DPexpert

[REVIEW—SIGMA 105mm f2.8 EX macro lens]

2010-09-02T00:24:44Z

Price: $700

A fine lens

The low-down: This 105mm fast macro lens is suitable for either full frame or APS sensor cameras and it is available in mounts for Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Sigma, Sony and Four Thirds cameras. Construction is rugged with Sigma’s signature attractive matte finish. Macro focus is down to 1:1 at the maximum lens extension. For this lens Sigma use the sliding barrel clutch mechanism to change from manual to auto focus and also a small selector switch – it is not obvious why there are two selectors. To reduce focus hunting the lens can be locked to a “limit” position. It comes with a screw-in lens hood. While it is called a macro lens it is also a medium telephoto particularly suited to portraiture. On an APS-C sensor camera the focal length is equivalent to approximately 150mm.

Like: Optically this is an excellent lens with outstanding sharpness, contrast and colour fidelity. Sharpness is consistent across the entire image with no fall-off in the edges and corners and is also consistent at all focus points.

Dislike: There is extreme focus hunting with low contrast subjects and even with ordinary contrast the lens can take its time finding a sharp focus. Given the fast aperture (f2.8) this inability to focus quickly is inexplicable. When we compared the Canon 100mm macro on the same camera body as the Sigma the difference in focus speed was startling.

Verdict: This is a fine lens and for the price is excellent value for money. Optically it is as good as it gets and manually focussed there is nothing to complain about. But the auto focus issue is baffling. Our test cameras were two Canons – a 7D and a 5D MkII. Perhaps the focus performance would be different on another make of body. We can only suggest that you take your camera body to the shop and try it for yourself.

[WHO IS THAT GORGEOUS WOMAN?]

2010-09-02T00:17:38Z

Frankly Imaging is surprised that Ms Gillard didn’t bolt into The Lodge in the recent unpleasantness.

The moment we clapped eyes on the cover of the August issue of Australian Women’s Weekly we thought it was in the bag. Here is the brand new prime minister looking like the glamorous half sister of Jana Wendt and actress Helen Hunt. Two million voters are going to see this, who can resist? Not just brains and determination and a slight touch of the Lady Macbeths but also beautiful.

Apparently the voters recognise photographic smoke and mirrors when they see it. And so does she! They didn’t fall for the Photoshopped PM and she knows enough about digital trickery to ask for a touch-up here and there.

Have a look at the video of the photo shoot at tinyurl.com/2d2cjg6. (Scroll through the stills to arrive at the video) You will see the prime minister looking at herself on the computer monitor and saying: “You can fix that?” And there is a murmur of agreement that there needs to be some post-camera work done on the prime ministerial cleavage which is deemed to be politically inappropriate. Her smart blue suit is kept taut and wrinkle-free by pulling it together at the back and fixing it with a safety pin.

The photographer Grant Matthews – said to be Elle Macpherson’s snapper of choice when she is in Oz – is working in a studio with a big staff of assistants, including a makeup artist, stylist (dresser), hair stylist and assorted dogsbodies. Before serious shooting begins one of those assistants holds the white balance card in front of the subject’s face – a white card with black and 18 per cent grey squares. It will be a simple matter to do a mass white balance correction in Aperture (Matthews is using Apple computer gear) by reference to this card. The sheer simplicity of this vital part of the process is a lesson for all photographers – get the white balance right at the outset and you save yourself a lot of imprecise fiddling later on.

Matthews’ lighting setup is fairly simple. He has one huge soft light directly in front of the subject and a wide white reflective board underneath Ms Gillard, reflecting light up towards her eyes, eliminating shadows and the dark crescents that we see under her eyes in other photos. The effect is a flattening of the light which is soft and flattering. A subtle modelling light comes through a high window to one side.

All the published photos are either full face or very slightly head turned, but never in profile to show her distinctive nose and chin. And what to do about that intimidating helmet of red hair? The solution is brilliant in its simplicity – the hair stylist is just out of shot aiming a hair dryer at Ms Gillard’s head, blowing her hair around in attractive, soft and romantic wisps. Why didn’t we think of that?

A lesson for all photographers: never go out without a safety pin and a hair dryer.

[REVIEW—CANON IXUS 300HS]

2010-08-26T00:15:31Z

Price: $550

Outstanding compact

The low-down: This 10 megapixel camera is Canon’s first with a so-called backlit sensor. The image stabilised lens has a 28–105mm range and a maximum aperture of f2 at the wide end. The camera is well made and can be used as a fully automatic point-and-shoot or user-controlled in Program or Aperture/Shutter priority. The 7.5cm LCD is not high resolution but it is bright and OK as a viewfinder. There is a 1280X720 movie mode. The flash is small and not powerful and prone to producing red-eye, which can be corrected in the camera after the shot is taken.

