

Exposure compensation and bracketing made it s simple job of dialing in a half stop of exposure compensation to bring exposures back into line.

AF’s controlled by Nikon’s Multi-CAM 3500FX processor which, while very reliable, predominantly dark or very light scenes can fool the AF. And although the focusing has 51-AF points - to which metering can be locked - and you can select and move the AF point of choice around the zones available, or select 11 specific zones and all of which can be tailored to use all or within user specified groups, we found the AF struggled in some low light scenes that the new camera is capable of shooting in, the AF hunting on various occasions.

Colour and white balance control are excellent. Colour is natural in the camera’s default “standard” mode but there are so many ways to tweak the colour performance (along with everything else), that you can pretty much dial in whatever colour parameters you need, depending on what you want from a subject.

In terms of white balance the D3s is as peerless as the D3 and even the auto WB control provides a nice neutral effect in mixed lighting but it’s not so much fun in very low, mixed lighting. In terms detail you loose a slight amount at higher ISO settings as the EXPEED engine works through what noise there is and at the very high sensitivity settings, blocks of noise in shadows can overwhelm detail that is there. Nevertheless, when you look at the sensitivity in use, it’s remarkable, there’s an image as good as there is to even quibble over.

The non-boosted sensitivity settings provide plenty of pristine detail and while on the original D3 it was only above ISO 1000 that the image processing could be seen to affect fine details to any extent, the D3s’ new sensor and its enhanced circuitry mean that limit is not reached until you hit ISO 2000, but only visible (as with the D3) in fine portrait detail such as skin pores.

Tags: Cameras DSLR cameras Nikon Nikon D3s Nikon D3 Canon EOS 7D Canon EOS 5D Mk II 12 megapixels

Nikon D3s DSLR camera originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:32:52 +0000

The latest Bravia HD TV in Sony's "V" range is this, the KDL-40V5810 and it sports integrated Freesat, Freeview and analogue tuners; AppliCast, Live Colour and 24p True Cinema along with all the other Bravia goodies.

The V5810 is a sleek, piano black finished 40-inch LCD HD TV with 1920 x 1080p resolution and arrives updating the "V" range of Sony Bravia sets with Bravia Engine 3 picture processing power, Live Colour - for improved colour reproduction - particularly good for reds and greens among other clever kittery.

That kit includes a LAN connection for access to the rather underwhelming internet-based AppliCast features (fun widgets for things such as weather, calendars and clocks for example) and Sony's Advanced Contrast Enhancer, which helps to ensure the set produce deep blacks, and indeed it does, some of the best we've seen on an LCD TV.

Another bonus is the ease of set-up which uses an automated Wizard style approach and Sony's excellent and now ubiquitous (on Sony kit) XMB, or XrossMenuBar menu system to access features and settings and is fast and easy to use. Selection of desired inputs starts the process of tuning and the TV runs you through each tuner's modes as you progress.

But one of the neatest features is Voice Zoom where you can boost audio for voices to produce more distinct dialogue within nosier scenes, such as actor's dialogue within in a movie action sequence with explosions. The TV's built-in S-Force Front Surround audio system is also good and the speakers provide a rich distortion-free sound output though the full volume setting is a little underwhelming but better that than distorted sounds so it helps improve audio overall.

The W5810's Eco viewing modes and a light sensor that allows the TV to adjust its brightness according to ambient light in the room all help keep power consumption down helping to minimise the set's carbon footprint. However, in the lowest power setting, screen illumination looks a little uneven at the edges, reminiscent of vignetting on a wide angle photograph; subtle but there.

Features such as Picture Frame mode fly in the face of those eco friendly modes however, well a tad at least, as this allows you to use the TV as a large picture frame when not viewing broadcasts or a movie and while that's a very funky feature to have it makes any eco modes seem a bit superfluous.

As well as the new Freesat tuner, the 5810 also has a built-in Freeview tuner and of course, an analogue tuner (although some versions of this TV in other countries may not have all these) but this keeps your TV viewing options open while satellite connectivity is of course there for those who might want to stop paying for their Sky subscription and so everyone is covered.

Combine that with the four HDMI inputs (two on the back, two on the side), dual Scart sockets and Component and Composite connections, you can plug in a host of accessories such as Blu-ray, VHS and/or additional TV tuners making it even more flexible in terms of viewing options.

