What I Think of the DiMage 7

Introduction

OK, well like many owner reviewers, I'm hardly going to say "what a hopeless camera" am I? Obviously, I like this digital camera, otherwise I wouldn't have bought it. However, there are many things that you pick up through experiences with a camera that aren't obvious in a showroom. It's these things that I'll describe on this page.

The Good

It's Better Manually (IBM)

Zoom Ring

The manual zoom ring and manual focus ring are great features on this camera. If you've ever stuffed around with pressing buttons to zoom or focus manually and have been frustrated then this camera has the good stuff! I've read reviews saying that using the zoom ring is like grinding plastic against plastic: it's a little like that, but not nearly as bad as it sounds. You get used to the feel of the zoom ring very quickly. The manual focus ring is quite different and has a very plush, soft, damped feel to it: beautiful! I guess that's because the focus action is actually motorized.

Focus Ring

Features and Controls

Like many "prosumer" cameras, the DiMage7 permits a wide range of control over the final picture. You can adjust size, quality, exposure program mode (automatic, aperture, or shutter priority, along with a fully manual mode), drive, white balance, ISO film sensitivity equivalence, contrast, exposure compensation and color saturation.

One of the camera's coolest features is a programmable "AF/AEL" button, which allows you to set and hold auto focus or auto exposure levels in various ways. This button quickly becomes extremely useful for all sorts of picture taking. A typical use might be to set the exposure based upon spot sampling one part of the scene, and then holding that exposure while performing auto-focus on a different part of the scene, followed by taking the actual picture while pointing at a totally different area. This button is customizable through the camera's menus, so that you can quickly re-configure it for use in different scenarios or sequences.

Controls

Viewfinders

Some people don't think much of the viewfinders on the camera. I personally don't find the Electronic Viewfinder (EVF) very useful, except in totally blazing sunlight. I have slightly poor eyesight (keratoconus causing non-uniform distortion), so I have quite a bit of trouble getting the EVF in focus. I find that the rear panel on the camera performs really quite well, even in bright lighting conditions. It's quite directional, though, so you've got to be right behind it to see it sometimes. However, I'm spoilt in this department by the Ultrasharp TFT screen on my laptop.

I find that the viewfinders perform well in low lighting scenarios too. Once the lighting drops below a certain level, the viewfinders switch to a black-and-white mode, to maintain an image. While this mode imposes some restrictions on different functions (which are annoying as hell as soon as you discover you need them!), I've found it much nicer than the almost black viewfinders you see on some other digital cameras in low light.

Resolution and Quality

The camera has an inbuilt maximum resolution of 2568x1928 which comes out to 21.7 x 16.3 cm at 300 dpi. That's not quite A4 size, but it's getting there. In reality, you can blow up images at this resolution to A3 size and they still look very good. This is because you generally view an A3 image from further away than an A4 image and hence need fewer dots per inch to achieve an acceptable angular viewing resolution. If you're a standard camera user like me then have no fears about this camera's A3 capabilities!

The camera can take images using several different compression formats. The RAW image format, which is useful "sometimes" is the maximum quality and bit depth. Unfortunately, RAW images are very large (and apparently uncompressed, which is a bit stupid), so you can only fit one on a 16MB CompactFlash card. Personally, I find myself using the "Fine" compression setting most of the time. This saves images in JPEG format, at a very high quality and allows around 5 full-size images on a 16MB card. The standard compression setting starts to introduce some noticable JPEG artifacts, which can be especially annoying if you're digitally editing images.

The baseline image quality of the camera (ie: the quality before compression takes place) seems to be very good. It's certainly better than the other digital cameras that I've been able to play with (such as the Nikon CoolPix 9xx), so I'm very happy overall. I've experienced only very minimal adverse artifacts such as blooming and aliasing problems. Generally, these are "my own fault", in that I could have used better exposure settings to eliminate these artifacts almost completely.

Macro Mode

I really love this mode! For some reason, all my macro shots come out looking absolutely fantastic!!! Using aperture priority, you can get very good control over depth-of-field in macro mode, but beware that it's always quite limited. With the narrow depth-of-field, I find that I often need a tripod to ensure that the subject is in sharp focus. However, that said, I have taken many good macro photos without a tripod. If in doubt, I use the "shoot many times" principle: take a load of shots and you can be sure that at least one of them will have focus at the correct point. And, hey, it's a digital camera so you've got nothing to lose with this approach!!!

The Bad

Movie Mode

Don't expect to go shooting the next Starwars film on this camera. The movie mode is really just a toy for capturing sites that you're filming in, or for short family movies where the quality doesn't matter. The frame rate is 15 fps, at a chunky resolution of 308x240 pixels. The movies are also limited to 60 seconds each in length. Don't get me wrong: the movie mode is good for what it is, but don't have high expectations. You're getting a brilliant stills camera, not a digital video camera!

A good tip, especially when filming moving targets, is to forget the autofocus system. Use manual focus in movie mode, and you'll probably be much happier with the result. You'll be free of the continual focus-hunting behaviour and the long periods that are spent out of focus when using the autofocus mode. For a long time, I didn't realize it was possible to use manual focus in movie mode (I think I read that you couldn't on a website somewhere), and I'm now kicking myself because of the many scenes that were wrecked by that damn autofocus!!! (Ouch, stop kicking myself!)

Autofocus (in Still Photography)

This hasn't often proven a problem for me, except when shooting moving horses. The autofocus isn't half as bad as people make it out to be on the DiMage7, but it is an issue, for sure. For fast action shots, get practiced in using either manual focus, or focusing on objects that are the same distance as your subject and using focus lock. From what I've heard, the need to use these techniques is a reality with most digital cameras, and even modern SLRs once you are shooting a fast enough target, ... you just realize it more quickly with the DiMage7! I haven't found it's a limitation really - it just requires a bit more skill. Those who need to capture fast, candid action shots will probably be more disappointed, but then they'd probably be disappointed with most digital cameras in this respect.

Image Noise

There's some noise present in the images from this camera. The amount of noise seems to vary a lot in different conditions, and is obviously more noticeable when you have large expanses of constant or smooth-gradient mid-tone colors. It's often difficult to spot any noise in textured objects. The noise is more than is present in some other cameras I've tested. However, the other cameras I've had the opportunity to use have had smaller CCD resolutions, and hence larger CCD pixels, which inherently introduce less noise by accepting a larger amount of light.

The noise (as is typical of all amplifier systems) increases with increasing ISO-equivalent film speed / sensitivity / gain. To minimise noise, use lower ISO film speeds, and shorter shutter times. Longer shutter times will emphasize differences in the sensitivities of various pixels of the CCD, which can produce the bright spots known as "hot pixels". Temperature is also reported to have an effect: lower temperatures reportedly lead to less noise and fewer hot pixels.

The Ugly

Battery Compartment Door Latch

This feels flimsy, and I'm scared stiff of what might happen if it breaks! It hasn't broken yet, however.

Card Compartment Door

The card compartment door is held shut by a magnet, and the neck strap gets in the way of opening and closing this door. It doesn't sound like much of an issue (actually, it isn't really), but this frustrates me a bit occasionally, especially when I'm taking large images that I have to download frequently.

Tripod Attachment Point

This isn't directly under the lens!!! Dammit!!! This means that you get a slight error when taking panoramic shots because the camera doesn't pivot about the right point on the tripod. The error is miniscule after the subjects of the panorama get more than a couple of meters away, but if I ever have to do panoramic shots within that range I'll be in trouble!

I've heard that it's possible to buy tripods that can offset the pivot point by a certain amount to correct for this problem. I might look for one of these as a future purchase option if the finances present themselves.

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