Product Reviews

Love it or hate it, you can't help but look at Sony's DSC-F505V with awe. You'd be forgiven for wondering where to hold it, but once mastered, everything makes perfect sense. The barrel lens, in fact, rests in your left hand, leaving the small body which houses the screen to rotate 90¡ upwards or 50¡ down with a gentle push of your right thumb.

Tilting the body downwards allows you to compose images while pointing the camera over people's heads. Tilting it fully upwards lets you look down on the screen while the camera points forward - great for waist-level shots or discrete compositions while the camera's resting on a table.

It's so cunning that Sony's used the design once before on its earlier DSC-F505 2.1-megapixel camera. The difference is that the V model features a higher-resolution 3.3-megapixel CCD.

Look a little closer, though, and you'll see the badge labelled 'effective 2.6 megapixels'. The problem is that the optics of this camera were designed for a CCD measuring 1/2in, while the new 3.3-megapixel chip measures 1/1.8in. Placing this new larger chip behind the same optics means not all of its pixels are used, resulting in a maximum optical resolution of 1856 x 1392 pixels. This places the F505V between the 1600 x 1200 resolution of a 2.1-megapixel model and the 2048 x 1532 of a genuine 3.3-megapixel camera.

In use, however, it's easy to understand why Sony has chosen to compromise potential resolution in favour of using an existing physical and optical design. Along with the shooting angles, the lens itself is a high-quality design by Carl Zeiss, boasting not the usual 3x zoom, but a whopping optical 5x, equivalent to a 38mm-190mm lens on a 35mm camera; the actual specification is 7.1mm-35.5mm, f2.8~3.3, and it'll focus as close as 2cm in macro mode.

Equally impressive is the responsiveness of the zoom. Rather than leisurely strolling from wide to

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telephoto, the V's zoom leaps back and forth at high speeds, while remaining precisely controllable. Since the lens is out at all times, there's no need to wait the typical five or so seconds for it to emerge or retract - instead, the V is ready for action in two seconds and powers down almost instantly. There's also a proper 52mm filter thread and a manual focusing ring.

Since low-resolution screens are virtually useless for manual focusing, and there's no optical viewfinder on this camera, Sony temporarily enlarges the central portion for a closer look. The screen is also a 2in hybrid TFT, which can make use of sunlight for illumination, while optionally turning off the backlight to save power.

The V has only one JPEG setting, which creates files measuring around 1.1Mb each at 1856 x 1392 resolution - consequently, you'll only squeeze about six images on the meagre 8Mb Memory Stick Sony supplies as standard. A 2240 x 1680 pixel interpolated mode is also available, producing files measuring around 1.5Mb. There's the welcome addition of an uncompressed TIFF mode, and also a mono GIF mode for cleanly capturing text and diagrams on white or blackboards. Other resolutions include 1280 x 960, 640 x 480 and a special 320 x 240 email mode. Interestingly, the email, TIFF and GIF modes also create a standard JPEG file at the same time.

The original 505 had aperture and shutter priority modes, but they were hidden in a maze of menus. Fortunately, the V makes it much easier to adjust the seven aperture settings and 19 shutter speeds from 8 seconds to 1/1000 - a huge improvement over the 1/8 second slowest speed of the original 505. The half stop exposure compensation increments of the 505 have been refined to 1/3 stops, and there's also a spot-metering option.

The flash brightness can be adjusted, and there's a sync plug for an external flashgun. Movie mode captures up to 15 seconds of video at 320 x 240 or 60 seconds at 160 x 120, both at 15fps (frames per second) with mono audio. Once connected to your Mac using USB, the camera memory is mounted as a volume to drag files out of.

The image quality is undeniably good, but if you look very closely, a genuine 3.3-megapixel model, like Sony's own S70, resolves a fraction more detail. The S70 also has longer battery life and is £100 cheaper. While the S70 is perfect for most users, photographers will fall in love with the V's superb lens and responsive handling. Just try to forget those redundant CCD pixels.