CRITICAL EYE REVIEW of
Nikon COOLPIX 3100 and Sony CYBERSHOT DSC-P72Sony Cybershot DSC-P72
What was better than expected
In contrast to the Nikon, the Sony had very fast focusing and negligible shutter lag, especially in bright light. This made the Sony shoot much more like a film camera. I found I was able to fire up to 6 separate shots in a ten second period, approximately twice the rate of the Nikon. Focusing did slow down in dim light, but still remained more than 2X faster than the Nikon. Flash recycling time was a reasonable 5 seconds. There is also a built-in focus-assist lamp to aid focusing in dim lighting.
Although primarily a camera for novices, the camera offered extensive manual adjustability, including manual setting of ISO (from 100 to 400) and a choice of evaluative (matrix) or spot exposure metering.
What was worse than expected
Pictures from the Sony seemed biased towards overexposure. As a consequence, colors were less rich than the Nikon and highlights were often overexposed. On the plus side, photos with bright white objects (e.g. white buildings) were better exposed right out of the camera than with the Nikon, where such photos appeared underexposed. The overexposure in the Sony can be partially compensated by selecting a -0.3EV exposure adjustment in Sony's manual mode (which Sony calls "Program" mode).
The Sony's lens seemed prone to lens flare, especially when pictures are taken facing the sun.
Sony's zoom mechanism was noisy.
Images on Sony's LCD monitor were jerky in low light. Image review, zooming and scrolling on the LCD was also jerky and slow.
Surprisingly, the Sony does not offer a "sports mode" for taking action shots. Since the automatically selected shutter speed and apertures are not displayed, the user's only recourse is to select a high ISO in the hopes that faster shutter speeds will be selected.
Erasing was awkward and formatting slow on the Sony. Erasing all pictures in a folder requires seven button operations (from the Picture Review mode). Formatting a memory card requires only six button steps (from the Set Up mode), but formatting a 64MB card required 13 seconds (in contrast, formatting a 256MB card on the CoolPix took only 4 seconds).
Ergonomic Nitpicking
Information on Sony's 1.5" LCD is displayed in extremely small and hard to read symbols, with some information running diagonally towards the center of the screen. The screen is also cluttered with extraneous information, such as the name of the folder currently being used. Many users, especially older people, will have difficulty reading such basic information as the remaining frames on the card.
Merely switching from automatic to manual mode (adjustment of ISO, exposure compensation, light meter selection, etc. are only available in manual mode) requires anywhere from 3 to 12 button operations, depending on the last manual setting operation. Most cameras (including the Nikon) provide a switch for instantly changing between automatic and manual modes.The Sony also does not offer automatic picture review after each pictures is taken. One has to push a button to review the last image.
The rubber grip on the Sony doubles as connector cover. It is very flimsy and I expect it will become loose with usage.
Noteworthy Features
The Sony supports low resolution video with sound.
Dubious Features
Sony literature for this camera promotes its "Smart Zoom" feature, which preserves the quality of lower resolution photos (2 megapixels or lower) when they are digitally zoomed. One can get the same quality by simply cropping a full resolution (3 megapixel) image that has only been optically zoomed. Although the SmartZooom can save storage space (since the digitally zoomed 2 megapixel photo will be a smaller file than the full 3 megapixel photo), I doubt there are enough situations to warrant this savings - especially since memory card prices are rapidly declining.
Sony has also been trumpeting their use of 14-bit A/D converters in their cameras. This allows the camera to sense 16,384 levels of light intensity per color. Most cameras sport only 10-bit or 12-bit converters, and are can sense only 1,024 to 4096 levels of light intensity per color. Unfortunately, virtually all cameras in this class (including these two cameras) output only 8-bit JPEG image files, which are capable of recording only 256 levels of light intensity per color. The higher resolution A/D does collect more information, but most of it is discarded. If additional information in the shadow areas is mapped into the available JPEG light levels, the results will be fewer levels for recording middle and highlight information. Since the camera does not know which information (shadow or highlights) is important to the photograph, such remapping must always be moderate. In my tests, photos from the Sony camera showed a negligible increase in shadow detail when compared to other cameras, like the Nikon. The Sony's greater tendency towards blown highlights may reflect a remapping tradeoff in which shadow detail is more heavily weighted. Considerably more expensive digital cameras allow the saving of "raw files" which can retain the full range of A/D level information. Such files can then be processed on a computer where the user can perform remappings most suited to each particular photograph.
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