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Sony Cyber-shot DSC-G3
First Impressions Review
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Manual Control Options
The G3 is definitely not designed for a manual photography experience: you can't even set the white balance, let alone shutter and aperture. This is a camera designed to look and feel slick, not offer you the maximum amount of control.
Focus
Auto Focus
Auto focus can be set to multi, center or spot. Additionally you can tap on the screen to focus on that area, a useful and intuitive capability. The focus seemed to react quickly and track movement accurately. When using face detection, Sony says the G3 is able to spot the differences between children and adults, and prioritize one over the other. You can also tap on a face to make that the top focus and exposure priority.
ISO
ISO sensitivity runs the impressive range of 80 to 3200, but when shooting in burst mode, using the auto bracketing function or dynamic range optimization, you can only shoot up to ISO 400, which is extremely strange, and makes burst mode all but unusable when not in bright sunlight.
White Balance
The camera offers Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, three types of Fluorescent lighting, Incandescent and Flash white balance settings. Unfortunately there is no take a manual white balance reading, which generally rewards careful shooters with far more accurate color reproduction.
Exposure Compensation
Exposure compensation can be set to ±2EV in 1/3 steps or be bracketed ±0.3, ±0.6 or ±1 EV. As mentioned above, bracketing can only be used when shooting at ISO 400 or below.
Metering Shutter Speed Aperture Image Stabilization
Metering controls are only available in program mode, and can be set to spot, center-weighted or multi, the last of which is what it uses in Auto mode. These are the standard settings that you will find in most cameras.
Unfortunately, there's no way to manually set the shutter speed, and the automatic exposure system only has the unimpressive range from 1 to 1/1000 seconds from which to choose, where most point-and-shoot cameras offer something more like 4 to 1/2000 seconds.
As with shutter speed, there's no way to manually control the aperture. At maximum telephoto the aperture range is f/3.5 to f/7.1; at its widest setting, f/4.6 to f/10. This is a bit on the slow side, and may prove problematic in low light conditions.
The G3 has an optical image stabilization system called Optical SteadyShot to help prevent camera shake.
Picture Quality / Size Options
| Image Ratio | Size |
| 4:3 | 3648 x 2736 (10M); 2592 x 1944 (5M); 2048 x 1536 (3M); 640 x 480 (VGA) |
| 3:2 | 3648 x 2432 (8M) |
| 16:9 | 3648 x 2056 (7M); 1920 x 1080 (2M |
Picture Effects Mode
The G3 has a number of picture effects modes, most of which function by letting you tap on an area, and alter the image around it. Monochrome removes the color from everywhere except where you tap; fisheye lens and motion blur both morph the image around your selected point; retro blurs and dims the corners of the image; cross filter adds cross shaped flares around light points; happy faces terrifyingly contorts neutral faces into grins; and finally there's a paint mode where you can draw and stamp all over your photos.
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Conclusion