The 3-inch LCD monitor of the
DSC-H9 is sharp, and the information superimposed on it is
very legible. Still, when the camera is aimed at a bright
light source, such as a window, the CCD is prone to streaking,
an effect that is visible on the monitor and EVF and which
can make it difficult to see the superimposed information
clearly.
With the DSC-H9, Sony is introducing a new look for its menus,
which are very legible and crisp, particularly when viewed
on the 3-inch monitor; furthermore, any movement in the menus
using the 4-direction controller is accompanied by musical
tones. The drawback of the new system, however, is the introduction
of the "Home Screen", another word
for an additional menu level, the rationale for which escapes
us. The combination of the Home Screen with the other more
"standard" Menu makes finding options on the H9
far too confusing, a view that was universally shared by all
those we asked to give an opinion.
Parts, not all, of the contents of the Home Screen overlap
items that are found in the Shooting and Playback menus and,
similarly, parts of the Settings section — Settings
replaces what used to called "Setup" — are
accessible only through the Home Screen. The system is convoluted,
a fact underscored by the manual itself, which has difficulty
in explaining it. Indeed, we can only guess that the reason
for the existence of the Home Screen system is some need to
change for the sake of change itself. This said, the complexity
of the menu system does an effective job of creating confusion,
and masking the removal of features normally found on Sony
cameras...
Interestingly, some of the peculiarities of Sony's previous
menu system persist. For example, the fact that once the end
of a menu is reached it does not loop back to the top, forces
the user to keep poking at the up arrow to return to the beginning.
This process that is further complicated by the lack of space
allocated to the controls on the right side of the monitor.
Indeed, the division of options between the Home Screen and
the Menu is all the more regrettable since the physical layout
of the menus — colours, text, etc. — are a serious
improvement over the previous (albeit more logical) menu system,
making it much more legible.
As noted above, only through the Home Screen are all the
Setup options available, and even then, the fact that some
are identical to options accessible through the Shooting menu
adds to the confusion. Accessed as the last section of the
Home Screen, Settings is composed of 4 sections:
Main Settings, Shooting Settings
(accessible through the "Setup" option of the Shooting
menu), Clock Settings, and Language
Settings. Worth noting, when the Settings area is
reached in the Home Screen and the camera is set to a shooting
mode, the first option highlighted is Shooting Settings and
not Main Settings, which comes first; while with the camera
in Playback mode, Main Settings appears selected.
The Settings section contains the following options:
Main Settings 1:
Beep selects the sound produced by the
camera when it is operated:
On: plays a sound for operations and shutter.
Off: turns off all sounds.
Shutter: shutter sound only.
Function Guide: On or Off. When On, a
brief description of functions is displayed.
Initialize: returns all settings to their
original defaults.
Main Settings 2:
USB Connect decides the USB protocol:
Pictbridge: to connect the camera
directly to a PictBridge printer.
Mass Storage: to connect the camera
to a computer.
Auto: to let the camera decide the
appropriate protocol.
Component selects the video signal:
HD (1080i) to connect to a 1080i
compliant TV.
SD to connect to a television that
is not compatible with an HD 1080i.
Video Out selects the television system:
NTSC or PAL.
Shooting Settings
1:
AF Illuminator: Auto or Off. Controls the
AF assist lamp, which comes on when there is insufficient
ambient light for the auto focus system to operate reliably.
Grid Line: On or Off. Decides whether
or not a composition grid is superimposed on the image.
AF Mode provides two autofocus modes:
Single activates the autofocus only when the
shutter release is pressed halfway,
Monitor AF adjusts the focus before the shutter
release is pressed halfway, shortening the time needed
to capture the image but consuming more power.
Digital Zoom can be set to operate in
either one of two modes:
Smart Zoom, operating only when the image size
is set to a size less than 8M or 3:2, since it crops
the central portion of the full-size frame to produce
a field of view comparable to a longer focal length
than the maximum optical magnification.
Precision, which functions like “traditional”
digital zooms, cropping the central part of the image,
and interpolating it to the currently selected image
size, thereby causing a loss of image sharpness.
Conversion Lens: lets the camera know what lens
converter is attached: Close-up, Tele, Wide, or none.
Shooting Settings 2:
Flash Sync selects the flash synchronization for
the Slow Sync flash mode:
Front: which causes the flash to
fire at the beginning of the exposure.
Rear: fires the flash just before
the end of the exposure.
Auto Orientation: On or Off. Decides
whether or not the camera records the orientation of the
shot so it can be played back the right way up.
Auto Review: decides whether or not an image is
briefly displayed ( for approximately 2 seconds) immediately
post capture.
Expanded Focus: On or Off. Magnifies the centre
of the screen to double the normal size when the Manual
focus mode is used.
Clock Setting:
Clock Settings: serves to set the time and date
on the DSC-H9.
Language Setting:
Language Setting serves to choose the
interface language: English, French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese
(North American version of the camera).
Two instruction manuals are provided with the DSC-H9. The
manuals are designed for use with both the H9 and the H7,
a model that has a few less features than the H9. One manual
is printed: the Instruction Manual; the other,
the Cyber-shot Handbook, is supplied in PDF
(Adobe Acrobat) format on the CD that accompanies the camera
and includes the software.
The Instruction Manual is a simple introduction to the camera,
covering most basic operations. It includes a skimpy specifications
list. The other, the Cyber-shot Handbook is more in-depth,
but still manages to gloss over a number of functions.
Software
A single CD-ROM containing three
programs is supplied with the DSC-H9:
Picture Motion Browser
Sony USB Driver (for older operating
systems)
Picture Package Music Transfer
Picture Motion Browser — a bit of
a mouthful — serves to browse and manipulate still images
or videos. Images must first be imported through a rather
arcane process that involves "registering folders"
so that images or movies can be brought into the program's
database. Once imported into the program, images are shown
as thumbnails in the right side of the program's window (alternatively
a detailed view can be selected) while the registered folders
are shown on the left.
Placing the mouse over any
image adds a transparent overlay that indicates the image's
file name, its location on the computer, the date on which
it was captured and its size. Moreover, detailed information
about each image can be displayed in a separate window, including
all the shooting data.
From the Browser window, images can be imported, folders
can be registered, a selected image can be printed, deleted,
rotated left or right, or even edited using Picture Motion
Browser or an external editor.
In addition, images can be seen
in a slide show, or e-mailed, which creates a 640 x 480 pixel
copy for emailing, or even positioned on a map provided by
Google which adds lattitude and longitude information to the
image.
An image can
be selected for editing, opening it in a separate window.
There, the image can be Auto corrected, or adjusted for brightness,
saturation, sharpness, tone curve, or red-eye. Whatever the
correction applied, the corrected image can either be saved
by overwriting the original, or saved as a new image.
This part of the program
also offers the possibility to trim an image, and save the
trimmed section as a new image.
Picture Package Music Transfer serves to
change the slide show music already loaded into the camera.
With some restrictions, audio tracks, MP3 files, or the preset
tracks installed on the DSC-H9 can be imported into the camera,
and then used as background music for the slide shows.
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Interface & Software
