Auto Mode
The full auto mode of the V800 takes control of every aspect of the camera, except for image size and quality. You can’t change any of the options for metering or exposure. The camera makes all such choices, locking out the menus completely. You can still change some settings, though, like enabling or disabling the flash or entering the macro mode, for example.
Movie Mode
The movie mode records movies at a maximum resolution of 640 x 480 at 30 frames per second (smaller resolutions and a 20 frames per second rate are also available) in MPEG-4 format. The recorded videos look pretty good, and the V800 is slightly unusual in allowing the use of the image stabilization feature when recording movies. Most cameras can’t do this; those that can are general ultra zooms that cost one or two hundred dollars more. Movies can also be trimmed in the camera, so you can remove the boring bits if you’re running out of space. The included Digimax Master PC software can also edit the movies, and includes the ability to add basic titles.
Drive / Burst Mode
In continuous mode, the camera was capable of capturing around 1.5 frames per second and writing these out to the SD Card. With the SanDisk Extreme 256MB card we used for testing, it was able to keep shooting for 8 seconds before it paused, requiring a few seconds to catch up.
Playback Mode
Captured images can be played back as thumbnails, single images or slide shows. They can also be organized into albums in the camera, ready for playing back in a slide show. A PAL/NTSC video output is also included. Narration of up to 10 seconds per image can also be added, and images can be resized (downwards only) or rotated within the camera.
Custom Image Presets
Choosing the scene mode on the mode dial offers a choice of 11 modes: night, portrait, children, landscape, close-up, text, sunset, dawn, backlight, fireworks, and beach and snow. It’s a little awkward to switch between scene modes, though: you have to go into the onscreen menu and select scene, and then choose the mode. It would have been much easier to assign the jog dial by the shutter to change the mode or assign a dedicated button this task.
