I added another camera to my arsenal last night. ; It's new-ish...new to me certainly. ; A friend had bought a camera for his girlfriend 4 months ago, but she ended up finding it not to her liking and he being kind and gracious (or whipped...you decide) bought another camera for her. ; That left him with a $320 camera, a $40 memory card, and a $14 case, which were going to sit in a closet. ; So he asked if I was interested in buying it from him for $130, all inclusive. ; It had taken 1,100 shots, no scratches, cared for in a case, original box with all manuals, disks, and parts...memory card and case included. ; Though I had absolutely no need for a new camera...it was hard to pass on the deal. My current compact has been a Sony T100 credit-card style ultra-compact. ; It's small, very portable, stylish in red brushed metal body, cool to use with the sliding cover power switch and big LCD. ; It's just a compact - I always like to have a spare compact camera to back up my DSLR for those times I just don't feel like carrying the big camera, or those times when you don't even need a camera but it's nice to have one in case something spontaneous happens. ; The IQ has always been solid and reliable - not going to compete with the DSLR, but not intended to. The new cam is the Sony TX1, an evolution of my not-quite 2 year old T100. ; It's very similar overall, just with typical evolutionary changes and improvements. ; But some are very cool! ; First off, it's about the same height and length as my T100...which is already ultra-compact dimensions that can slip in a shirt pocket. ; But the TX1 is literally HALF again as thin as the T100. ; It is scary thin...about 1/2 inch. ; It can fit in a shirt pocket and not even be noticed by others...it's that thin. ; I like this A LOT. ; My main purpose for the backup cam is to be as inconspicuous and portable as possible - this one achieves it in spades. ; The new one is blue brushed metal - still love the color body cameras!! - same sliding cover power switch, even bigger LCD, this one with touch screen controls. ; Similar lens range - 35mm equiv with 4x zoom. ; Extremely effective lens-based stabilization (the T-series cams have always been some of the best IS systems I've ever handled or seen anywhere...something about the folded lens design seems to just work magic with IS). IQ is similar to the T100 in normal daylight shooting...it's 10MP vs 8MP, but there's not much to that - what's gained in resolution with lots of these new cams is usually lost in noise reduction compensation from these crowded little sensors - but it performs very nicely. ; It's super fast to start up, focus, and shoot...similar to the T100. ; All good so far! ; The neat thing is it is nicely improved at higher ISO. ; Not going to compete with a DSLR...but ISO800 compared to the T100 is approximately 30% less noise and better detail retention...they've obviously worked on the NR algorithms and improved them quite a bit. ; The camera itself I don't think performs that much better at high ISO, but the algorithms are definitely better. ; The backlit sensor probably gives some improvement...strangely with the same ISO and aperture, the TX1 achieves 1 stop faster shutter than the T100 does...maybe that's the sensor at work - maybe one of the cameras' ISO indications is conservative or aggressive. ; Either way, I can use higher ISOs more effectively with the new cam, and that's nice. Now for the cool stuff...First cool item is the camera has manual white balance. ; Yay! ; Advanced compacts, DSLRs, ultra-zooms often have this, but many ultra-compacts lose this feature, and indeed my T100 didn't have it. ; This is a huge lifesaver, and makes a massive difference in IQ in indoor and mixed light - and this camera is much more accurate and reliable in those conditions than the T100. ; I was always having to try all the different WB presets to try to find the best one, but often none were quite right. ; Now, choose manual, point at something white, and press the capture button - voila! ; Perfect WB. Next cool item - panorama mode. ; This is a neat convenient feature that allows shooting of panoramas in the simplest method. ; Enter pano mode, choose the width of the pano (one is roughly 90 degrees, one roughly 160 degrees I think), then press the shutter button and 'sweep' the camera across the scene. ; The camera takes continuous photos at up to 10fps during the sweep, auto aligns, and auto stitches them in camera. ; That's it! ; Higher res panos, and maybe better detail panos, can still be done the traditional way by taking your own dozen shots and stitching them in post processing...but for convenience and fun, this mode is hard to beat! ; You can change the direction of the sweep - left, right, up or down. ; Which means you can use it to take vertical panos as well. ; Pretty cool. Next cool item - twilight mode. ; More of that cool technology - twilight mode is to use in low light handheld situations where you want a nice night scene but don't have a tripod. ; Normally, this means high ISO, which means ugly noise and NR smearing on a compact. ; The trick twilight mode actually snaps 6 consecutive photos in an instant, aligns them, and stacks them in camera to remove noise while preserving serious detail. ; So you can get away with using ISO800 or 1600, yet achieve noise and detail results of ISO200-400. ; That allows handheld shutter speeds to be used, and provides