Like: By creating a camera with a reduced pixel count and a short zoom range Canon has improved picture quality, especially where image noise is concerned. Images are clean up to ISO400 and useable at higher sensitivities. There is no noticeable blurring of fine detail, the usual trade-off for in-camera noise reduction. Canon’s three top compact cameras now have 10 megapixel sensors, a triumph of good technology over more-is-better marketing.

Dislike: We regret the passing of Canon’s easy to use quick menu system, used on all their compacts for the past eight years. The function menu system is now divided into two parts and takes some getting used to.

Verdict: This is a fine little camera. Panasonic were first to have the nerve to drop out of the pixel race and fit their top compact with a 10mp sensor. Canon quickly followed suit with the G11, S90 and now the Ixus 300HS. And now Samsung has fitted its top compact with 10mp. Shoppers may wonder why they should pay more money for fewer pixels and a shorter zoom range, and the answer is that where photo receptors and lenses are concerned less is sometimes more. The Ixus 300HS is highly recommended.

[THE TRAVELLING PHOTORGAPHER PART 2]

2010-08-26T00:12:17Z

You know how excited and hostile Mac and PC devotees can get defending their operating systems? Well, we have discovered that you can get just as much heat and just as little light when you raise the matter of JPEG versus RAW for file storage.

A few weeks ago we invited readers to respond to a story about the basic requirements of the travelling photographer. In the story we said that we had recommended to a friend that he shoot in Large/Fine JPEG for ease of editing and storage. Four respondents to the story are indignant that we should give such poor advice (“the worst advice I would give anyone” according to LM) and one pointed out that we were factually wrong. We said that the free photo editing program, Photoscape (www.photoscape.org) wouldn’t handle RAW files. We were wrong. It does convert some RAW files from some cameras. It’s worth checking to see if your camera is included.

We suggested to our friend that he take a netbook for storage and internet transmission. Several respondents have done just this and they all had good service from Picasa, Google’s on-line service. Picasa is a basic photo editor and it can also be used to create and upload web galleries, accessible to the envious folks back home. (picasa.google.com/)

Doug found that MacDonalds in the US and Europe were convenient and free places to get WiFi connections to upload his photos to Flickr and his diary blog for the price of a Big Mac.

Most netbooks have 25cm screens, which Chris thinks is a bit small and recommends the Asus 1201N with its 30cm LCD as the way to go. Three Mac users carried MacBook Pros and could do their on-the-run editing with iPhoto. Only one respondent used Microsoft’s unloved Windows Live Photo Gallery.

BT learned the hard way that you need an elaborate file backup strategy in order to avoid disaster. He mistakenly formatted a memory card and lost 100 photos taken in South Devon. Next time around he plans to carry the Epson P-7000 photo storage device that has a decent little LCD screen and a 160GB hard drive. (This is too late to help Bram, but remember that files can usually be recovered even from a formatted card.)

Poor Debra bought an xD memory card for her Olympus in Edinburgh. It failed and she lost photos of elderly relatives who she would probably never see again. Her experience with Olympus service left a lot to be desired. While she was on hold to the service department she was subjected to “the incessant advertising expounding on the delights of the xD card”. When she eventually spoke to a service person she was told that the xD was discontinued “as we have better cards now.” And in any case, how dare she buy a memory card overseas and expect service in Australia. For $55 they would look at her card, which they did, and returned it with a note saying, in effect, “it’s stuffed!”

Ross’s file protection strategy includes carrying only small memory cards so that if one is stolen or malfunctions you don’t lose too many pictures. He backs up to other cards and USB memory sticks and distributes his backups through his luggage and clothes. He burns CDs and sends them back home. He reckons that he always has three copies with him and one in the post.

Geoff has a novel theft deterrent – he carries an old ACER notebook. He says “it is a bit heavy and very battered and highly unattractive to thieves.”

The over all advice is to carry a small computer, use an online service like Picasa, don’t put all your photos on one device and do distribute your backups in different parts of the luggage and around your person. A daily backup will also ring alarms if a memory card is failing.

