Canon Powershot A3300 IS Digital Camera

The Canon PowerShot A3300 IS is a solid sub-$200 point-and-shoot camera in more ways than one: It has a sturdy build, and it takes good-looking pictures for a camera at such a low price ($180 as of August 11, 2011). As with many lower-priced cameras, you don't get the manual controls, long-zoom lens, or kitchen-sink extras you'd find in higher-end models, but you still get an impressive array of shooting modes, an optically stabilized wide-angle zoom lens, and good performance for a $180 camera.

Hardware and Design

The 16-megapixel PowerShot A3300 captures images and 720p high-definition video with its 1/2.3-inch CCD sensor, tucked behind a 5X-optical-zoom lens that reaches from 28mm wide angle to 140mm telephoto (in 35mm film equivalent). Optical image stabilization is a nice plus for the price, as many cameras we've seen in this price range offer digital stabilization only (or no stabilization at all).

The PowerShot A3300's control scheme is straightforward and easy to use, especially if you're familiar with Canon's standard point-and-shoot interface. Along with the power button, shutter button, and zoom control on the top, the camera has a mode dial with eight selections: Auto mode, a bare-bones "Easy" mode, a "Live View Control" mode that simplifies brightness and contrast adjustments, a "Discreet" mode that turns off the flash and camera audio, scene selections, creative filters, 720p movie mode, and a Program mode that lets you manually set ISO, white balance, metering modes, and exposure compensation.
You can reach even more shooting options, and navigate the on-screen menus, through a number of buttons on the back of the camera. Next to the PowerShot A3300's 3-inch LCD screen are four more buttons and a directional pad circling a function button. The camera has dedicated buttons for face detection, playback, display options, and accessing the menu; the four corners of the directional pad work as one-touch access to exposure compensation, macro mode, flash controls, photo deletion, and the self-timer settings.

Shooting Modes and Features

A handful of special shooting modes make the PowerShot A3300 IS stand out in the realm of sub-$200 digital cameras. The A3300 IS offers quite a few ways to snap photos in low light, and macro mode is also very effective: You can get within an inch of your subject and still snap a crisp shot.
Although the A3300 IS doesn't offer manual focus or exposure options, aperture priority mode, or shutter priority mode, the camera does have a long-shutter scene mode that lets you manually select shutter speeds ranging from 1 second to 15 seconds. As with any long-shutter option, you'll need a tripod or a flat surface to ensure that the resulting image isn't a blur.
Another low-light option is the camera's Low Light scene mode, which combines adjacent pixels on the sensor to avoid noisy high-ISO shots while reducing the resulting image resolution to 4 megapixels. While it certainly does the trick in terms of creating a usable low-light snapshot, don't expect the most accurate colors or the sharpest images out of this mode; in my hands-on tests, it cast a yellowish hue over low-light scenes, and images showed quite a bit of grain when I enlarged them at all.

In addition to a full complement of common scene modes (Landscape, Portrait, Fireworks, Snow, and the like), the PowerShot A3300 IS provides creative filters that overlay fun effects onto your images. A fish-eye-lens simulator, a "miniature mode" that mimics a tilt-shift lens, a toy-camera filter, a monochrome mode, and a high-saturation "poster effect" mode are all in the mix. The miniature mode in this camera adds a few more tricks, as well, allowing you to adjust the focal plane in your shot with the camera's directional pad; you can also apply the effect to video clips.
Another unusual feature, especially for the price point, is the camera's Discreet mode, which lets you take shots without the camera's sounds, flash, or autofocus beam enabled. This mode might come in handy for weddings, wildlife photography, and any other scenario where the sound and light coming from the camera would bother anyone around you.

Performance, Image Quality, and Video Quality

In PCWorld Labs subjective tests for image and video quality, the Canon PowerShot A3300 IS fared very well for a low-priced camera. It earned a score of Good for both exposure quality and color accuracy, and a score of Very Good in the areas of sharpness and distortion. The A3300 IS's built-in flash is especially well tuned, producing evenly exposed images with the flash enabled, even though colors--especially reds and oranges--look a bit more vibrant than they do in the real world. At the maximum 16-megapixel size, images also exhibit quite a bit of grain, but they look crisp and sharp at the sizes you'd use for most Web-sharing purposes.
You can see the sample images we used for our subjective tests by clicking on any of the thumbnails at left.
The PowerShot A3300 shoots good-quality video, although its video-quality score of Good was weighted heavily toward its performance in well-lit situations. The camera didn't brighten up our low-light test scene enough for us to see what was going on--and during our hands-on tests, we encountered some odd jumps in automated white balance when recording with the camera in unevenly lit situations. All in all, it's a very good performer for its price in both stills and video, and its overall performance score rivaled that of some much higher-priced cameras in our lab tests.

