Auto Mode
The Auto mode does as the name suggests: control over all of the settings is given over to the camera’s throbbing silicon brain. Again, we weren’t able to test the accuracy of the exposures, but it did seem to make good choices in out limited tests. The Program mode is broadly similar, but allows for some user control, such as the shooting and focus mode. Most users will be perfectly happy putting the camera in auto and forgetting about the controls, though.

Movie Mode
The N2 can record movies to Memorystick Pro cards in what Sony describes as MPEG VX Fine mode, which has a resolution of 640 by 480 pixels at 30 frames per second. Non-pro Memorysticks are restricted to the MPEG VX Standard mode, which is the same resolution but is only at 16.6 frames per second. A third mode called Video Mail records a 160 by 112 pixel video for sending over a low bandwidth connection or attaching to an email. All of the modes record mono audio with the video from the small microphone on the side of the camera, which captures adequate audio. It won’t blow your socks off with the fidelity, but it’s good enough to hear the subject talking. All of the videos are compressed to MPEG-4 format.

Drive / Burst Mode
Like most compact point-and-shoot cameras, the N2 has only limitied capabilities for shooting lots of images quickly. The N2 offers two burst modes which can capture 3 frames at 0.8 frames per second (at the highest resolution) or 15 frames at 0.9 frames per second, but only at VGA resolution. This wouldn’t be a good camera to choose if you are shooting sports and want to show something like a football play in a single sequence: it just isn’t fast enough to capture the flow of a game.

Playback Mode
The N2 offers a good selection of playback modes: photos can be viewed by date or in a playlist. Effects (such as fades and basic video cuts) can also be applied to the slideshow, and it can even play back music to accompany the slideshow. It comes with 4 songs pre-loaded, but other music from MP3s or CD can be uploaded to the camera to accompany the photos. The first person to upload the theme song to Titanic to go with the photos of their sailing holiday gets to hit an iceberg, though.

Custom Image Presets
A limited but adequate range of scene modes are included, which include most of the useful ones. There are 8 modes in all: Beach, Fireworks, High Sensitivity, Landscape, Snow, Soft Snap, Twilight, Twilight Portrait. The High Sensitivity mode is the only one that requires explaining: this bumps the ISO rating up, but Sony claims it doesn’t overly increase the noise in the images. Accessing the modes requires just a single button press and one screen touch, making it pretty easy to move from mode to mode.

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