Sony goes snap happy with first wireless Cyber-shot

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Friday, 09 March 2007 23:32

Your IT - Entertainment

Sony have unveiled their first wireless Cyber-shot, the DSC-G1, a 6 megapixel digital camera that also works with other DLNA-enabled devices, like other cameras or your PC.

Late to the wireless camera party, Sony has nevertheless entered it with a bang, offering a 6 megapixel camera with 3.5-inch high-res LCD screen (with 921,000 pixels, four times higher than most digital cameras and all previous Cyber-shot models) for high detail when viewing photos and for a superb slideshow feature to share photos with others.

Phil Lubell, Director of Marketing for Digital Cameras at Sony Electronics said that “The new camera’s slide show with music function makes sharing photos directly on the camera even more enjoyable. Sony popularized the use of large LCD screens on compact cameras, with the understanding that simply passing the camera around is a means of sharing”.

If you’re wondering about being able to send photos wirelessly to other cameras, this is so you can share your photos with friends that have a Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) enabled camera – just by selecting the photo or photos in question, and pressing a button. Four people with compatible cameras can send photos to each other in real time.

DLNA compatible PCs can also store and share photos from the DSC-G1 wirelessly.

The camera is also the first to come with 2Gb of internal memory, with most cameras offering any kind of inbuilt storage usually only offering much less than 100mb of onboard storage, meaning users need to plug in a memory card of some kind to take lots of photos.

However with 2Gb of internal storage, and the ability to add as much as you want using MS Duo or MS Pro Duo memory sticks, which are available in sizes of up to 8Gb, the DSC-G1 becomes a true pocket digital photo album as well as powerful digital camera, able to store 7500 VGA images or 600 6-megapixel photos.

Integral in a camera that can easily store several photo albums worth of photos is in innovative new on-camera search feature. Sony says that “You can organize your photos by events, such as vacations or birthdays, and retrieve them later by keywords or labels. It’s also possible to select an image and search for other photos with the same face, same color, or a similar composition”.

The camera itself has a distinctive design and elegant metal body, a Carl Zeiss 3x optical zoom lens, Super Steady Shot optical image stabilization to minimize camera blur and shake, a light sensitivity of up to up to ISO 1000 for better images at higher shutter speeds and in low light.

Also different in the DSC-G1 compared with other Cyber-shot cameras is the integrate lens cover which slides across the camera’s face, instead of down as with previous models, with the camera ready to shoot in less than a second.

Sony expects the camera to retail for US $600 with a complete range of accessories from www.sonystyle.com, with the camera arriving in stores in April.

Phil Lubell said that “This is a step towards realizing a platform for networked photo communication. We will continue to explore the possibilities for networked digital imaging as broadband Internet becomes more pervasive in American homes.”, although we can only assume Lubell wants the rest of the world to get better broadband, too.