The new Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 is a 10-megapixel ultra-compact digital camera made almost entirely of metal and with a bunch of features to satisfy even the most demanding point-and-shot photographers.
Introduction:
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 is the latest model in T-series with 3” touchscreen, very strong casing made of metal, 4x optical zoom and some of the well known features topped up by a funny browsing, tweaking and drawing features. Additionally, the camera has image stabilization, face detection, red eye reduction and Movie Mode with, what’s quite unusual, zooming capability. There are also a few drawback to the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77, but more on that later.
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 pros:
+ Slim, stylish body (available in 5 colors) contains a 4X zoom lens
+ Plenty of point-and-shoot features
+ Optical image stabilization
+ Impressive face detection as well as Smile Shutter features
+ Good image quality in ideal conditions
+ Widescreen 3-inch touchscreen LCD display
+ Good performance in most areas
+ Nice playback mode
+ Zoom and image stabilization available in movie mode
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 cons:
- Noise reduction smudges details
- Some corner blurs
- Redeye might sometimes be a problem
- Weak flash, slow lens
- No optical viewfinder
- White balance does not perform well in artificial light
- 10 minute movie clip limit
- Only 15 MB of built-in memory
The design:
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 measures 93.6 x 57.2 x 15 mm and weighs 125 grams so it is indeed very compact and so pocketable that you can always carry it without troubles. The camera is available in 5 different colors and is made almost exclusively of shiny metal so it not only looks classy but also feels very solid. Even the battery compartment door, which is often the weakest point of design, is very solid. The design is minimalist and so you will not find too many hard buttons on this camera. On the front of the camera you will find only the 4x optical zoom Carl Zeiss lens and the built-in flash. The back of the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 is dominated by the 3” touchscreen display which is practically the only thing you can use to navigate through the camera menus. The screen has the resolution of 230,000 pixels which is not bad, yet it is a fingerprint nightmare so I suggest you use the pen you will find in the box. On the bottom of Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 is the battery/memory card compartment along with the tripod mount and some ports to connect it to your Mac or Pc. Genrally, the design of the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 is very well thought out but unfortunately the zoom button is a bit smallish and people with big hand might have difficulties using it.
Performance:
The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 is very quick. It takes it only about one second to turn on and the focus is frequently very swift. As the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 is a compact point-and-shot camera you will not find too many manual setting here. However, that should not be a problem as the presets do the job quite well and even if you find them unsuitable you can switch to full automation. If you decide to change some settings you might want to, for example, adjust the AF options. There are two to chose from: the Single AF which locks after pressing the shutter release button halfway, whereas the Monitor AF always tries to focus which makes it a bit faster, but shortens the battery life considerably. Another interesting feature of this Sony camera is the zoom. Apart from the 4x optical zoom you have the possibility to use the Smart digital zoom which does not decrease the image quality, but requires smaller image size. So when you take a 3-megapixel photo you might reach 7.1 zoom with excellent quality. As most of the recent digital cameras also the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 has Smile Shutter which automatically takes a photo when the camera is aimed at a smiling person.
Among other interesting features there are: Scene Recognition System picking all the necessary settings for you very accurately. One innovative and useful feature here is the blink detection which when enabled verifies if a person whose photo you wanted to take blinked. If so the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 will automatically take another photo. All in all, the camera does a very good job detecting faces and adjusting the focus accordingly. But should you decide to focus manually what you have to do is simply to touch a given spot on the touchscreen and the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 focuses there.
And now a few words about the image and video quality: the overall photo quality is actually quite nice under certain conditions. For example, photos taken outdoors on a sunny day look truly beautiful, but indoors with not so good light the noise reduction might spoil the effect. Although the photos are sharp, well saturated and vivid, in high ISO the situation looks a lot worse. Photos taken in unusual lighting conditions look worse and might be unsuitable for printing, but as hardly anybody prints photos nowadays that may not be an issue. In bot photo and movie modes you can easily zoom in and out and the image stabilization system works quite well. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 can record movies in 640×480 at 30 fps which is quite good, but unfortunately the clips cannot be longer than 10 minutes.
Menus / ease of use:
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 has a 3” touchscreen which needs to be used for all settings and although its direct sun legibility is good it will most probably get covered with fingerprints which might render it quite useless. Fortunately in the box you get a pen which might help a bit. The menu structure in this camera is not as straightforward as in some recent Sony cameras, but it is manageable. The majority of the most frequently used options are easy to find, but when you get into details you might et lost for a while. But in the end, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 is not aimed at professionals who might want to tamper with the various settings for half an hour just to take one pretty photo, but at point-and-shot photographers who cherish the simplicity of automatic mode.
To sum up, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 is quite not bad, especially for a compact camera with such a small lens. And so for the price of $300 you get a well designed capable camera with plenty of features.
Selected Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 features and specifications:
Optical sensor
CCD
Sensor Resolution (max)
10.3 megapixels
Resolution
10.1 megapixels
Photodetectors (max)
10.3 million
Photodetectors (effective)
10.1 million
Zoom range
4
Focal length
35-140mm
Digital zoom
8
Light sensitivity
ISO 80/100/200/400/800/1600/3200
Lens aperture
F3.5 to F4.6
Focusing
Multi-point AF, Center-weighted AF, Spot AF, Focus preset and Flexible Spot AF
Normal focus range (min)
8 cm
Macro focus range (min)
1 cm
Shutter speed
1/4 – 1/1000
Metering
Multi-segment/Multi-pattern, Center-weighted average, Spot
Creative controls
Yes
Other useful features
Touchscreen operation
Outside The Camera
LCD size
3 inch
Type of flash
Built-in
Tripod mount
Yes
Storage type
Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick PRO Duo
Hotshoe
No
Image Capture
Still image format
JPEG
Max. image resolution
3264 x 2736
Digital video capture
Yes
Max video resolution
640 x 480 @ 30 fps
Audio capture
Yes
Face recognition
Yes
Canon PowerShot G10, Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1, Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28, Nikon D90, Pentax K20D, Canon PowerShot SX10 IS, Samsung TL34HD, Olympus 570UZ.