Battery life is one of the PowerShot A3300 IS's relatively weak spots, as the camera is rated for 230 shots per charge of its lithium ion battery. That falls in the Fair range for our battery-life scores.

Buying Advice

Canon's entry-level A series of PowerShots has long been known for its balance of solid performance and low price, and the PowerShot A3300 IS is no exception. It's easy to use, it takes good-looking photos without any hassle, and it even throws in a few higher-end creative modes to play around with. Usually, you get what you pay for. In this case, you get quite a bit more than you'd expect out of a sub-$200 camera.

Use Your Image Editor to Replace a Color in a Photo

Sometimes reality just isn't good enough. In fact, that's the basis for most photo editing. Whether you're applying the Orton Effect to make your subject glow or accenting your subject by removing color from the rest of the photo, there are a lot of ways to make dramatic changes to a photo after it has been taken. But sometimes the change you're looking for is a lot more subtle. What if you only want to change a single color, like the shade of someone's clothing or your subject's eye color? This week, let's see how that's done.

Introducing the Color Replacer

I'll show you how to change a color in your photo using Adobe Photoshop Elements, but if you use a different photo editing program, don't sweat it: The process is almost exactly the same in any modern program. That's because most photo editors feature a useful little gadget called the Color Replacement tool (though the name will vary from program to program).

The Color Replacement tool lets you paint over one color with a different color, and it relies on a tolerance adjustment to know which shades of that color to replace. With a little practice, you can wield the tool well enough that no one will suspect you changed someone's eye color from brown to blue, or painted your house a different color.

Swapping Colors

To get started, begin by opening a photo in Photoshop Elements. Then select the Color Replacement Tool, which you can find in the toolbar on the left side of the screen, 17 cubbies from the top. It shares a space with some other brush tools and the pencil tool.

Before you start painting, you need to choose the color that you want to apply to your photo. In the color palette at the very bottom of the toolbar, click the foreground color swatch (which is the one on the upper left). You should see the Select Foreground Color dialog, where you can browse for and mix colors until you get the exact shade you want. When you are happy with the color, click OK, and you should see the swatch in the toolbar change accordingly.

Now start painting. Click in the photo where you want to change the color, and you should see the old color replaced by the new color. Now just paint to apply the color. Here, you can see I've begun changing my daughter's dress from green to purple. (Note that I just painted over the white pattern; the tool's tolerance adjustment lets it ignore huge differences in contrast.)

Correcting Snags

Depending upon the way the tool was configured, you might run into some easily correctable snags. For starters, the brush might be too large or too small for the area you are trying to paint. I generally pick a brush that's about a quarter the size of the area I'm working on. To do that, click the Brush drop-down in the Tool Palette at the top of the screen and set the brush size in pixels. Make a first pass on the photo to do most of the work, being careful not to color outside the lines; we'll fine-tune the edges later.

Another setting you'll want to tweak is the Tolerance control. Tolerance determines how similar the nearby colors have to be in order for the Color Replacement tool to paint over them. If the tolerance is too low, the old color won't get satisfactorily replaced; too high, and you'll end up including dissimilar colors you didn't want. I recommend setting Tolerance (also found in the Tool Palette) between 30 and 40 percent, and experimenting from there if that doesn't work for you.

Honing the Edges

Finally, you might have noticed that the Color Replacement tool doesn't do a great job painting around the edges of your color region. That's usually because your brush is too big. For edge work, reduce the size of your brush and carefully paint around the edges, being careful not to let the brush stray too much into neighboring colors. Paint with a steady hand, and you can convincingly recolor almost any photo.

