Normally, I write about computer system design issues. But this entry will be my thoughts about a new camera that I've been using. Cameras are systems, too, with many design issues and tradeoffs.
I haven't written a camera review in over 40 years, when I used to write for Modern Photography. I did lots of tests for them and designed new testing methods as well.
This is about the Sony DSC-H9 -- the latest and the greatest from a manufacturer that I hold in very high regard. Their earlier cameras (I have a DSC-F707) had always shown leadership in both innovative features and high-quality design and manufacture. Not to mention great photographs that had a unique Sony look in their color rendition and overall appearance.
I think that my H9 may be defective. In any case, I'm returning it today.
The main reason for my dissatisfaction with this camera is the purple and green fringing in way too many shots. Although this is commonly referred to as "Chromatic Aberration," it isn't what this term originally meant. CA is a lens fault that occurs in simple lenses and reflecting telescopes. It's caused by the inability of these lenses to focus different wavelengths of light correctly on the same focal plane. This type of lens fault hasn't been seen in camera lenses since the design of multi-element camera lenses many years ago.
The purple and green fringing seen in modern digital cameras is caused by the relationship of the lens and the digital sensor that replaced the film. Unlike the earlier problem, it can't be fixed with a lens redesign.
When I posted about this problem on an Internet forum, I got a number of responses related to the focal length and other settings. (What I was looking for was responses by other owners of this camera and whether they had seen this fringing as well.)
I tried all focal lengths, all output sizes, all sharpness settings, all color settings. As soon as there was a white object in the picture, or even a medium-contrast-edge, I got purple and green fringing. This is my fifth digital camera, and I've shot tens of thousands of pictures with the others, under all sorts of conditions. I've seen more color fringing with the H9 in three days than I've seen in six years with the other cameras.
There's also a distinct lack of sharpness.
To check this out, I shot the same scenes with my Panasonic FZ5 and with my Minolta A2, which has a 28mm lens. They all produced fine shots with lots of sharpness and no color fringing, even at the A2's widest angle.
After shooting over 800 pictures with the DSC-H9, I'm amazed at how few of them are really sharp, including the ones shot at 1/1000 sec.
In pictures shot in burst mode another bug surfaced, where parts of the image were smeared. I didn't notice them at first, my eyes drawn to the fringing.
In designing a modern camera, the manufacturer is faced with a number of design decisions and tradeoffs. I think that Sony, in trying to put the most bang for the least buck, made a few unfortunate design decisions to keep the price under $500 and to keep competing in the megapixel race.
I was especially puzzled by such things as how the LCD brightness changes when changing different display modes. There's no direct adjustment for LCD brightness, no way to calibrate the screen to match the output.
In fact, it's puzzling as to why there are so few settings. Perhaps it costs Sony too much money for tech support for more complex cameras. It's the first of my five digital cameras that didn't have some sort of "quality" setting. They opting out for "Low" as the only one.
By comparison, my Minolta A2, a camera with the same megapixel count as the Sony, routinely produced jpegs of 5 to 7 megabytes. The Sony H9 produces jpegs of around 2 megabytes, the size produced by most 5mp cameras. I bought an 8 gigabyte card at Sonystyle for under $200. It's 64 times bigger than the biggest card that would fit in my DSC-F707. So why the tiny files?
And don't get me started on the giant adapter (74mm!) that you can leave on to protect the lens. Unfortunately, it blocks the flash and the Infrared illuminator. Or having my first digital camera without a USB connecter (a single, complex connector for multiple outputs reduces the H9s manufacturing costs) along with the cheesy connector cover.
The battery compartment cover is also problematic. The H9 uses an itty-bitty battery that requires frequent removal for charging. The build quality of this door is very poor, compared with other cameras that have the hinge and inner cover made of metal.
Another problem was the screen washing out with bright purple in strong light. I'd seen this before, streaks of purple on the display when pointing directly into a light source,. But not as bad as the H9, where the entire screen washed out in light purple. In fact, there's a separate instruction sheet, included with the camera, that warns about this problem.
What's to love about the H9? The big LCD, more pixels, more storage, and nightshot. It seemed like a great upgrade to my old DSC-F707.
The DSC-H9 is an interesting camera, with a combination of things that make you say WOW! and WTF? It may be the photographic equivalent of Spiderman 3. I'm curious as to how this camera will be received by the reviewers. It's curious that there haven't been any sort of reviews yet.
The bottom line? Although the camera I used may have had defective optics, the other problems mentioned here can only be fixed with a redesign. I anxiously await the next round of cameras front Sony.
In any case, I still have my DSC-F707, which seems built like a tank compared to H9. So I'll still have nightshot. And my A2, which has a usable wide-angle lens. And my super-portable FZ5.
Update I believe in fate. There have been many times when an opportunity presented itself to me disguised as something else. Usually as a problem.
My DSC-H9 had extreme color fringing, poor sharpness, and poor exposure. I had decided to just return it.
When I went to return my H9 to the Sonystyle store, the salesman told me that there would be no problem in returning the camera, except that there would be a 15% restocking fee. Since the entire purchase, with accessories and extended warrantee came to over $900, this would be a loss of almost $150.
So I asked if I could exchange the camera for another one. No problem. No charge.
Simple message from fate: You think the camera isn't working right, why not try another one? If it hadn't been for the restocking fee, I would have just returned the camera.
Well, the good news is that my first DSC-H9 was certainly defective. The replacement works like a champ. Almost zero color fringing, the images are sharp and crisp, and the pictures are correctly exposed. The sort of images I expected from the first camera.
So the first lesson is to listen carefully when fate sends a message.
The second lesson is to know what to expect from a camera and to do something about it if you think there's something wrong.
The third lesson is a little trickier. When I posted some images from the first camera, I was curious if anyone else who owned this model had seen the sort of fringing I was seeing. I got a number of responses as to how this sort of thing was normal, something to be expected. I got other responses saying that this sort of problem could be fixed in Photoshop. (Actually, having both green and purple fringing in the same picture is not that easy to fix, and desaturating individual colors to remove the fringing can affect other parts of the image. Also, who needs yet another step in post processing?)
No one said, "Hey, there's something wrong with those images. The darn thing looks defective."
If I had followed this well-meaning advice, I'd be sitting here trying to make the most out of a broken camera.
The reason I'm posting this is that there are times when brand new equipment is broken. (I seem to be a magnet for this sort of thing.) You have to be able to turn to others who own the same equipment for comparison to find out if what you're seeing is normal.
