Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T900

Manual Controls

The Sony Cyber-shot T900 doesn't offer users any manual exposure controls like aperture or shutter priority modes. You can make some adjustments in Program mode to things like ISO and exposure compensation, but this is about it. Not surprising on a small point and shoot like the T900, we don't think it's targeted at photographic control freaks.

Focus

In program mode you can choose from a variety of different focus modes, including various focal distances as well as Multi, Center and Spot auto focus. Face detection is on board, as you'd expect, as well as smile detection. You can also lock focus by tapping on the screen wherever you want.

We're impressed with the number of auto focus options.

This is one of the nice benefits of having a touch screen, for example below we've tapped near the top of the screen and you'll see the focal box has moved there. To unlock focus tap on the Off button that appears towards the right side of the display.

Focus lock by tapping the screen is a big benefit of the touch screen.

ISO

When in Program mode you can tap on the ISO button that appears at the bottom of the screen to select from ISO settings that range from 80 to 3200. There's also a high ISO mode available as a scene mode, although there's no information about the exact ISO number you get when using this. Frankly for a point and shoot like this we recommend you don't push the ISO much past 400 or 800, not if you want to get good results.

ISO can be set up to 1600 in Program mode.

White Balance

The T900 allows you to select from seven different white balance modes, including Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, three Fluorescent settings, Tungsten, and flash. There is no support for manual white balance.

Unfortunately there's no manual white balance option._

Metering

You have three metering options on the Sony Cyber-shot T900, Multi, Center, and Spot. These are only available in Program mode, where an icon for adjusting the metering type appears at the bottom of the screen.

There are three metering modes available on the T900.

Although there's no manual control over aperture and shutter speed you can access exposure compensation in Program Mode, once again via a button on the bottom of the screen.

Exposure compensation is only available in Program mode.

Shutter Speed

The Sony Cyber-shot T900 has an unimpressive shutter speed range that goes from one second to 1/,1000 of a second in Program mode. In auto you can double your long exposure time to two whole seconds. There's also a twilight scene mode that gives you longer exposures in dark conditions, although you are recommended to use it with a tripod.

Aperture

The Sony Cyber-shot T900's is decidedly mediocre, with a maximum aperture of only f/3.5 at the wide end. This will have a significant impact on low light performance as you will need to boost ISO or use exposure compensation to try and gather more light. The result is likely to be some serious problems with noise or loss of detail if aggressive noise reduction is applied. We'll find out for sure when we get the camera in for review.

Image Stabilization

We were pleased to see that the Sony Cyber-shot T900 uses optical image stabilization to help counteract camera shake. Cameras this small usually rely on software tricks like boosting the ISO rather than actually moving the elements.

Picture Quality & Size Options

The Sony Cyber-shot T900 offers eight different picture size options, ranging from the full 12 megapixels to VGA (640 x 480), all at a 4:3 aspect ratio. You can also select from an 11 megapixel 3:2 size and two 16:9 sizes at nine and two megapixels.

If you want to take full advantage of the screen you'll need to use a 16:9 image capture setting.

Picture Effects

There are three picture effects available that you can apply to photos before you shoot. These are Vivid, Sepia and Black and White. There are also a variety of different effects you can apply in playback mode.

Vivid, Sepia and Black and White are your available color modes.