Sony Cyber-shot DSC-G1 Digital Camera Review

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-G1

First Impressions Review

Mar 10, 2007 - By Richard Baguley
Sony caused something of a stir at the PMA show in Vegas with the new 6-megapixel G1; it’s the first of their Cyber-shot models to include a wireless network adapter. Although cameras with wireless adapters are nothing new (Nikon has had several wireless models over the past couple of years), the $600 DSC-G1 is the first camera that we’ve seen that uses the new DLNA (Digital Living Networking Alliance) standard, which allows devices such as TVs and PCs to share content (among them, Phillips, Pioneer, Samsung, Toshiba, JVC and Intel). Although DLNA devices are few and far between at the moment, this standard would allow you to take pictures with a G1, then immediately view them on a DLNA TV or print them out from a DLNA printer, all over the wireless network  without a PC.
Advertisement
Latest Camera Reviews
DSLR Point & Shoot
Samsung
NX10		Panasonic
DMC-TS2
Olympus
E-P1		Casio
EX-G1
Nikon
D300S		Panasonic
Lumix DMC-FZ35
Pentax
K-X		Sony
Cyber-shot DSC-TX5
Nikon
D3000		Samsung
TL500
Recently Viewed Products
Canon
EOS-40D		 $890
Kodak
EasyShare Z812 IS		 $239
Olympus
SP-550 UZ		 $437
Pentax
X70		 $360
Top Point & Shoot Cameras
Max Price: $2100
$0 $525 $1050 $1575 $2100
Filters
All
Canon
Casio
Fuji
Kodak
Nikon
Olympus
Panasonic
Pentax
Samsung
Sony
All
Compact
High-End
Pocket
Ultra-Zoom
1.Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX1
Ultra-Zoom		$420
2.Canon SX1 IS
Ultra-Zoom		$520
3.Panasonic DMC-ZS3
Compact		$280
4.Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35
Ultra-Zoom		$400
5.Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX7
Compact		$350
Cyber-shot DSC-G1 Prices
External Reviews
Photography Blog
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-G1
 
Manual Control Options
The G1 has no manual mode. Tere is no way to set shutter speed and aperture directly. The manual focus control is also curtailed, making this a pretty disappointing camera for manual control enthusiasts.
 
Focus
Auto Focus
In our limited testing on the PMA show floor, the auto focus of the G1 seemed to be suitably responsive. We weren’t able to precisely time the focus, but it took less than half a second to find the right focus spot, and it didn’t swim in the limited low light testing we were able to do.
 
Three focus modes are available:  the multi-AF mode uses 9 focus points around the frame, the center mode uses an area of about a third of the image, while the spot focus mode uses just the dead center of the image. That pretty much covers the basics, but there are none of the fancy focus features that other cameras are starting to include, such as face detection.
 
Manual Focus
The G1 has limited manual focus features, and that is an unusual thing to find in a point-and-shoot camera. You can set the camera to a limited number of focus points: 0.5 meters, 1 meter, 3 meters, 7 meters and infinity. There is no way to set the focus on points in between, though, and it seems like an odd way to go: why not go the whole hog and provide a true manual focus control?
 
ISO
The G1 provides a reasonable range of ISO settings, from 80 to 1000 with 4 stops on the way. There’s also a full auto ISO mode. It doesn’t however, provide the ISO boosting high sensitivity modes that we see on many other lower-cost cameras.
 
White Balance
The usual suspects are there for white balance: there’s a full auto mode, plus presets for Sunlight, Cloudy, Florescent, Tungsten and Flash lighting. There is no evaluative mode or way to manually enter a white balance preset directly, though.
 
Exposure
2 stops of exposure compensation are available, in 1/3-stop steps. But there is no way to control the exposure settings more precisely than this. The live preview reflects the exposure compensation, which is useful for estimating the correct setting.
 
Metering
The standard metering modes of evaluative, center weighted and average are available in the program mode.
 
Shutter Speed
The G1 has a shutter speed range of 1/4 to 1/1000 of a second in auto mode, and 1 to 1/1000 of a second in program mode. That’s a little disappointing at the long exposure end. This camera wouldn’t be good for very low light shooting.
 
Aperture
The aperture range of the 3x Carl Zeiss lens is f3.5 to f8 in both auto and program mode. That’s a pretty normal range for a camera like this but slightly smaller on its maximum opening. This will affect low light shooting slightly and force the camera to default to higher ISO speeds to compensate. 
 
Modes Page 6 of 11 Image Parameters
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-G1 First Impressions Review Navigation
 
Advertisement