Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T500 Digital Camera Review

Overview of Key Features and Specs
Sony's DSC-T500 sits near the top of Sony's slim and stylish T-series line of digital cameras. The first Sony digital camera to feature HD video recording, it is also well spec'd with 10MP resolution, 5x optical zoom, sensor shift stabilization, and a gorgeous 3.5" widescreen LCD with touch interface.

While it may not be the smallest, lightest, or thinnest camera on the market, the Cyber-shot DSC-T500 packs enough features to please the avid enthusiast. Included in the box is a small dock that allows the camera, when docked, to charge, connect to a PC via USB, or connect to a TV via HDMI port. For some reason, the dock's connection to power is done via some small proprietary plug and power supply which are not included with the product. Thus, video or still photo playback on TVs are limited in length to the available battery life.

Bearing that large signature Sony logo and Cyber-shot label, you can't mistaken the DSC-T500 for another brand.

Sliding the lens cover to the open position turns on the camera.

The back of the DSC-T500 is almost entirely dominated by a 3.5" touch-screen.

You must insert the DSC-T500 into the dock in order to sync.

Although not the top of the T-series lineup (that distinction rests with the T700), the DSC-T500 stands out due to its headlining HD video recording capability at a maximum resolution of 1280 x 720, 30 fps (720p). Also available are a higher compression 1280 x 720 mode (Standard), and a low-res 640 x 480 (VGA) mode for the web. Unlike some other digicams which claim to be able to capture video, this one fully enables both image stabilization and optical zoom during recording.

Other key features include a handful of shooting modes, advanced playback options including slideshow with music and transitions, limited in-camera retouching, and face detection focus. Still shooting modes consist of the following:

• AUTO: Full point-and-shoot mode with Scene Recognition and Image Stabilization enabled. Key functions such as Face Detection, Red Eye Reduction, flash, exposure compensation, macro and self-timer can still be turned on or off.
• PROGRAM: Full user control of all features - including those above - and in addition, white balance, color modes, image stabilization on/off, ISO, bracketing, and flash compensation.
• SCENE: Nine presets are available, including: High-sensitivity, Soft Snap, Twilight Portrait, Twilight, Landscape, Hi-Speed Shutter, Beach, Snow, and Fireworks.

Although the camera utilizes a 16:9 aspect ratio widescreen LCD, the actual image size and aspect ratio are selectable from the following: 10MP (4:3), 8MP (3:2), 7MP (16:9), 5MP (4:3), 3MP (4:3), 2MP (16:9), VGA (4:3).
16:9 image displayed on the camera.

4:3 image displayed on the camera.

The Touchy Feely
Available in silver, black or red with a brushed and glossy metal housing and the trademark sliding lens cover, the T500 is a really solid piece, with top-notch build quality. The 3.5" widescreen LCD and dramatic lack of buttons is a real conversation-starter. Power on is achieved by either pressing the power button on the top of the unit, or by simply sliding the lens cover to the open position. Incorporated into the design is a stereo microphone for sound capture with video, a red LED for focus assist, and the typical tiny Sony flash.

There are three colors to choose from: black, red & silver.

It's extremely hard to handle the camera without putting smudges on the screen, but Sony has provided a small flange on the camera body along with a rubberized grip on the lens cover. The only buttons available are situated on the top of the camera body: power, playback, and shutter release. The zoom toggle switch is mounted around the shutter release, and one can easily switch between stills and video capture mode using the thumb toggle.

Given the touchscreen, Sony has been able to eliminate all buttons on the back panel of the camera. While this makes for a super clean exterior, after some use, one may long for the old days of real buttons with tactile feel and fixed positions and functions.

The bottom of the unit features a metal tripod mount, a proprietary dock connector which carries signals for USB, power, and digital/analog video and audio out, and the battery door with a tiny latch. Behind this door is a slim Li-Ion battery and Sony obligatory Memory Stick Duo slot. I found the door a bit difficult to open and close because it requires one use their fingernail to slide the locking mechanism. The slim Li-Ion battery that powers the camera charges quickly (about 3 hours) but must be removed from the camera and charged in a separate charger which is supplied in the box.

From here, you see you can't swap in new Memory Stick without shutting down the camera first.

While the T500 is a compact and versatile travel companion, I was a bit disappointed to find that despite the lengthy feature set, there are no user ports on the camera itself. Those wanting to download photos via USB, or plug into an HDTV will have to carry the bulky dock around. I understand that fitting an HDMI port might have been a stretch, but come on Sony, how about a mini-USB port on the side just like the W-series cameras?

Overall, the design and user experience is very typical Sony: top notch build, beautiful aesthetics, and a bit of a compromised user experience in the interests of a slim form.