Hot Pic of the Week

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PC Advisor

Sony DEV-5 review

The Sony DEV-5 digital binoculars are - along with their little brother the DEV-3 - the "world's first digital binoculars with HD video recording," according to the company, and the devices' imaging capabilities go beyond that. In addition to 1080p high-definition recording at both 60 frames per second and 24 fps, the binoculars capture 3D still images and 3D video.

Viewing content in 3D with the Sony DEV-5 binoculars while shooting or playing it back doesn't require glasses, because the stereographic effect is created by viewing separate channels for the left and right eyes through the binoculars' eyepieces.

Both the Sony DEV-5 and the DEV-3 offer twin 10X-optical-zoom Sony G lenses (F1.9 to F3.4) with optical stabilization, backed by a pair of backside-illuminated CMOS sensors optimized for low-light situations. In still-image mode, the binoculars capture 7.1-megapixel still images in 4:3 aspect ratio or 5.3-megapixel stills in 16:9 aspect ratio; the 2D images are shot through one of the two lenses.

A removable storage slot accepts both SD/SDHC/SDXC cards and Sony's Memory Stick format, and both pairs of binoculars offer HDMI output to an HDTV or 3DTV for playing back footage and images. The main difference between the two models comes down to a few extra features and accessories accompanying the Sony DEV-5: It provides geotagging features (thanks to a built-in GPS receiver); an enhanced digital zoom that reaches a simulated 20X telephoto; and a carrying case, strap, and eye cups.

I spent a little hands-on time with the Sony DEV-5 digital recording binoculars, and the process of recording video with them - especially in 3D mode - is about as immersive an experience as you can imagine while shooting video. Though the binoculars' eyepieces are fixed in place, you can adjust the interpupillary distance of images seen through them via a control wheel, which comes in handy for adjusting the "3D-ness" of images while you're shooting.

They're a bit larger than a typical pair of binoculars, and even though they're lighter than they look, operating them requires both hands. A toggle on the top of the camera handles zooming the binoculars - and the autofocus system worked without a hitch throughout the zoom range in my hands-on time. The binoculars also have manual focus controls, which a manual adjustment wheel underneath the eyepieces governs. Both models also have a mic-in port and a shoe on the top of the binoculars that accepts an external microphone; and an omnidirectional, two-channel Dolby microphone is built into the unit.

Though a pair of video/3D-shooting binoculars falls on the "niche device" side of the fence, the effect of viewing a scene with both eyes through the viewfinder, encompassing your entire field of vision, would be a welcome addition to mainstream 3D cameras of the future. A few 3D-capable camcorders currently have glasses-free 3D displays, but peering into a 3D image with both eyes as you're filming it is another experience entirely.

PC Advisor

Sony Alpha A77 Is About to Beat DSLRs at Their Own Game

At first glance, and probably even after several subsequent glances, you might mistake the just-announced Sony Alpha SLT-A77 for a DSLR.

Its size, $2000 kit price, and weather-sealed magnesium alloy body are all well in line with what you'd expect from a high-end consumer DSLR. Its 24.3-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor, A-mount for interchangeable DSLR lenses, and manual control scheme are usually found only on DSLRs. And perhaps most important, it just looks like a DSLR.

This is not a DSLR. The distinction won't mean much to most people, but many photographers say that something is "not a DSLR" in the same tone that a guy with a sweater tied around his shoulders uses to describe a box of Franzia wine. A camera is "not a DSLR" in the same way that Oasis is not the Beatles, Footloose (2011) is not Footloose (1984), and this sandwich is not a real Philly cheesesteak.

But with the Sony Alpha A77, the whole "not being a DSLR" paradigm may get flipped on its head. That's because what makes this camera "not a DSLR" is precisely what makes it more compelling than a DSLR, especially for videographers and fast-action photographers. And by "fast-action photographers," I'm not just referring to NFL sideline photographers or the paparrazi; a fast-focusing, fast-shooting camera is incredibly useful for people interested in taking photos of their baby, wildlife, Bigfoot, or their dog jumping to catch a Frisbee.

The Alpha A77's fixed translucent internal mirror makes the difference. Because it doesn't reflect the light coming through the lens to an optical viewfinder, the camera doesn't meet the "reflex" requirement of the "digital single lens reflex" (DSLR) name. Instead, the camera redirects light to an autofocus sensor.

