Sony DSC-T7

Reviewed October 2005

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.

Still, the image has a slight yellow cast, indicating the Auto white balance has some difficulty establishing a proper colour balance under this mix of lighting sources. Likewise, a bit of noise is detectable in the shadow areas of the image.

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 Auto white balance yields more natural colours, but a slightly yellow tint remains visible.

Set to Auto ISO, the camera increases sensitivity up to 320 ISO to compensate for the smaller maximum aperture of f4.4 when the lens is at the telephoto setting.

But, with this increase in sensitivity comes an increase in noise as well, and it translates into multicoloured pixels that appear in shadow areas.

The Macro mode of the DSC-T7 allows the camera to focus on a subject that is 8 cm (3.12 in.) from the front element of the lens when the zoom is set to the widest angle, and 25 cm (9.75 in.) when it is at its maximum telephoto setting. The field of view in both cases is 7.6 cm (2.96 in.).

Using the Magnifying Glass mode however, the camera is able to focus on a subject that is positioned between 1 and 20 cm (0.39 to 7.8 inches) from the lens, the zoom being locked at the wide end.

The camera is then able to capture a field of view of approximately 1.7 cm (0.66 in.). At this distance it is best to avoid compositions that contain straight lines near the edges of the frame as distortion can become noticeable.

Moreover, the Magnifying Glass mode uses Auto ISO, so to avoid the intrusion of noise when the setting increases, the subject should be well-lit.

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.

The DSC-T7 yields a well-exposed image with this wide angle shot, revealing a good balance between the bright and dark areas in the frame.

With this subject the slight barrel distortion that can sometimes be observed is not noticeable. However, a light chromatic aberration — a purple line that appears on the lower edge of the building's beams — can be seen.

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.

At a focal length that is equivalent to 114mm, the Sony DSC-T7 is able to close in on the building's glass doors, and the darker entrance within. The Multi metering evaluates the scene accurately and a very reasonable level of detail can be seen inside the building while the directly lit sections of the building's exterior show no trace of overexposure.

With this telephoto shot, no distortion, nor any chromatic aberration is discernible, but a bit of noise can be seen as a graininess in some areas.

NIGHT PHOTO

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

The Sony DSC-T7 is equipped with a Twilight mode that can be used to capture very well-lit night scenery. However, limited to 64 ISO and a maximum exposure time of 2 seconds, a subject such as this urban scene turns out very dark.

The only alternative to capture an image such as this one is to switch to the Program mode and boost the sensitivity to 400 ISO to compensate for the maximum exposure time of 1 second.

Although the DSC-T7 uses a noise reduction system*, the noise captured by a 400 ISO image is simply too much to be eliminated completely by the process.