[ENLARGER FOR SALE]

2010-08-21T01:57:11Z

[ROMANCE IN THE DARKROOM]

2010-08-19T01:21:40Z

[Moonrise – near Pyalong, by John Spring]

We can think of several good reasons to join a camera club, but none more compelling than those that moved Jo Beilby, the president of the Melbourne Camera Club, to join up two years ago.

“I joined primarily to get back into the darkroom, a pastime I thoroughly enjoyed while studying photojournalism at college. Naïve and idealistic, my nights were spent soaked in the heady smell of chemistry, illuminated by barely perceptible red safety lights and featuring a never ending soundtrack of alternative mixes of Pink Floyd. Perhaps it was the promise of stolen kisses with my boyfriend at the time that kept me interested…But where we soon parted ways, photography won my heart in the end.”

These days, like the other 90 per cent of the Club members, Jo has gone digital. But the Club still offers a splendidly equipped darkroom to its members, and a hardy, romantic few, addicted to the fumes of developer, stop bath and fixer, continue to produce photographs by the traditional methods. In fact the stalwarts now form a subgroup in the Club called “The traditional darkroom printmakers group”.

The Melbourne Camera Club is just about 120 years old. It started life 1891 as the Working Men’s College Photographic Club. Gentlemen paid a subscription of ten shillings to belong and the ladies could join in for five shillings. Membership bought entry to the College darkroom. For another one shilling and sixpence members could attend any lecture offered by the Instructor in Photography at the school.

These days the Club has 244 members and use of the darkroom for developing and canoodling costs members $5 for six hours -- better than messing around setting up the bathroom or laundry as a temporary darkroom.

This Saturday, 21 August, the Club is opening its doors to the public for one of its periodic exhibitions. The club rooms are now in a historic building on the corner of Dorcas and Ferrars streets, South Melbourne and the exhibition will be open from about 2.15. There are two parts to the exhbition -- prints made by traditional methods and a showing of members’ digital images, displayed through a high definition projector.

Imaging has been given a preview and believe us it is worth making the effort to attend, if you have an interest in the art of photography. Being part of a mutually competitive group obviously inspires members to try harder.

John Spring, the retired engineer who is the coordinator of the exhibition, joined the club about 38 years ago, attracted by the inspiring contributions made by people like Athol Shmith and Helmut Newton. John was using Kodak and Nikon cameras when he joined, and even used a 4x5in press camera. Now he takes his photos with a much daintier Panasonic digital.

As well as the darkroom and a well equipped studio the Club offers an Introduction to Photography seven week course that is so popular it is booked out for the next year. To find more about the Melbourne Camera Club and the exhibition of members’ work go to www.melbournephoto.org.au

[Selby Markham, coordinator of the Traditional Printmaker group]

[REVIEW—KODAK PULSE DIGIFRAME]

2010-08-19T01:10:31Z

Price: $180

Interesting, but…

The low-down: This 17.8cm digital frame of 800X600 pixels is WiFi enabled. This means that in addition to the conventional ways of loading images into a digital frame, by USB or memory card, the Pulse can be loaded over a domestic WiFi network. Which also means that it can access images on social network services such as Facebook and Kodak’s Gallery. The frame can also be assigned its own email address and photos sent directly to it. There is no installation software – it is all done through the Kodak Pulse web site. Once our WiFi security code was entered in the frame itself we were given a token number to unlock the Kodak setup. It was simple enough but took some time to complete. There is no direct connection from your computer to the frame – all transfers pass through a server in the US.

Like: It’s a great idea – a wireless networked frame into which pictures can be loaded from anywhere in the world. The first time you email a picture file to the frame you won’t believe it, it is easy and miraculous.

Dislike: The frame is small, and being 4:3 aspect ratio it looks slightly old fashioned up against our larger 16:9 comparison frame. But the most unsatisfactory feature of the frame is the inability to connect it as a network device, as we do a printer or laptop. All communications must go through the Kodak US web server, so to send a file from the computer to the frame, perhaps only a few metres apart, it must cross the Pacific twice! The mind boggles!

Verdict: This is a clever gadget and it is easy to see applications for it. It would be a great way to keep sending photos back from abroad, for instance, provided the recipient has a WiFi network at home. It’s a pity that the entire concept is so Ameri-centric. Good value at going street prices.

[THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S CONSCIENCE]

2010-08-11T23:54:42Z

When ABC radio presenter Jon Faine set out to drive overland from Melbourne to London his travelling companion, his son Jack, was appointed in charge of navigation, music programming and photography for the excursion.