Bravia Sync means other Sony products connected to the TV can be controlled by the one (excellent) supplied remote so there's less of a bun fight over which remote does what, but bear in mind that's only if you have another Sony appliance of course.

While it's true there are the usual problems with standard definition sources, these are mitigated well by the Sony's picture processing, which helps smooth and reduce the effects of compression artifacts and the like.

Using the PS3 and Freesat's BBC HD channel as High Definition sources sees the TV really comes alive; better sound and superb picture quality are the name of the game. Interestingly, the set's picture presets such as Vivid, Standard and a Custom mode each allow you to tweak the picture to your liking or to suit the source, using adjustments to contrast, colour and brightness changes.

But the TV's Cinema mode has a dedicated button the remote it's not buried in a menu and that's really nice. "Cinema" boosts contrast (the set has a ratio of 60,000:1), highlights are recovered and the brightness and colours become more natural or muted (Cinema mode is intended for darkened room viewing), and sets the picture to how a movie director intended, with the 24Hz frame rate working really well and all easy to control via the remote control which comes with the TV.

Here the 1080p and 24Hz picture modes (25Hz in HD via Freesat) provides stunning picture quality and so either way you look at this TV, the picture quality is some of the best we've seen from an LCD TV of this type. 

Tags: Home Cinema Televisions LCD televisions Freesat Sony Sony Bravia KDL-W5810

Sony Bravia KDL-40V5810 television originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Canon's new Digital IXUS 120 IS is only 20mm thin, which is great in terms of pocketability but not so clever when using it if you have larger fingers - or bite your fingernails.

The IXUS 120 IS is a 12-megapixel digital compact that is the slimmest wide angle Digital IXUS to emerge from Canon's factories having an all-metal body that's just 20mm thin. It's a smoothly stylish, pocketable compact snapper that comes in silver, blue, black and brown.

The thin streamlined lines are only disturbed when you switch the camera on via tiny on/off button on the top plate and the excellent 4x optical zoom lens emerges quickly into the shooting position.

The lens has the equivalent focal length of 28 to 112mm, a 4x zoom with excellent sharpness and little distortion; it's a focal range suitable for most general snapping tasks from wider vistas to reasonable close ups. Canon has created a tiny snapper that is ideal for anyone traveling, wanting a small stills camera and yet capable of good quality video.

A great 2.7-inch screen dominates the camera's back plate, the 120 IS lacks an optical viewfinder - as you might expect but it's still a regret. The small controls are placed to its right and provide a route for changing the shooting mode (auto, Program AE and video modes) playback, menu and display toggle; FUNC(tion)/Set and flash, exposure compensation, self timer/delete, macro and Landscape settings, all are a bit of handful because they're all so small.

This is of course a compromise that you cannot escape on such small cameras but worth thinking through since anyone with larger fingers will struggle to quickly control key aspects of the camera, since selecting the correct item can be a challenge.

Above the controls you find the USB/AV out and HDMI sockets under a small flap that just will not stay out of the way when you're plugging anything into the camera. However, the HDMI out means you can output video and images direct to a HD TV and/or connect it to a computer to offload images, from the SD/SDHC storage. This memory card slots into a port underneath, adjacent to the small rechargeable Li-ion battery.

Handling is probably the main issue we have here, since the shutter release is small, the lens' zoom control that surrounds it is also very small and along with the small controls on the back plate the overall effect is a camera that's a bit of a handful despite its small size. Menus are clear and easy to understand and use. The central FUNC button (on the back) activates shooting related options such as sensitivity, scene modes, white balance (WB) and imager quality while the Menu button brings to life the settings menus such as date and time settings for example.

In the full auto (Smart Auto) mode the menu options are reduced to a simple choice of resolution settings as the camera automatically tries to take care of subject selection for you, this is a "smart" system first seen on Panasonic's Lumix compacts and now finding its way across most maker's digital models.

Smart auto detects the subject (a face or landscape say) and sets the camera accordingly and is also able to boost the sensitivity - as needed - when movement of subject, camera or both is detected, but that can introduce unwanted noise at higher ISOs.