In practical terms, the translucent mirror means that the Alpha A77's phase-detection autofocus system works when the camera is shooting video or is in burst mode, neither of which is the case with a DSLR. As long as light comes through the lens, the Alpha A77's mirror redirects some of the light to the camera's autofocus sensor. In a traditional DSLR, the mirror is flipped up during video capture and in burst shooting mode, and the DSLR's through-the-lens, phase-detection autofocus system punts to the camera's less-effective contrast-detection autofocus system, which the imaging sensor itself drives.

Continuous autofocus isn't new, but because many DSLRs use contrast-detection AF rather than phase-detection AF during burst and video capture, they struggle with those modes. Maintaining sharp focus on fast-moving subjects that are approaching the lens during burst or video capture is especially problematic for most DSLRs.

In contrast, Sony lists meeting that challenge as the Alpha A77's core strength. The specs tell the story here. The camera's lightning-fast, 12-frames-per-second burst mode at full 24.3-megapixel resolution runs laps around the maximum continuous shooting speed of most DSLRs. Sony claims that the Alpha A77 is the first camera to shoot images at a resolution of greater than 20 megapixels with a speed faster than 5 fps; most DSLRs top out at around 8 fps in burst mode, even at lower resolutions.

Because the Alpha A77 has no moving mirror, you'll see an intermittent, strobe-like black-out time on the camera's OLED viewfinder and LCD screen while you're shooting continuously. This A77 is also the first interchangeable-lens camera to support the AVCHD Progressive format when shooting video, meaning that it can capture 1080p video footage at a higher frame rate and at a higher bitrate, with continuous autofocus employed. The camera's ability to shoot full 1080p video at 60 fps and 24 fps should make it a standout device for video capture.

Translucent-mirror technology isn't new. Last year's Sony Alpha A55 and Alpha A33 offered the same in-camera hall of mirrors. But the Alpha A77 ups the ante with that insane 24.3-megapixel sensor (up from 16 megapixels in the A55), a new Bionz image processor (which has to be powerful to process huge image files and all of those AF adjustments simultaneously), a faster burst mode despite the significantly higher-resolution images, and video capabilities that appear to be second to none when matched up against consumer DSLRs.

The major tradeoff for all of these performance enhancements is the absence of an optical through-the-lens viewfinder, which many accomplished shooters consider a dealbreaker--and a major contributor to their mocking "not a DSLR" tone. Certainly most users of last year's Alpha A55 would list its grainy-security-camera-like eye-level EVF as a key weak spot.

But the Alpha A77 vastly improves on its predecessor in this area as well. The 2.5-million-dot OLED eye-level viewfinder on the A77--which Sony claims is the first OLED EVF in the world--is currently the sharpest and brightest in the game. And though it's not an optical viewfinder, it provides a crisp, bright, full-coverage view, and you get the benefit of better low-light visibility, a histogram display, and detailed data through the eyepiece as you're shooting--all advantages over an optical viewfinder.

The electronic viewfinder isn't the only element that Sony has completely redesigned for this camera. The Alpha A77's 3-inch LCD viewfinder has a new "three-way tilt" adjustment mechanism that lets you position the screen in almost any direction, while enabling it to remain on the same vertical plane as the camera's lens.

The Alpha A77 may also be the camera that shows DSLR users what Sony has been up to with the innovative modes added to its Cyber-shot point-and-shoot cameras over the past few years. The Alpha A77 offers many of the same creative and fun-to-use shooting options we've seen in recent Cyber-shots, which gain even more power from the A77's fast performance, higher-end optics, big sensor, and beefy image processor.

The Alpha A77 has the same Sweep Panorama and single-lens 3D shooting options as Sony's recent Cyber-shot cameras, along with a range of effects that let you simulate a tilt-shift lens, automatically bracket and stack images to create instant HDR and sharper low-light shots, isolate a single color in black-and-white photos, and choose other optional features and effects. The A77 also has a GPS receiver to geotag shots as you take them, and its body-based sensor-shift system ensures that any lens will be stabilized once it's mounted.

So the Alpha A77 may not be a DSLR, but that fact shouldn't deter anyone seeking a versatile interchangeable-lens camera from checking it out. The sum of its parts is a "not a DSLR" to get very excited about, as it seems to cover more ground than any similarly priced DSLR in terms of high-speed capture, video capabilities, autofocus skills, creative in-camera filters, and fun-to-use modes.