DSC-T500's User Interface
On to the piece de resistance - the 3.5 inch widescreen LCD. As you can imagine, many aspects of the now-standard digicam user interface, like the 4-way selector, the delete button, the menu button, etc, had to be rethought when the touchscreen went in and all the buttons were removed. The display doubles as a viewfinder AND a control interface. Frankly, it doesn't work all that well.

Photography (even point-and-shoot photography) is a very timing critical experience. Miss the moment and it's likely gone forever. Not having buttons on the camera means no adjustment (except zoom) can be made in a no-look fashion. Compounding the problem is that the touchscreen itself seems a bit slow to respond to commands, and requires a very deliberate "touch" to work. Even after weeks of familiarization, where I was able to shoot a few hundred pictures under a variety of situations, I can conclude that the camera's overall speed of operation is no better than, and in some cases, worse than a circa 2004 Sony DSC-W1. Granted, the W1 was hailed as one of the fastest digicams of its era, but nearly five years later, I expect things would improve, not regress.

The menu system itself is presented using both graphical icons and a textual explanation of each icon. I found it useful to be familiar with other Sony digicams to be able to adapt more quickly to the T500's modified interface. Generally, the layout of the controls is around the edges of the screen so as not to mask too much of the viewfinder. Regardless of shooting mode, the controls that you are most likely to want to access quickly are presented via icon. Adjustments all require a minimum of two screen presses - one to bring up the parameter, and another to select from a list of options. Without a touchscreen, some adjustments such as macro on/off, or flash mode, would be adjustable with a single button press.

Settings that Sony thinks you won't want to access very often are buried in the Setup menu, which itself is a sub-menu of the main menu. Getting to the Settings display takes a minimum of 4 screen presses, and a maximum of 6! Once in the Settings menu, the interface changes to large rectangular buttons covering the entire screen (no lens image is shown). Here, items such as AF Mode, AF Illuminator, Digital Zoom, Grid on/off, Auto orientation and Auto Review can be tweaked. Thankfully, a description of each setting is provided so you don't have to go scurrying off to find the user manual.

When docked and connected to an HDTV via HDMI cable, the T500 display changes to a simple navigation control, and all previous contents of the built-in LCD are presented on your TV. This works rather well, except that such a setup begs the inclusion (or availability) of an IR remote control so you can sit on the couch and browse images and view movies. Unfortunately, such a remote is not available from Sony at this time.

This is how the DSC-T500 displays photo preview on my 52" LCD.

This is the camera screen showing the navigation controls when the HDMI cable is connected.

Image Quality and Performance
Utilizing a Sony 1/2.3" CCD sensor with a maximum resolution of 10MP coupled with a Carl Zeiss 5x zoom lens, I expect an above-average performance from the T500. For our testing, I left Super Steady Shot, Sony's optical image stabilizer, on all the time, and headed out to see how this little gem performed.

Set to AUTO, images taken with the T500 in bright lighting conditions are generally very well exposed and sharp. Colors, as with other Sony digicams, are highly saturated and tuned for the consumer who probably values bright, vibrant shades over more subtle hues. I found the reds especially offensive, as they just came out sizzling bright. I much preferred to throw the camera into PROGRAM mode and tweak the color mode to Natural, which seemed to calm the color storm a tad.

Worth mentioning is the impressive exposure accuracy. Under a variety of conditions, the camera smartly compensated for backlit conditions, as well as high contrast scenes, delivering impressively rendered images. I almost never had a need to use the exposure compensation adjustment.

Shots taken with flash were more of a mixed bag, as expected with this class of camera, and given the size and position of the flash. Red-eye was prevalent, and the red-eye reduction mode improved, but did not eliminate the situation. Camera performance was more sluggish with flash enabled, due to the camera needing to charge the flash and invoke the red-eye reduction pre-flash before firing the actual shot.

High ISO performance was about average for this class of camera, with a distinct grain pattern visible at ISO 400. By ISO 800, things get worse, but this performance is nothing out of the ordinary for a small sensor digicam. I found the noise present in images taken using the high sensitivity mode were rather objectionable and would recommend that users stay at ISO AUTO or use ISO 400 as a maximum. Those needing to shoot often in low light conditions would be well advised to consider digicams with larger sensors, or faster lenses, such as the Canon G10 or Panasonic LX3.

Here's a crop at ISO 400. One can see the visible noise in the trees, which actually looks highly processed. I wouldn't doubt Sony is applying some rather harsh noise reduction here. Download the full-size image (400k).

