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Digital
Cameras: Why I prefer my old Sony to my new HP.
I'm dead chuffed
- today I revived my old Sony DSC-50:
It can't take
photographs of itself, so this is a photo from the box. Last Christmas
I was given a 5 Megapixel Hewlet Packard. The HP is lighter, smaller,
has more memory space, can take higher resolution pictures. So why am
I so chuffed about the Sony coming back to life?
Well the HP is
in theory better...
...especially
when you are considering megapixels, but:
- It does not have a real
zoom, only a digital zoom, which, if HP were honest, they would call
a crop function. Because that is what it does, it allows you to crop
the image as you take it. In the small preview screen it looks like
a zoom, but the image, when printed, has bigger pixels and less detail.
Heigh ho. On the positive side it does mean you save a bit of memory
space when you "digitally zoom".
- The aperture is smaller,
less light gets to the sensor, so indoor photos without a flash become
a problem. I hate using the flash, and prefer visible grain (digital
noise) to stark shadows thrown onto the wall behind the subject, who
often also ends up with red vampire eyes.
- I have never once been
able to connect it up to any of my XP computers without having to
try three or four times. The USB software must be rubbish. A graphic
line of data appears to pump images from the camera to the computer
- and after 5 minutes I get the message "the camera is in use,
please try later". Of course it is in use! I am trying to get
the pictures out of it. I always succeed in the end, but with the
Sony you just plug it in, open the E: folder and grab your images.
- The menu system seems
overly complex compared to the Sony.
Though the Sony is over 6
years old:
- It has control over
exposure time and aperture.
- A real optical zoom.
The amazing thing is that the
Sony only has 2.1Megapixels, less than half that of the HP, but I still
prefer it. I can take pictures that the HP would never be able to take,
like this one:
I know it is grainy,
slightly blurred, and noisy. But I like it. In 100 years time the effect
you see above will be sought after, to give romance to photos, just as
sepia is used to give romance
to photos of today.
Ah, how did I
revive my Sony? I bought a new battery for it! Sony doesn't make them
any more, but a quick search on the Internet and I found a compatible
replacement. And I remain dead chuffed with it!
Owen F. Ransen,
September 2006
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