After positive experience with the compact Sony DSC-T7 and the Sony DSC-T33, I got the new Sony DSC-T5. The Sony T5 sells for about $80 less than the T7 and promises longer battery life, while retaining most features of the T7. Does it perform as well?

Pictures

The pictures of the Sony T5 as well as sample photos I took using it are available at the address below:

Click here to see the sample photos I took with this Sony DSC-T5 camera and photos of the camera

What Is Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T5?

Available in Silver, Gold, Red or Black colors, the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T5 is a 5.1-Megapixel ultra-compact stylish digital camera with metal case, a 3x optical zoom, a large 2.5-inch LCD screen, Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar optics, powered by a compact proprietary rechargeable battery. Sony claims that battery life reaches 240 photos on one charge.

The camera stores pictures in its internal 32 MB of memory or on a proprietary Sony Memory Stick Duo or Memory Stick Duo Pro media. It features fast USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection to PC and Mac computers and can record video at 640x480 (VGA) resolution at 30 fps.

Getting Started

Once the camera arrived, I noticed that it came in a box smaller than that of the Sony T7 and Sony T33. One of the reasons for that is the fact that the camera does not include a docking station, but rather a cable with a proprietary connector. But more on it later.

I got my camera in silver color, although they are also available in gold, red or black. The camera looks nice. I like the way Canon SD400 or, if you prefer large screens, Canon SD450 looks better though. The DSCT5 is compact. It looks and feels rather durable.

Just as other cameras of Sony T line, the T5 has a fixed lens that does not extend from the body and the camera does zooming and focusing internally. The camera is powered on by sliding the lid on the front panel down, exposing the lens. It is powered off when you slide the lid up, covering the lens with it. It is the same arrangement that the original Sony T1 had and pretty similar to Sony T7.

The camera has a lens cover, or rather a bar that turns the camera on when moved down. To turn the camera off, you move the lens cover up to cover the lens and other elements. Because there is no need for the camera to extend the lens, the startup time is minimal - less than 1 second.

There is also a power button on the top deck of the camera, which turns it on in review mode. The top deck also has a shutter release button as well as a mode selector. The bottom of the camera has a proprietary connector that combines USB, A/V, DC power and more. The side has a battery and Memory Stick Duo card compartment lid.

The rear panel of the camera houses a zoom control, a huge bright 2.5-inch LCD monitor and control buttons.

The connectivity to the power, video and USB is by means of a supplied camera cable that fits in the proprietary connector in the bottom of the camera. The jack required a lot of force to insert and I have to admit that I never liked proprietary connectors with Sony not being an exception.

The camera comes with InfoLithium-type compact battery, which is charged outside the camera in a supplied compact charger that plugs into a wall outlet. The charger takes 100-240V and has foldable prongs.

After charging the battery and inserting it into the camera, I was ready to shoot. I used the camera’s built-in memory.

In Use

Although the camera is slightly awkward to hold, it is very easy to use. I have not read the manual (I have not even opened it), but was able to use the camera and all its features in no time. The camera can be used by any member of the family and by photographers of all levels of expertise from novices to advanced users (albeit it will not give you much control over the shutter speed or aperture).

You select between shooting, review and video recording mode using the mechanical switch on the top deck of the camera. You select the mode of operation using the menus. The camera comes pre-set to Auto mode. You do not have to do anything other than point and shoot - the camera takes care of the rest. The camera uses 5-area smart autofocus (in non-manual modes, you can also select spot autofocus, continuous autofocus or preset manual focus to 0.5m, 1m, 3m, 7m or infinity).

The automatic focusing works in the same way as on other compact digital cameras. You press the shutter release button halfway to make camera focus (the camera shows you that it focused and beeps to confirm focus) and then you take the picture by pressing the shutter release button all the way.

You zoom in and out by using the zoom control on the rear panel. If you want more control, you can select one of the scene modes (Portrait, Landscape, etc.). And for even more control, you can select Program mode, in which you can select ISO (64-400), white balance (albeit with no custom setting), exposure compensation, flash output adjustment (normal, low, high), metering mode (multi, spot), sharpness adjustment, contrast adjustment, saturation adjustment, color and picture effects, etc.

The flash mode can be selected by pushing the arrow up button on the rear panel, the macro mode can be selected by using the arrow left, the timer by arrow down and the review of the last picture by arrow left.

The camera is very fast in operation. The camera takes less than a second to power itself on in either review or shooting mode. It feels almost instantaneous.

Manual Focusing

The camera lets you select among 0.5m, 1m, 3m, 7m or infinity.

More on Features and Controls

The camera uses a very small rechargeable battery that looks like a cell phone battery. The camera has a bright low-light focus assist illuminator that helps it focus in low light.

It seems that the camera uses a two-step type aperture with no fine control over aperture. The camera doesn't let you control the aperture or the shutter speed directly. Your photos have only one of two aperture values at any given focal length, which is typical for a compact camera.

You can use the exposure compensation in the Program mode and it comes in handy in some situations. There are a bunch of scene modes as well, which help the camera tweak the focusing and exposure settings according to the type of scene.

Performance

The camera turns on within one second and can capture images at about 1-1.5 per second in burst mode. In single-frame mode, the camera could snap pictures as fast as I could push the shutter release button - about one a second. The flash recycles within 5 seconds.

The focusing takes much less than a second and the shutter lag, when pre-focused, is almost unnoticeable. The zooming is pretty slow, but smooth and lets you fine-tune your composition.