far greater detail than one should be able to reasonably expect from an ultracompact cam. ; I've tested this by shooting ISO1600 normal and twilight mode of the same scene...the twilight mode approaches the detail and noiselessness of a DSLR at the same ISO...not quite, but awfully close and awfully usable. Last cool item - anti-blur mode. ; Using similar tech to the twilight mode, this mode cranks up the ISO to maximum to get the fastest shutter possible, takes 6 shots in under 1-second, does the stack and align to reduce noise and increase detail...with one trick - it is for taking shots with moving subjects in lower light, and avoiding the blur of the subject. ; The camera actually detects movement through the 6 frames, and anything that moved is isolated from the stack, using only 1 frame for the moving subject, and stacking the 6 frames for everything else in the scene. ; The end result is a nice, low noise detail shot in low light and high ISO WITHOUT ghosted and blurred moving subjects in it. ; This mode is a little strange - very cool - with the end result being the moving subject is no longer blurred, but is also much noisier and has less detail because it wasn't stacked. ; I need to play with this mode more to get the hang of it, and when it will be usable. ; In better light, the mode can be used to good effect as it will increase detail in an action scene through the stacking, but keep the subject unblurred and unghosted...and less noise since it doesn't have to use the highest ISO levels. The camera can shoot at up to 10fps bursts at full res, but only for 1 second. ; Slow the mode to 5fps, and you can shoot for 2 seconds. ; Slow to 2fps, and you can shoot for 5 seconds. ; You can always only burst 10 frames...you choose the speed. Neat little camera. ; Fortunately I got it just before heading up to Disney tomorrow - so I'll have something to play with when I don't have the DSLR. ; I may just bring it along anyway even with the DSLR, since it's so small and convenient...maybe just to play around with some different shots in between.
Sounds like a very interesting little piece of photo technology. Please post some shots when you get back. I'm especially interested in the twilight mode. Regards, Boris
I'll give you one quickie example that really shows how cool the twilight mode can be. ; This is a link to a full-res shot, straight from camera, so it's a biggie...but it'll give you an idea. ; This is ISO2500, twilight mode, handheld, in a dimly lit room: http://www.dpreview.com/galleries/37021 ... ilight-014 Is there noise? ; Sure. ; Is there a little noise-reduction artifacting or smearing of some fine detail? ; Sure. ; Would I have expected a camera small enough to get lost in a jeans pocket with a miniscule 1/2.5" sensor to shoot ISO 2500 this clean and with this much detail? ; Not on your life! ; I've seen some entry-level DSLRs struggle to be this clean at ISO1600, let alone ISO2500. ; And this is without any post production NR cleanup, no RAW shots worked over...just a straight JPEG from a simple camera with no manual controls. This impresses me quite a bit. ; It will be nice to be able to bring this little cam along indoors or in the evening, and know I can still get a usable and even respectable shot handheld with no tripod. ; And though some larger sensor compacts can perform pretty good, they are nowhere near as small as this thing. ; It isn't a 'compact' camera...it's an ultra-compact for sure. This is a junky photo, but it's the only quick way I could take a photo OF the camera without whipping out the DSLR. ; I placed my fairly standard VW remote/key, a standard compact cellphone, and the sucrets because I've just fought off a cold the past 4 days...all next to the TX1 for comparison of size: [attachimg=1] [attachimg=2] Can't wait to play with it more up at Disney...seems like a wonderful option as a super-portable, super-slim pocket cam with normal compact functionality in daylight, and a few trick modes for lower light. ; And it's even stylish looking, with the color metal bodies and sliding cover.
Looks very nice. I get flack at times from my darling wife when I insist on lugging my DSLR with us. ; A nice compact to have handy would be welcome. This weeks DPS posting talked about always having a camera with you, so you can capture the opportunities as you see them, when the light and composition are right. ; Something small like this would do the trick. BTW, the link to the photo was "access denied" Thanks, Boris
Oops...I thought that would be accessible here. ; It's in the beta dpreview gallery, as I didn't want to take up space in my own gallery for a full size photo that I'm only putting up temporarily anyway. ; I think maybe it's viewable if you have an account at Dpreview...I guess that could be the blocking issue. ; Hard for me to tell, because when I click on it, it works...but then, it's my gallery! ; Maybe someone else can confirm.
It works now... who knows why it didn't before. Anyway, very nice for a handheld shot in such a low light. One question, how did you get a shot of my desk? ; I thought I was the only one who has piles of that kind. Later, Boris
Ha! ; Those piles are small! ; I've got piles on top of piles sometimes. ; My desk at work looks like that a lot too. I think spare rooms are actually a bad thing - they encourage you to pile up stuff you haven't gotten to yet in there, close the door, and hide the mess!