For the photographic part of his responsibilities Jack packed two cameras, a Pentax K20D and a Pentax K100. He took a 50 mm manual focus lens and a 17–70 zoom. Of the more than 5000 photographs taken on the trip most were taken with the zoom lens.

Jack Faine says that with hindsight he wished he had another zoom and he that he hadn't bothered to pack a monopod and a tripod. They got no use at all. On the other hand he was sorry that he didn’t pack a less conspicuous compact camera.

Every few days he backed up his photographs onto his laptop and once a month he copied the image files to two external hard drives. He also periodically burned the images onto CD and posted them home. Every single disc was lost in the mail!

In his contribution to the excursion journal, From here to there, Jack writes of his discomfort at being the tourist with the cameras: "I put my finger on a feeling I've had for a long time. I was a visitor in a zoo, or some kind of amusement park. I'd bought my ticket, I'd brought my camera and here I was to be entertained and intrigued by the animals...Why would we come all this way and stand there and watch living breathing humans doing nothing more than live, work and walk the streets?

"To be honest, I'd been uncomfortable with the unequal relationship between the tourist and the local since our visit to Arnhem Land. And now I have it in words, a solid form, and I felt a bit sick."

Talking to Imaging he says: "The ethics of photography says that you should talk to the locals, establish a contact and then ask for permission to take their photo. But that actually ruins a photo. I found that if I asked someone for permission to take their photo then that photo seems a little bit stilted, a little bit too structured. Whereas if you're standing in the street taking a spontaneous photo of someone at a market stall it's much more natural, vivid and alive.

"But when you take the spontaneous photograph it is like you are stealing something, without anyone giving it to you or allowing you to take it. I felt uncomfortable about that. What eventually ended up happening is that I would go four or five days without taking a single photo, just because I felt way too uncomfortable doing it."

Jack says that his unease was a point of tension with his father, Jon. He says that Jon's attitude is that if you have the right intention and you establish a friendly contact with the people you want to photograph then there can be no objection to taking the picture.

But Jack's last word on his once in a lifetime photo-opp is that "travel photography is the most self-indulgent thing you can do."

From here to there - a father and son roadtrip adventure… by Jon and Jack Faine, ABC Books. $40

[REVIEW—PENTAX W90]

2010-08-11T23:47:08Z

Price: $450

Rugged and competent

The low-down: This 12 megapixel camera with a 28–140mm (film equivalent) lens is Pentax’s indestructible, go-anywhere camera. Construction is rugged with a nice feel to the rubberised overlay. It is waterproof to a depth of six metres and can withstand the shock of a drop from 1.2 metres. It is dustproof and can operate at temperatures as low as -10c. The LCD is small but has decent visibility in sunlight. External function controls are limited and the menu system is unattractive. There is a “digital microscope” mode which focuses to 1cm, using the digital zoom. There is even an LED ring light built in for ultra closeup illumination. It works! There are the usual non-essentials such as face detection, digital filters. There is no in-lens or sensor-shift image stabilisation.

Like: We gave the W90 the tourist treatment around town and were impressed with the sharpness, exposure and colour as long as we didn’t go past ISO200. There is the usual tendency to over expose under grey skies. Auto white balance is good. The 1280X720 movie mode produces surprisingly good results. The “digital microscope” works well.

Dislike: The exposure compensation control is buried in the menus when it should be controlled from a camera-body dedicated button.

Verdict: This is a point and shoot camera of above average competence. We like the look of it, sort of cold war techno chic. We would rank this on a par with the Canon Powershot D10 and many customers will no doubt prefer the Pentax’s austere, no nonsense body form. This is truly a go-anywhere camera that can be hosed down after a day at the beach or a trek up Kilimanjaro. There is something appealing about a camera that doesn’t need to be mollycoddled. A good buy.

[REVIEW—SAMSUNG EX1]

2010-08-11T23:43:31Z

Price: $600

Superior compact, great price

The low-down: This 10 megapixel camera with a fast F1.8–2.4 image stabilised 24mm–72mm zoom lens is Samsung's entry into the upper levels of compact cameras. This segment of the market is dominated by Panasonic with the LX3 – about to be superseded by the LX5 – and the Canon G11 and S90. Samsung has followed the same design approach of fewer pixels and a shorter zoom range built into a body with a full suite of manual controls to provide a serious camera for those who want better image quality than the standard compacts deliver. The construction is rugged and attractive and the ergonomics are good without being brilliant. The Schneider branded lens is smooth, fast and silent. The articulated 7.5 cm OLED LCD is superb. The camera has RAW capability and comes with a Samsung-branded version of the raw converter Silkypix.