Visual artifacts, such as chromatic aberration (purple fringing) or vignetting (shading of the corners) were pleasantly well controlled, even when I went purposely trying to shoot in conditions that would expose them.

Battery life for stills seemed to be worse than average even for a slim digicam, that is to say, approximately 100 to 200 shots can be taken before you need to recharge. Naturally, frequent flash usage, lots of photo viewing, or using video recording mode at all will drastically reduce your battery life. Serious photographers will need to pay attention to this, as the proprietary slim battery means cheap alkaline-based AA juice is not an option.

The 5x optical zoom was a real treat - with a 33-165mm equivalent reach, I was impressed with what could be squeezed into such a slim digicam body.

16:9 format picture (33mm focal length equivalent). Download the full-size image (3.3MB).

16:9 format picture (165mm focal length equivalent - full zoom). Download the full-size image (3.3MB).

Playback mode generally is functional, but makes rather poor use of such a large screen. Zooming out to allow multiple thumbnail browsing leaves large blank spaces between images, which could have been put to good use displaying either larger thumbnails, or more thumbnails.

Here's the thumbnail preview mode.

Exacerbating the problem is the sluggish scrolling performance, and inability to "jump" through the list by multiples of 10 or 50 images. Scrolling through even a 4GB memory card full of pictures is painful to say the least.

Once you do find the photo you want to view, the wealth of information available is very good, as shown above.

Overall, I really like the Cyber-shot DSC-T500's look and simplicity, but the touch interface combined with the relatively low resolution of the LCD itself meant that the screen was an enemy, not an ally of the photographer.

720p Video Capture
The Cyber-shot DSC-T500 captures up to 720p high-definition video at 1280x720, 30 frames per second in 3 recording modes: fine, standard, VGA. The movie function uses the H.264 codec for video and AAC for stereo audio compression. Unfortunately, the camera limits the video recordings to 10 minutes when shooting clips at the highest resolution. I tested the video capture primarily in the "fine" mode and were rather impressed with the results. Bit-rate for 1280x720 movies at fine quality is 9.6Mbps, a seemingly good compromise between quality and data rate. Edge sharpness is very good, and only fast panning or recordings of quick objects cause any sort of blurring or jitter in the video. This, of course, is not the camera's fault, but rather a limitation imposed by the fixed frame rate of 30 fps. Image stabilization is also active, but I felt it did not have as much of an effect as SteadyShot does in Sony's own line of HandyCam video cameras.

This video demonstrates the panning and optical zooming of the DSC-T500 on stationary and motion objects. Download the full version (47MB) to check out the original quality.

The optical zoom function is available while in video recording mode, unlike lesser digicams. Audio is recorded in stereo, for a realistic portrayal of sounds. I found the camera to do a reasonable job of canceling out handling noise from finger movement. Perhaps the worst part of the DSC-T500's video performance is battery life. When recording HD movies, the camera seems to just suck juice like a V12 Aston Martin drinks premium fuel. Carry a spare battery, or be prepared to stop for a recharge if you'll be recording a lot of video.

This video shows the optical zooming in movie mode again and especially the fine details on the totem. Download the full version (24MB) to appreciate 720p quality of this video.

All in all, convenient access to high quality video recording is a real strength of the Cyber-shot DSC-T500. I think it's an excellent choice if you do a lot of shooting of short clips. With the HDMI port, viewing on a large screen is simple and worked great. I tested the HDMI output on a 1080p capable 52 inch LCD TV. While images and video were vibrant and impressive, as expected from seeing everything blown up to 52 inches, the scaling artifacts were obvious. I expect even better video output on 720p HDTVs because no scaling would be involved. One minor issue I found distracting is that while images look smooth and high resolution, the overlay information such as image number/name, date/time, and various icons remain low resolution, and thus look pixelated and ugly.

Recap
The Cyber-shot DSC-T500 is a solid, beautifully built digicam that I really wanted to love. But every time I tried to tweak a setting or find a photo quickly, I had to stumble our way through a menu system and user interface that must have been devised for a Mensa IQ test. As a photographic tool, the T500 falls flat on its glamorous, polished face. It is at once a feast for the eyes and a strain on the patience. However, I still feel that Sony has hit the mark for the style-conscious consumer who demands an all-in-one solution for HD video and high quality stills in bright (outdoor) conditions. This is an outstanding hybrid digicam of class-competitive resolution and photographic quality. Sony should be commended for pushing the envelope with its conversation-starting LCD and well spec'd new offering. Given time to learn its deep menu system and touch interface, I think a patient user will be happy for years to come. For those who do not require HD video capability, think carefully about your priorities and cross shop Sony's own W-series and Canon Powershot before you buy.