Sony T-line cameras have always been stylish and produced good picture quality. But they historically had shortcomings related to their compact size, e.g. weak flash.After generally positive experience with the both the
Sony DSC-T7 and the
Sony DSC-T33, I got the Sony DSC-T100 to see how it performed.
What Is Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T100?
The Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T100 is a super-compact 8-Megapixel stylish digital camera with metal case, a 5x optical stabilized zoom (35-175mm equivalent with f/3.5-5.6 (wide), f/4.4-10 (telephoto)), a large 3-inch LCD screen with high resolution (230,000 pixels), Carl Zeiss optics, powered by a small rechargeable battery. The battery is rated at 340 shots.
The camera features 31 MB of built-in memory and can store pictures on a proprietary Sony Memory Stick Duo or Memory Stick Pro Duo. The T100 also features fast USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection to PC and Mac computers.
Usage
The camera looks pretty nice (although I prefer the look of Canon SD cameras). The T100 is compact. It looks and feels rather durable and its silver buttons and overall design make it look more hi-tech and expensive.
The camera has a fixed lens that does not extend from the body and does zooming and focusing internally. The lens cover that opens when the camera is powered on. When the camera is powered off, the lens cover closes. Because there is no need for the camera to extend the lens, the startup time is minimal - less than 1 second.
The camera can be powered on by sliding the little lid on the front panel down, exposing the lens. It is powered off when you slide the lid up, covering the lens with it. It is the same arrangement that the original Sony T1 (and the subsequent models) had.
The top deck has a shutter release button as well as a power button and the playback button. The side of the camera has a battery and Memory Stick Duo card compartment lid.
The rear panel of the camera houses a large bright 3-inch LCD monitor, zoom and control buttons.
The connectivity to the Audio/Video and USB is by means of a proprietary multi-contact connector (A/V/USB cable for it is included). The battery can be charged using the supplied external battery charger with foldable prongs.
The camera comes with InfoLithium-type compact battery, which is charged outside the camera in a supplied compact charger that plugs into a wall outlet. The charger takes 100-240V and has foldable prongs.
The camera is very easy to use. I have not read the manual (I have not even opened it), but was able to use the camera and all its features in no time. The camera can be used by any member of the family and by photographers of all levels of expertise from novices to advanced ones (albeit with not much manual control).
The camera comes pre-set to Auto mode. You do not have to do anything other than
point and shoot - the camera takes care of the rest. The camera uses 9-area smart autofocus. You press the shutter release button halfway to make camera focus (the camera shows you that it focused and beeps to confirm focus) and then you take the picture by pressing the shutter release button all the way.
The camera has face detection technology that helps it understand where it should focus in scenes with people. It also has image stabilization, which is an important feature for a miniature camera with 5x optical zoom. The lighter the camera and the less convenient it is to hold, the more chance of shake creating blurry pictures. Image stabilization takes care of that aspect well.
You zoom in and out by using the buttons on the rear panel. The camera has no viewfinder but has a large, 3-inch LCD screen that is accurate and fluid (slightly less fluid in the dark). The screen has good visibility in sunlight.
If you want more control, you can select one of the scene modes (Portrait, Landscape, etc.). And for even more control, you can select Program mode, in which you can select ISO, white balance, exposure compensation, metering mode, etc.
The camera is very fast in operation. It takes about a second to power itself on in either review or shooting mode. It feels almost
instantaneous.
The T100 can capture images at about two per second in burst mode. In single-frame mode, the camera could snap pictures as fast as I could push the shutter release button - about one a second. The focusing takes much less than a second and the shutter lag, when pre-focused, is almost unnoticeable. The zooming is somewhat slow, but smooth and lets you fine-tune your composition.
More on Features and Controls
The camera uses a very small rechargeable battery that looks like a cell phone battery. The camera has a bright low-light focus assist illuminator that helps it focus in low light.
It seems that the camera uses a two-step type aperture with no fine control over aperture. The camera doesn't let you control the aperture or the shutter speed directly, but even if you select
landscape mode or try shooting in different lighting conditions, you will soon discover that your resultant photos have only one of two aperture values at any given focal length, which is typical for a compact camera.
You can use the exposure compensation in the Program mode and it comes in handy in some situations. There are a bunch of scene modes as well, which help the camera tweak the focusing and exposure settings according to the type of scene.
Flash
The flash is rather weak. It illuminates the center of the frame more than the corners and has an effective range of less than 8 feet. It has a recycle time of only about 5 seconds. Rather fast for the camera size but the flash is pretty weak. Still, the camera can compensate for it using higher ISO settings and/or longer exposure (image stabilization helps to keep images sharp at longer exposures).
Image Quality
The camera produces contrasty photos that have a pleasing color with slight oversaturation (by default) and a slight warm cast. The dynamic range (despite the use of Bionz image processor and so-called D-Range Optimizer) is limited, but it is comparable to other cameras in this size and price range.
The camera has good optics for its size. The 5x optical zoom lens has some vices such as the slight corner softness, minimal chromatic aberrations, slight barrel distortion at wide angle and pincushion at telephoto. But these issues are rather small and controllable.
For example, corners of the frame normally do not make it to the actual print (because of the different aspect ratio of the print and other factors). Geometric distortions are not very noticeable and are non-existent in the middle of the zoom range.
Aside from these minor issues, the camera produces very sharp images that are also colorful and pleasing. The noise at lower ISO (80-100) is absent, but grows rather rapidly at higher ISO levels, starting with ISO 200. Still, the camera produces usable photos at up to ISO 3200. Usable, but I would limit myself to ISO 80-100 for larger prints and ISO 200-400 for smaller ones.
Build Quality and Ergonomics
The camera has a solid feel and good build quality. The major controls are within easy reach and the tactile response is good overall.
LCD
The camera has a large 3-inch non-articulated (fixed) LCD screen and
no viewfinder. The LCD coverage as about 100% - you can see exactly what will be recorded. The LCD is bright, fluid (unless it is dark), has good visibility in sunlight or darkness and very good resolution (230K pixels).
Movie Mode
The camera offers you three movie modes: 320x240, 640x480 and 640x480 high quality. The supplied memory card didn't let me use the High Quality 640x480, but the standard 640x480 was OK. It was rather fluid (but not as fluid as a regular camcorder footage) and it didn't let me zoom during shooting :( .
Computer Connectivity
The camera uses USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection to transfer pictures to a computer. You can also remove the Memory Stick Duo memory card and use a memory card reader (if you have one). The camera comes with an adapter for Memory Stick Duo to be used with regular Memory Stick devices.
I used the camera with the USB cable supplied and was impressed. The file transfer is extremely fast at about 9,000-10,000 KB/s. I did not use the software that was provided with the camera since I have Adobe Photoshop CS2.
Bottom Line
I recommend Sony DSC-T100 if you want a ultra-compact, cool yet capable camera with 8-megapixels, 5x optical zoom with image stabilization and huge LCD screen that produces good photos with print sizes of up 13x19 inches. It is fast, capable and easy to use.