Like: The image quality is about as good as it gets in a compact. JPEG's from the camera are good but the RAW images are outstanding. It is worth taking the trouble to capture in RAW and process with the excellent Silkypix converter. Image noise is noticeable at ISO 800 but it is easily removed without disastrous side-effects in the RAW converter. The lens is outstanding for sharpness, resolution and colour.

Dislike: The movie mode is VGA -- a bit crude in this day and age.

Verdict: The EX1 is a cheaper alternative to the top Panasonic and Canon compacts and does not appear to yield anything in usability or picture quality. At the price there is no reason to consider any other compact unless you want pixel and zoom range bragging rights or you want a tiny fashion object to carry in your purse. If you are in the market for a real camera then the Samsung must be near the top of your shopping list.

[Mobile picture taking for nonconformists]

2010-08-05T01:26:07Z

Dear fellow iPhobia sufferers,(those of us who have a pathological aversion to all iThings) we have been looking at some of the free photo manipulation applications available for our Android smart phones. The camera built in to our HTC Desire is surprisingly competent and has spurred us on to see what apps are available to edit, enhance and share our photographs.

Needless to say the photo app that everyone must have is Photoshop.com Mobile (this and all the other apps referred to can be installed from the Android Market). Photoshop Mobile has a full suite of tools for correcting exposure, saturation, contrast and brightness. There is also a cropping tool and an instant conversion to black and white.

PS Mobile has an attractive soft-focus black-and-white style and a couple of other interesting effects including Pop-4, which creates an Andy Warhol-type four frame matrix, with each frame having a different dominant colour. There is also a small gallery of border effects that can be applied to the image.

Photographs edited in Photoshop.com Mobile can be uploaded to Facebook or Twitter or to Adobe's own image storing service. The edited photo may also be set as the telephone's wallpaper with a single click.

A highly regarded alternative to Photoshop.com Mobile is an app called Picsay, which is available in two versions, one is free and the other, called Picsay Pro costs three euros to download.

Picsay also has a suite of tools for exposure contrast, brightness, saturation and colour temperature. The Marker function gives a sort of finger-painting on the image.

For fun effects it is hard to go past the android app FX Camera. This mini application post processes images taken with the Android phone to produce effects such as Toy Cam, Polandroid, fisheye or Warhol montages, amongst other effects. Our favourite is Polandroid which puts a white border around the image and degrades the sharpness and colour of the photograph to look like a poorly exposed Polaroid print. We are not sure when or why you would use it but as Dr. Johnson might have said we are amazed that it is done at all.

For those who have a nostalgic hankering for the style of photograph produced by the famous Kodak Box Brownie of yore we can recommend an Android app called Retro Camera. This is an intriguing application that turns the phone screen into a facsimile of a vintage camera with the shutter release button as part of the graphic on the screen. This means that instead of using the phone's default shutter release button you press the picture of the button on the screen and it fires the camera.

Some of the free android apps come with advertising on screen. This can be a little disconcerting and annoying at first but as the adverts don't take up much screen real estate we quickly learned to live with them as the small price we have to pay to get the apps for nothing.

[THE LEFTHANDED CAMERA PROJECT]

2010-08-01T06:52:27Z

Recently I mentioned that I had been rendered a temporary sinister unidexter -- my right hand was kaput and I could only use my left hand. And that made taking photographs a difficult enterprise. I described my solution to the problem in words at the time, but here is a video of the Lefthanded Camera Project that gives a clearer idea of how I did it.

[click here for a larger video]

I would like to hear from anyone who has found this video useful. Leave a message on Comments…

[REVIEW—HDR EXPOSE]

2010-07-29T00:51:57Z

Price: U$150 from www.unifiedcolor.com

Elegant HDR processing

The low-down: This high dynamic range image processing application is a refinement of the company's earlier HDR Photo Studio 2. The interface has been redesigned and is now more intuitive to use. Unified Color say that their HDR photo editing application is an improvement on its competitors because it processes in 32 bits without having to down-sample images to 8 or 16 bits. They say: "HDR Expose is always able to take advantage full range of colour and contrast information available after merging the HDR image". The interface layout now leads to a more logical progression through the various tone mapping steps. There is a reasonably useful user manual available as a PDF download. We would have liked more plain English instructions, but it is better than nothing at all.

Like: We found that with HDR Expose it is easier to get a realistic image with a full tonal range than with other similar programs. We admit to an aversion to those strange HDR images that look more like hand-painted illustrations than realistic photographs. We like realism.

