Digital Home Thoughts: Sony DSCU60 Digital Camera Reviewed

Focusing
In the main, the automatic focusing works well although, as I mentioned above, it can be a bit slow if you've got a fast moving object that you are trying to photograph. If that is a problem or if you want to focus beyond an object such as a wire fence or glass, you can fix the focus to a choice of 0.2m, 0.5m, 1m and infinity. The chosen focus is indicated in the display by the use of an icon representing a flower, a head-shot, two people and a mountain, respectively. This is all well and good, but you've got to have a good eye for distances in order to be able to decide which setting to use!

Scene Selection
The camera supports a variety of differing modes for adjusting its behaviour to different shooting conditions. The different modes are cycled through by pressing repeatedly on the down control button - marked SCENE in Figure 8 - with the currently selected mode being indicated by a fish, a person skiing, an outline of two people, a person with a moon shape, a moon shape and a mountain with reflection, respectively.

Underwater mode is used when taking photos underwater, strangely enough! Apparently, the white balance is adjusted to "the appropriate setting to enable impressive underwater photographs of your subjects". Well, that's what the manual reckons, anyway. In practice, I didn't really see much difference, although I was pleased with some of the underwater photos I did manage to take!


Figure 13: Under the sea ... Click on the image for the full size image. (512KB)

The next mode is "Active outdoor mode", which "lets you stop the movement of your subject and get lively shots of fast-moving objects in bright outdoor conditions". I couldn't find any fast moving objects in Barbados :D so I had to resort to playing with traffic instead. Figure 15 was taken with the camera just turned on, so everything was set to the default settings, while Figure 14 is a similar setting but with the active outdoor mode on. In both cases, the vehicles would have been travelling at around 30mph. The basic premise of the mode is to increase the shutter speed, thus managing to catch the objects without the smearing evident in Figure 15, but it does have the knock-on effect of reducing the amount of light, hence the need for bright outdoor conditions.


Figure 14: Traffic with the camera in "active outdoor" mode. Click on the image for the full size image. (503KB)


Figure 15: Traffic with the camera set to the defaults. Click on the image for the full size image. (461KB)

"Soft snap mode" lets you "shoot skin colours in brighter and warmer tones".

"Illumination snap mode" lets you "capture beautiful images of both subjects and night scene backgrounds at the same time". Figure 16 shows an example of this mode in use, while Figure 17 shows the same viewpoint but with the camera set to normal mode. This was taken at night, so the flash had to be used on both occasions. Selecting this mode also introduces a cross filter effect and this can be seen on the lamp. The overall effect is, I think, generally pleasing. However, I think the camera has focused onto the fence at the back, rather than my enthusiastic assistant. I think this is because I had the camera closer than a metre to Eeyore and the manual does state that when the focus mode is set to auto, the focus is adjusted to approximately 1m to infinite and than photographing objects closer than 1m requires the use of a focus preset. As I mentioned earlier, it is design issues like this that can make the camera harder to use than you might expect if you haven't got a good eye for distance.


Figure 16: Photo taken with "Illumination snap mode". Click on the image for the full size image. (318KB)


Figure 17: Same setting but in normal mode. Click on the image for the full size image. (272KB)

"Twilight mode" lets you "shoot night scenes at far distances without losing the dark atmosphere of the surroundings". Figure 18 shows an example of this mode in use, while Figure 19 shows the same viewpoint but with the camera set to normal mode. The camera was held on a steady surface and, therefore, should not have been subject to any shake. Yet, the twilight mode picture is clearly not very sharp. The manual is confusing on trying to understand exactly how the camera operates in this mode, in that in one bullet point it states "The focus setting changes to infinity" and then in a subsequent bullet point in the same section, it states "When the focus setting is set to [auto], the focus is adjusted to telephoto". Maybe I just wasn’t far enough from the subject 8O


Figure 18: Photo taken with "Twilight mode". Click on the image for the full size image. (251KB)


Figure 19: Same setting but in normal mode. Click on the image for the full size image. (395KB)

Finally, "vivid nature mode" lets you "shoot natural landscapes with vivid, striking colours". Figure 20 shows an example of a photo taken in this mode, with Figure 21 showing the same scene but in normal mode. I don't know about you but I can't tell the difference between the two photos. If you look at the detailed properties for the files, you do see some small differences (exposure time, light source and exposure program) but these don't appear to translate into a visible difference in the images. Arguably, Downtown Disney is not a "natural landscape" but it was the best I could do at the time :D


Figure 20: Photo taken with "Vivid nature mode". Click on the image for the full size image. (486KB)


Figure 21: Same setting but in normal mode. Click on the image for the full size image. (479KB)

On the whole, I think that the results from these special modes are a bit mixed. As with other aspects of this camera, more use may lead me to become more accustomed as to when to use a particular feature. At the moment, though, I think I'll mainly leave it on automatic apart from, perhaps the odd night-time shot where the illumination snap mode does help to capture both foreground & background.

Red-eye Reduction
"Red eye" occurs when the light from the flash is reflected off the subject's retina. Cameras with a "red-eye reduction mode" typically try to deal with the problem by shining light at the subject ahead of the photo being taken. The theory here is that the light will cause the pupils to contract which then reduces the amount of the retina that is visible.

The DSC-U60 has such a mode and activating it causes the flash to trigger twice – once slightly ahead of the photo and again with the photo being taken. The good news is that, as far as I had experienced with the photos I'd taken, the camera didn't suffer as badly as some others I'd come across. The even better news is that activating the red-eye reduction feature did further reduce what little there was. Figure 22 shows a highly magnified example of an eye taken with the feature turned off whilst Figure 23 shows the same eye with the feature turned on. All other conditions (e.g. ambient lighting) remained as constant as possible between shots.


Figure 22: Photo taken without red eye reduction.


Figure 23: Photo taken with red eye reduction.