Sony's new Cybershot point-and-shoot — the TX55 — is a weird little camera. It combines a tiny, slim body with a huge 3.3-inch screen (which takes up almost the entire rear of the camera) and a far-too-large 16.2MP sensor.
It also adds in enough photo-processing software to make older versions of photoshop look like pencil and paper.
The first gimmick is “By Pixel Super Resolution” and its sub-category, “Clear Image Zoom”. This is a 5x digital zoom, which comes in addition to the 5x optical zoom. I know what you're thinking. Digital zoom just blows up the picture, and doesn't actually do any zooming. Sony claims that its version takes full resolution photos “without lowering the pixel count.”
What does this really mean? Interpolation. The camera uses its brain to add new pixels in between the blocky zoomed ones, smoothing things out. This can certainly help, but still isn't really a zoom.
The other gimmick is faux 3-D, which the TX55 calculates by snapping two successive shots and using the first to estimate depth information. A “3-D” image is then produced.
Other than this, you get the now obligatory range of toy-camera filters, along with Sony's neat sweep panoramas where you just pan the camera to capture a panoramic scene.
It's pretty clear that the low end of the point-and-shoot market is dying, as cellphones are now more than capable of snapping good photos. Sony seems to be countering with old-school megapixel marketing and app-like FX. Hell, the thing even looks more like a cellphone than a camera. $350, available in September.
Sony's Newest Cyber-Shot Camera Expands Range of Creative Options [Sony]
source: Gadget Lab
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