Sony DSC-T30

Reviewed September 2006

Test Photos

STILL LIFE PHOTO

This subject is photographed in a room that has a mix of fluorescent and incandescent light, but which is not brightly lit. The camera's flash is used to add fill light. The backdrop is 1.95 m (6.5 ft) from the camera.

Set to 80 ISO to prevent the intrusion of noise, the small flash of the DSC-T30 is able to light this relatively nearby subject without any difficulty.

The Auto white balance handles the mixed sources of light easily and yields an image that has correct colours.

With this wide angle shot, image sharpness is relatively good as some smaller details can still be seen.

ZOOM PHOTO

The intent with this photo is to test the sharpness of the image at the zoom's maximum setting, with the camera remaining at the same distance as in the preceding photo.

Zoomed in, the image the DSC-T30 captures is even more detailed, as can be seen by the fact that the fine printing pattern details of the photo paper envelope are captured.

It can also be noticed that the Auto white balance produces an image whose colours remain very consistent with those the camera captured in the wide angle shot.

The DSC-T30 has two macro modes. The first is a standard macro mode that allows the camera to photograph a subject at least 8 cm (3.25 inches) from the front of the lens when the zoom is at the widest angle, and 25 cm when it is set to the maximum telephoto end. The field of view in both cases is 7.6 cm (2.96 in.). It should be noted that while in macro mode, the zoom can be used up to 2.3X and the camera will capture what appears to be a reasonably sharp image. Yet upon close inspection, the image turns out to be a touch out of focus.

The second macro mode is called Magnifying Glass. It locks the zoom at the wide end, but allows the camera to focus on a subject that is between 1 and 20 cm (0.39 to 7.8 inches) from the lens. With this mode, the camera captures a field of view of approximately 1.7 cm (0.66 in.).

BUILDING PHOTO

This image is our outdoor test. The architecture of the building, in particular the angled girders, immediately show the presence of jaggies. The shadowed entrance can also often reveal the quality of the exposure.

At the wide angle end of the zoom, the DSC-T30 produces a well exposed, and colour-accurate image overall, but one that also contains deep shadows. Looking at the image at 100% scale, there is no serious chromatic aberration, there is no obvious noise in the shadows. Similarly, there is no barrel distortion and the level of detail in the image is very reasonable.

ZOOM PHOTO

Zooming in on the entrance of the building, the shadowed entrance takes on a greater importance for the metering and can cause an overexposure of sections that are directly lit.

The value of an optically stabilized camera becomes obvious when the zoom is used at the telephoto end. Even with a relatively short zoom lens such as the T30's, camera shake easily interferes with telephoto shots when the design of the camera engenders an unsteady shooting position. This is the case with all cameras that have to be held at eye level, and at a distance that allows seeing the LCD screen clearly.

NIGHT PHOTO

As this camera is capable of long exposures, a photo taken at night is included.

The only means to capture a photo at night with the Sony DSC-T30 is to use the Twilight Scene mode. The mode sets the sensitivity automatically — in this case increasing it to 125 ISO — while the user retains control over the white balance, making it possible to set it to incandescent and compensate for the unnatural colour of the ambient lighting.

Still, even at 125 ISO, the T30 is limited to a maximum exposure time of 2 seconds, barely long enough to record an image that is about as bright as what can be seen with the unaided eye.

Noise reduction* is applied to image post-capture, and the process is remarkably effective at removing the noise in the image without softening the sharpness.