Resolutions

The camera lets you select the resolution for your images between 5M (5 Megapixels, 2592x1944), 3:2 (about 4.4 MP, perfect fit for 6x4 prints), 3M (2048x1536), 1M (1280x960) and VGA (E-mail) mode (640x480). You also get a choice between Standard and Fine quality. The Fine mode uses about 6:1 compression and the Standard uses about 12:1. Obviously, the Standard file size is half that of the Fine: about 1.3 MB vs. 2.5 MB at the highest resolution.

The internal 32 MB memory can fit about 12 photos at the highest resolution and best quality or 24 photos with Standard quality. You can use Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick Duo Pro memory cards to increase the capacity.

Battery

The supplied battery should last for about 240 photos, according to Sony. I have not validated this claim, but took more than 708 photos with no low battery warning appearing.

Flash

The flash of the T5 is a bit weak. It illuminates the center of the frame more than the corners and has an effective range of less than 8 feet. It has a recycle time of only about 5 seconds. Rather fast for the camera size but the flash is pretty weak.

In its red-eye reduction mode, the camera emits a pre-flashes before the actual flash. The red-eye reduction mode is disabled by default and you can enable it by going to the setup menu.

Camera Sounds

The camera itself is rather quiet in operation. You can customize the sounds it makes through its speaker and their volume.

Build Quality and Ergonomics

The camera features solid feel and good build quality. It feels better designed and built than the Sony T33, but less so than Canon SD450. The major controls are within easy reach and the tactile response is good overall.

Menu System

I have not read the manual, yet was able to use the camera in all modes. I like Sony's menus less than recent Canon menus or Panasonic ones. But they are certainly usable. If you use both the T5 and T7 you will discover that the menus are virtually identical.

LCD

The camera has a large 2.5-inch non-articulated (fixed) LCD screen and no viewfinder. The LCD coverage as about 100% - you can see exactly what will be recorded. The LCD is bright, fluid (unless it is dark), has good visibility in sunlight or darkness and excellent resolution (235,000 pixels).

Movie Mode

The camera offers you several movie modes: 160x112 at 8.3 fps, 640x480 16.6 fps and 640x480 30 fps (high quality). The built-in memory didn't let me use the High Quality 640x480, but the standard 640x480 was OK. It was rather fluid (but not as fluid as a regular camcorder footage) and it didn't let me zoom during shooting. You have to use Memory Stick Pro Duo to be able to use 30 fps frame rate.

Computer Connectivity

The camera uses USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection to transfer pictures to a computer. You can also remove the Memory Stick Duo memory card (if you are using one) and use a memory card reader (if you have one).

I used the camera with the USB cable supplied. The file transfer is very fast at about 3-4 MB/s.

I do not use the software that was provided with the camera since I have Adobe Photoshop CS2.

Image Quality

The T5 produces very good photos with well-exposed, sharp and contrasty images (see the sample below). Feel free to download the sample photos I took and look at the EXIF data (if you have any EXIF-compatible viewer, e.g. ACDSee or Photoshop).

Sample: Wide angle - 2592x1944 pixels (click for full-size image). Standard picture mode.

The photos are sharp with only very small amounts of softening in the corners of the frame - a non-issue as at most print sizes the corners are usually cut off. Again, this will not be noticeable in printed pictures however since corners normally don't make it to the print due to the aspect ratio difference and other factors.

I was not able to find much chromatic aberration (purple fringing) in the areas of high contrast.

The image noise is rather typical for a compact digital camera. It is slight at the ISO 64 or ISO 100 in the shadows, gets more pronounced at ISO 200 and gets rather bothersome at ISO 400. Still, if you are printing 6x4 or 5x7 pictures, the noise should not be visible at all and will only be slightly visible at ISO 400 with larger prints. With 5.1-megapixel shots the camera produces, you can print your photos (ISO 64-200) at up to 11x14 inches with good sharpness and detail level.

White Balance

The T5 has auto white balance or you can choose among several presets including flash white balance, halogen, incandescent, sunny, cloudy, etc. The camera's automatic white balance favors warmer color casts, but does a good job overall.

Comparison to Canon PowerShot SD400 Digital ELPH

The Canon SD400 looks cooler to me, seems to be better made, uses more widespread and cheaper SD memory cards. I find its menus easier to use. I find the colors it produces slightly more pleasing. It is about as fast as the T5 in operation, but has slower USB transfer speed. It has smaller (but still large) 2-inch LCD and an optical zooming viewfinder. It has a real metal tripod mount and a more powerful flash.

Comparison to Canon PowerShot SD450 Digital ELPH

The Canon SD450 also looks better, seems to be better made, uses more widespread and cheaper SD memory cards. I find its menus easier to use. I find the colors it produces slightly more pleasing. It is about as fast as the T5 in operation, but has slower USB transfer speed. It has a real metal tripod mount and a more powerful flash. It has similarly-sized 2.5-inch LCD, but with lower resolution, and an optical zooming viewfinder.

Bottom Line

I recommend the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T5 if you want an ultra-compact, cool yet capable camera with 5.1-megapixels and huge LCD screen that produces excellent photos with print sizes of up 11x14 inches. It is fast and easy to use. But it has a couple of shortcomings: weak flash and proprietary memory.

If you want a cooler-looking camera with conventional lens, take a look at Canon PowerShot SD400 Digital ELPH and Canon SD450.

Recommended
Yes

Product Rating
(Excellent)

This review is also available at Epinions.com: Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T5 Digital Camera Review on Epinions.com

My Reviews of Other Digital Cameras