Dislike: The terminology used in the application is as obscure and geeky as in the competitors' programs --- one might expect that HDR processing has been around long enough for the various software manufacturers to agree on what they are going to call the different functions and processes.

Verdict: As things stand and by comparison with Photomatix, PhotoAcute, and Photoshop CS5, we would recommend HDR Expose as the best program for anyone dipping a toe into the high dynamic range processing water. And with HDR Expose you can download a trial version and use it for 30 days without any limitations such as restricted image size or annoying watermarks. This surely is the mark of a software company that has great confidence in its product.

[THE TRAVELLING PHOTOGRAPHER'S COMPANION]

2010-07-29T00:28:46Z

Last week our pal S set out on a great adventure that will take him from Hong Kong to St Petersburg and Rome. He packed his Nikon D 700 and intends to make a brilliant photographic record of his travels. We asked him to send us some pictures from time to time to show is where he is and to make us envious. "How do I do that?" he asked. "I don't want to lug my notebook computer (38cm screen) around."

We suggested that he kit himself out with a netbook computer (25cm screen) and some simple, free photo editing software. In fact if he bought a netbook PC with Windows 7 already installed he will have the Windows Live Photo Gallery application which, although limited in its abilities, can perform simple photo editing tasks needed to prepare an image for emailing or posting to Flickr and Facebook.

The most attractive feature of a netbook is its small size and the least attractive feature is its limited processing ability and tiny screen. This is not the device for complex Photoshop processes -- leave them until you get home.

Netbooks usually have 160gb of internal storage which is ideal for transferring image files from the memory card to the computer at the end of the day. To do this our pal would have to carry either the camera-to-USB connecting cable or a Compact Flash card reader. Most netbooks have card readers for SD cards built in, but not for the larger CF cards.

We suggested he set the camera image quality to large/fine JPEG rather than to RAW, simply to save storage space and to make it easier to open the files in any of the free photo editing programs that are suitable for use on the netbook.

Netbooks don't have CD or DVD drives installed so the most convenient way of installing a program is via the built-in WiFi connection. It's just a matter of finding a convenient WiFi hotspot to make the connection. Most hotels these days provide WiFi connections even if some of them do charge for it.

One of the better free photo editing programs is Photoscape v3.5 (www.photoscape.org) This is a mere 16MB and downloads and installs in a nonce. The interface is eccentric but intuitive, and as a traveller will be doing the most elementary editing -- brightness, contrast, resize, sharpen and perhaps white balance correction -- Photoscape does the job with no fuss. It won't do RAW but it will handle JPEG and TIFF with no fuss.

The important thing to remember is to save edited photos as files with new names -- in other words "save as" -- so as not to write over the original file. It might be a good idea to create two folders containing all the files from the memory card in duplicate with one folder marked "not to be touched".

We are still waiting for S's in-transit slideshow and thinking that Marco Polo should have had it so good.

[REVIEW—SONY alphaNEX-5]

2010-07-22T00:52:19Z

Price: $1050

We like it.

The low-down: Sony has entered the mirrorless interchangeable lens camera category with the NEX-3 and the NEX-5. They both use an APS-C CMOS sensor of 14.2 megapixels. The camera body is not much larger than a compact but the 18–55 mm kit lens makes the overall package relatively bulky. The lens is mechanically smooth for zoom and manual focus, with good optical characteristics. The high resolution LCD swivels up from the body for waist level shooting. Movie mode is full HD. The external controls are limited and almost all camera functions must be accessed through the menu system. Sweep-panorama shots (hold the shutter button and swing the camera around) in 3D can be replayed on Sony 3D TVs.

Like: The image quality is excellent, with fine rendering of detail and generally good colour and exposure. Because it is essentially a Sony DSLR with the mirror removed the images are as we would expect from a bulkier camera.

Dislike: The inability to access important camera functions from buttons on the body is irritating. Setting the ISO speed is done through the multilayer menu system and in spite of of our long experience with digital cameras we had to resort to the instruction manual to find out how to do it.

Verdict: This is s a fine camera capable of producing lovely photographs. However, the drawback with using the larger sensor is the necessity for a larger lens, and in this case the bulk of the lens unbalances the overall design. Still, it is an excellent lens. And the APS-C sensor does give slightly better image quality than the smaller Micro Four-Thirds sensor. We were unable to test the sweep-panorama 3D on a Sony television, but we suspect that it is not a feature that will seal or break the deal. Bottom line: we like it.