In video shooting mode, menus offer options to change the video resolution, WB and the "My Colors" option where you can adjust the way colours are recorded such as vivid, sepia, neutral; this is also available to use in Program AE stills mode.

In terms of image quality, images, while detailed enough lack a little sharpness and bite; the metering left a little to be desired where it seemed biased to the centre, even in evaluative metering mode. Centre-weighted and spot metering (in program mode) help with more problematic situations but not to the degree we'd have liked.

The overall effect is one of frustration, as there's not much leeway between over exposed and underexposed shots when shooting, say, a landscape with bright sky and deeply shadowed foreground. You can meter to one or the other, but (seemingly) not both and even with Canon's iContrast system, aimed at preventing blown highlights or deeply shadowed foregrounds it seems to struggle to get things right. Thankfully exposure compensation is included and helps and little more.

Image noise is well controlled at lower ISOs, 80 to 400; higher ISOs over ISO 800 and you have image noise issues; noise and the noise suppression software eats into detail in a similar way to the recently tested IXUS 200 IS.

However, the 720p HD video capability is great, image quality is very good but audio is problematic on such a small device, but you're able to shoot 720p at 30fps to the limit of the SD card capacity, so that's around 21-minutes of HD video on a 4GB SD card. You can digitally zoom while shooting to crop in but you can't zoom the lens itself while videoing, which is disappointing as the digital zoom reduces quality. AF is fixed while shooting too.

However when taking stills, the AF is a little slow and this is compounded a little from shutter lag but it's by no means serious more typical for digital compacts. In terms of colour and white balance (WB), colour is natural and well rendered while WB performs well in auto WB mode, particularly when capturing video, in stills you get a slight orange cast in mixed lighting.

Set the correct WB (you get the usual modes for cloud, sunlight, tungsten, incandescent, etc.,) for the lighting at hand and things are much better and add zip to the final image. Another plus is the Image Stabilisation, which can be used in still and movie capture and it really helps keep things steadier, particularly when shooting video at full zoom.

Face detection AF works nicely and seems speedier to get a grip on subjects than just the "normal" half press of the shutter release, so that fits nicely with the target market who'll usually shoot in Smart Auto mode anyway.

Other slight niggles we have are some pixel fringing around high contrast areas of a shot, there's also a question mark over the position of the flash and it is underpowered, it's position means it's prone to being blocked by your finger (another issue around such small camera size) and we found redeye a problem when shooting at closer distances to your subject.

On the plus side, the battery life is not bad given its small size and after 2 days of snapping and around 100 shots and 20-minutes of video, it was still going strong and downloading direct form the camera (for some reason the camera would not mount on my computer I had to use the supplied Canon solutions software, which is very slow to use and download data) so you won't always be required to carry the charger and power lead around with you when out and about.

Overall then this tiny camera offers a surprisingly neat package of HD video and 12-megapixel stills able to stand up to most competitors on the market today at this level. And so this camera makes a great option for those looking for a pocketable snapper able to fit into a pocket or handbag while offering great video and stills capture for this level of spec, if it is a tad pricey.

Tags: Cameras Digital cameras Compact cameras Canon Canon Ixus 120 12 megapixels

Canon IXUS 120 IS digital camera originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:19:32 +0000

The Canon IXUS 200 IS is a stylish, compact pocketable snapper that comes in silver, light blue, purple and a posh-looking golden livery. The smooth lines of the camera are punctuated only by the slightly protruding shutter button on the top and the wrist strap lug and that's it until you turn the camera on.

Then the 200's excellent 25-120mm 5x zoom lens springs into life; the camera's wide end of the zoom is excellent for getting in broader vistas and so makes the camera appealing for those shooting landscapes and wider views, but it's 120mm full zoom end means it also handles closer subjects well too, so a good focal length balance.

Its 12.1-megapixel sensor allows shots to printed at large sizes and provides bags of detail at lower ISOs; higher ISOs - over ISO 400 - have some image noise issues but not dramatically bad for a camera of this type. At ISO 800 and 1600 however, noise and the noise suppression software, which eats into detail, combines to produce less satisfying images.

On a more positive note however, one of the key features of this camera, and one that's sure to appeal to many of you, is the 720p HD video capability. It does a great job, able to shoot to the limit of the SD card capacity you have installed at 720p and 30fps.