The Sony Alpha A77 is slated to be available in October for $2000 as a kit with a 16-50mm/F2.8 zoom lens, or for $1400 for the body only.

PCPro

Sony Alpha NEX-5N First Impressions

August is always a hot month for new camera announcements, and this year August 23 was a particularly busy day. Canon, Nikon, and Sony all introduced multiple models that will be available in the coming months, and Sony concentrated on revamping its entire interchangeable-lens camera lineup.

I managed to get my hands on a production unit of one of Sony’s latest mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras, the Alpha NEX-5N. It’s a follow-up to last year’s popular NEX-5 camera, and I saw more similarities than differences between the two. For example, the new camera still has no on-board flash, although an external flash is included.

That said, the things that have changed are notable.

Who said that mirrorless cameras have to be slow? Even though Sony bumped up the sensor’s resolution from 14 to 16 megapixels, the 5N’s 10-frames-per-second continuous shooting speed definitely (and surprisingly) outpaces the NEX-5’s 7-fps rate. For single shots and in continuous mode, this little camera performs like a champ. Shutter lag? No problem; it’s almost nonexistent. According to Sony, the NEX-5N has a release time of about 0.02 second, and it certainly feels a lot faster than the NEX-5’s 0.1-second release time.

Perhaps the most distinguishing aspect is the NEX-5N’s adjustable touchscreen LCD--a first among Sony’s Alpha cameras. The screen itself is responsive, even when you tilt the hinged display, and the touchscreen doesn't replace the camera's physical controls entirely.

Unfortunately, only a couple of direct touch-panel controls are available, and setting changes require a trip to the rather confusing menu system. (Movie options, for example, are divided between the Image Size and Setup menus.) That slows down operation, at least when compared with the dedicated buttons you find on a DSLR. However, the arrangement may be a necessary trade-off for making a camera this small with such an uncluttered interface.

Flexible Spot AF is, perhaps, the best justification for the NEX-5N having a touchscreen panel, as a single tap of the LCD places a focus point in the desired position. It's fairly responsive in bright light at wide angle, but it slows under low light when the 18-55mm kit lens is extended to its moderate telephoto position.

Although the final focus lock comes when the shutter is half pressed, you can get a nice bokeh (soft background) effect depending on the lens and focal length you use. I was disappointed to find that the NEX-5N offers no way to trigger the shutter via the LCD as other touchscreen cameras do (or maybe I just overlooked the feature, as I'm still getting the hang of the NEX-5N).

In movie mode, focus automatically adjusts as the camera moves across and through a scene. Again--and as expected--focus adjustments are faster when you're shooting at wide angle. In my trials at close range, while using midrange and telephoto focal lengths of the 18-55mm lens, I found the focus slightly slower to catch up during panning but not excruciatingly so. And I saw little noticeable, distracting focus search.

Sony also boasts about having the smallest camera in its class to use a full APS-C-size sensor. Initial ISO tests seem to indicate that the larger sensor helps keep image noise (reasonably) under control, as it should. Of course, push the ISO to the NEX-5N’s max of 25,600, and--well, it’s not so pretty. But it’s also not surprising.

Sony added a few new creative options to the NEX-5N, including the now-ubiquitous miniature mode, along with an HDR painting filter, soft focus, and rich-tone monochrome. Fun, but not terribly exciting at first pass.

The camera has a couple of very cool--albeit very expensive--accessories: an optional eye-level OLED viewfinder and an A-mount adapter that has built-in phase-detection focus similar to the system found on the just-announced Alpha A77. The phase-detection system is, by nature, faster and more flexible than the contrast-detection focus that mirrorless cameras use. Both add-ons sound handy, but at $400 for the mount adapter and $350 for the OLED viewfinder, they more than double the price of the $700 kit package for the NEX-5N.

Nevertheless, the bottom line is image quality, and early test shots show that the NEX-5N delivers some really good-looking images. Its photos are perhaps even a little better than those of the NEX-5, and that’s coming from someone who really, really likes the NEX-5.

I’m still playing around with this new compact interchangeable-lens camera, so look for a full review soon.

PC World