Image Quality

Framing accuracy

The red area shows what was covered by the LCD viewscreen.

In our tests, approximately 2500x1900 of 2592x1944 recorded image pixels image represented the scene viewed using the V1's viewscreen monitor. That makes just under 300K pixels wasted, or just under 6% - a fair result.

Colour
My experience of colour reproduction with Sony digital cameras is quite distinct. In Japan, colour preferences are actually different to European and other general Western tastes. My personal theory is that while other Japanese manufacturers have successfully tailored their exported cameras with the preferences of the target market in mind, Sony has, to an extent, remained more influenced by its home market. The V1 is much as I expected, with greens on the cool side, slightly lemony yellows and pinkish skin tones. This is all very subjective, but it's what I see in the pictures and I think it's illustrated well in the colour charts below:

Gretag Macbeth DC Color Chart

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-V1

Canon Power Shot G5

All the Sony V1 colours are relatively muted and cool compared to those produced by the Canon G5. Some would argue that the Canon produces slightly over-saturated colours, but that's beside the point here – the main point being that there is a significant difference.

Fluorescent colour

Fluorescent colours

As part of the test routine we now include a simple series of fluorescent colours, as above. It's quite difficult to reproduce fluorescent or DayGlo colours via either traditional colour film or digital means. Here, the yellow and green cards have a slight fluorescent feel to them, but the orange and red cards look quite flat.

Skin tones

Test for skin tone reproduction.

Illuminated by indirect mid-morning Spring sunshine, the facial tones here are slightly cooler than they should be, with a slight pink bias. This is similar to results from other Sony models I have tested recently, including the F717 and P51.

Skies

Blue sky and clouds.

There are no complaints here. The blue of the sky is accurately reproduced and there is no contamination of the white clouds.

This picture underlines how well the sky blue is captured in a cloudless situation.

Nature

The warmth of some late afternoon winter sunshine has helped combat the V1's tendency towards coolness.

But here the familiar cool yellows and greens make their mark once more.

Reds and browns look better with the V1 than yellows and greens because of the natural coolness of the V1's colour bias. This can be adjusted by experimenting with the white balance settings but it shouldn't be necessary.

Exposure metering

Even though the sign dominates the frame and matrix metering is being used, it has still come out as a silhouette.

In general, the V1 copes well with normal lighting situations. The main area it gets caught out in are with strongly back-lit scenes like the one above.

White balance

Under low wattage fluorescent illumination, the V1's auto white balance system doesn't do a perfect job of eliminating the expected greenish-yellow cast, but it's not any worse than most, to be honest.

Under ordinary light bulb illumination, the V1 does a passable job of optimising the white balance automatically. There is no excessive redness that could be expected, though there is a slight warmth about the whites.

In general, the V1 does a good job of automatically adjusting white balance under artificial lighting of most types.

Sharpness
We will be shortly be adding computerised DXO Analyzer testing for, among other things 'perceived' sharpness as this gives a different and more easily digestible view on image sharpness than the ISO resolution target results, below:

ISO resolution chart, 57mm (equiv.) f/3.2

ISO resolution chart, 57mm (equiv.) f/4

ISO resolution chart, 57mm (equiv.) f/5.6

ISO resolution chart, 57mm (equiv.) f/8

The ISO chart results show that the V1 has very good resolving power, even at almost full aperture, though there is a detectable drop off at the smallest aperture available, f/8, which is to be expected.

Noise
Again, DXO Analyzer testing will give us a different view on image noise, but here is a more subjective comparison:

Noise at ISO 100 is well controlled, but evn by ISO 200 it's presence is felt and the problem steadily worsens up to ISO 800.

Chromatic Aberrations
We don't currently have a test for optical chromatic aberrations, but the V1's Carl-Zeiss Vario-Sonnar lens design didn't throw up any obvious concerns in the pictures we took. Chromatic aberration testing is a key feature of our new DXO Analyzer suite, which will be introduced into dpnow camera testing as soon as we are happy it's set up correctly.

Fringing

The boxed area above is reproduced below at 100% (1:1 pixels).

Even close to the centre of the frame, some blue and purple fringing in the tree branches is evident. Most cameras in the V1's category are prone to this problem, but there are signs that some manufacturers are deploying some clever image processing to control fringing.

Lens flare

Even without Carl Zeiss' best T* lens coatings, the V1's lens copes will with flare.

You really have to provoke the situation to let flare in.

Distortion

34mm (equiv.) widest zoom setting.

63mm (equiv.) mid-zoom setting.

136mm (equiv.) full tele setting.

This is a good performance. At the widest setting there is some fairly obvious barrel distortion, but this is to be expected. By the mid-zoom setting the sides are almost straight and at full zoom there is only a hint of pincushion distortion. This is another test that will be eventually replaced by our new DXO Analyzer suite.

Close focus

Closest focus with 'macro' setting at widest zoom setting.

Closest focus with 'macro' setting at fullest tele zoom setting.

There is no point using the 'macro' mode using the wide end of the zoom. Either end of the zoom range will be limited to about 12cm, or more, lateral coverage, which is not particularly competitive. Another advantage of using the longer end of the zoom range for close focus work is that there is less distortion.

Movie mode
Movie resolution of up to 640x480 (VGA) is heralded by Sony. Compared to some digital still cameras, the 'VX' MPEG quality that the V1 is capable of is very good. Picture noise and digital artefacts are well controlled and the sound quality is good. But there is insufficient frame inter-leaving, so the motion can get jerky and the sound is mono-only. Zooming is not possible while recording a scene.

A 10 second clip can consume up to 4MB of space on your memory stick, meaning 128MB is probably only good for five and a half minutes of recording. The viewscreen does estimate how much recording time is left on the card, however. A quarter resolution mode for use with email is also provided.

Click here for details of Peter iNova's must-have eBook covering the top Sony Cyber-shot cameras, including the V1.

Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-V1 Digital Camera, 5 MP, 4x Opt., 32MB - DSCV1 - Compare Prices and Buy at PriceGrabber

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Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-V1 Digital Camera, 5 MP, 4x Opt., 32MB

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Description: The DSC-V1 CyberShot Digital Camera is loaded with features and performance, but is also easy to use. It provides a 1/1.8" 5 MegaPixel Effective Super HAD CCD image sensor for remarkable images. A 4X Smart Digital zoom lets you get closer t.... Read More