You cannot zoom the lens once shooting though, so you need to set the focal length and stop shooting to adjust the lens further. Disappointingly, a similar restriction is enforced on the AF during movie shooting too, it too is fixed once you're shooting.

However, in stills shooting, while the AF it is a little slow to grab onto your subject via a half press of the shutter button, there are neat AF additions to play with to jolly things along. You can tap the touch-sensitive 3-inch colour screen to assign a focus point anywhere within the scene, which is superb to use. And once a point is selected it is fixed and no matter how you move the camera (barring completely away from the point focused upon of course), the point of focus remains locked.

This is great for recomposing a shot around a group or people, say, of if you know you'll be adjusting the camera angle, but want a set focus point for when a moving subject passes by, when panning for example. Face AF is included of course and this is fast, but we found it has some problems on some faces in profile, particularly anyone with a beard!

Disappointingly, touch focus is not available in movie shooting, AF is fixed to where it started. This makes videoing a moving subject, where the distance between the camera and the subject might change particularly problematic without stopping and starting the video each time, irksome (and jumpy to say the least in the video) for subjects fairly close to the camera or approaching the camera.

Some of the key camera controls can also be accessed via the touchscreen; a press of the icons on screen will activate a new menu such as the shooting modes. For still images you get Program (with exposure compensation being the only real manual control option) and 18 scene modes that include a high ISO 3200 setting for low light without flash (just bear in mind the noise/detail caveat as above) and a selection of the "usual" scene modes such as portrait, indoor and sunset modes to name a few.

In terms of overall handling the camera's compact nature and the large screen mean back plate controls are small and fiddly to use. Playback and menu buttons are larger and sit as neatly sculpted lozenges above and below a small mode dial. For the latter, the outer ring rotates for faster menu and option scrolling, it can be "rocked" to access the flash, macro, display toggle and self timer modes too, while the central button provides a way to set choices in menus, ready for shooting, or brings the FUNC(tion) menu into play, allowing you to select metering, ISO, white balance and the like from a vertical menu on the left of the screen.

With so many options on such a small dial and button assembly, those blessed with larger fingers will have problems such as frequently pressing for one mode and getting another entirely. Ditto the top plate's stills/video/auto mode selection switch, which can be oh too easily moved to the wrong setting as it is simply too small to use with anything other than a fingernail.

Another positive is the vertical orientation shutter release, which as the name suggests, allows you to shoot from the screen by pressing a red camera icon, its nice to use, particularly shooting one handed and a neat touch – something that really helps handling in portrait format shooting.

In terms of white balance (WB), auto WB leaves a little to be desired in mixed lighting where you are greeted by a predominantly orange tinged effect. Set the correct WB for the lighting and things are fine however and you can even set the WB in movie shooting too, which is a good feature.

The battery and SD card slot home underneath the camera both sit below a rather flimsy hatch; battery life is good though, a single charge saw me through around 20-mins of video and around 100 stills and it's still going strong as I write.

In terms of overall image quality, the first thing to say is the metering is excellent and only strongly backlit subjects forced me out of the evaluative metering to spot or centre weighted average modes, where you can better grapple with shadow and highlights in a scene, depending on your intent.

The lens is a cracker packing in detail on that sensor although the 25mm wide end is prone to slight barrel distortion, so watch for wonky horizons all you landscape snappers. Image stabilisation (IS) can be left on continuously and helps make more of shots in low light without flash, the latter being a little underpowered. But IS provides about two stops of extra hand hold ability in low lighting and so the IS is great; you can avoid flash - or upping the sensitivity - in gloomier scenes, both things that can make for a more creative option if needed.

Colour is very good (though again, with the caveat on noise suppression software at high ISO settings) and natural looking in the default setting, but as you'd expect there are plenty of colour tweaks to play with as well to tailor the colour rendition in a shot or even isolate and capture specific colours, such as red that you want to keep and make the rest of the shot black and white; a fun and funky effect.

Tags: Cameras Compact cameras Digital cameras 12 megapixels Canon Canon Ixus 200

Canon IXUS 200 IS digital camera originally appeared on Pocket-lint on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:00:00 +0000