Introduction

Ease of Use

At first glance the DSC-TX5 looks like another predictably ultra stylish entry in the Cyber-shot 'T' series. It's slim of profile at 17.7mm in depth, glossy of fascia, credit card sized and sports a slide open and shoot lens cover mechanism that powers up the camera at the same time, thus ensuring that taking a picture is really, really easy. Idiot proof one might say, especially with intelligent auto mode selected that recognizes common scenes and adjusts on-board settings to achieve the desired result.

Its slender, almost dainty proportions mean that it comes as something of a surprise that the TX5 is also Sony's first ever waterproof model, capable it claims of withstanding a dunking to a depth of 10ft. Matching the best specification of its rivals it is further dust proof, shock proof (against drops from 1.5 metres) and freeze proof (to minus 10°C) too.

Usually, cameras boasting such toughened qualities come with additional physical bulk and padding - think Canon's porky PowerShot D10 or the heavy metal feel of Panasonic's DMC-FT and Olympus Mju Tough series. However the TX5 from Sony feels lightweight enough to slip into the top pocket of your favourite barbecue shirt this coming summer - yet doesn't seem at all brittle. In fact it's as well made and solid as we'd expect a Sony product to be, plus, as usual there's a choice of body colours, including black, silver, green, red and the day-glo pink of our review sample. As ever though with Sony models, you pay something of a price premium and its £339 asking price feels around £40 too high.

The other main area of interest here is the TX5's 3-inch, 230,400-dot resolution touch screen, which presents a wide-angle format ratio yet displays images in the standard 4:3 ratio format. It thus leaves room left and right of the screen for operational icons, selected with a fingertip or the end of the plastic stylus pen included in the box, which can be attached to the wrist strap. Despite doing this at the outset of our test period, we rarely used the stylus, a finger tap making for quicker and more intuitive operation, though you'll be constantly wiping the LCD clear of smeared fingerprints as a result.

Fortunately with near instant response the camera's screen performs as intuitively you'd expect it to: captured images can be scrolled through with a sweep of a finger, or tapped in playback mode to progressively zoom in and check sharpness. Frequently used functions can also be dragged into the camera's menu screen. An on-board Bionz processor helps ensure those rapid response times and that overall operation zips along.

The Cyber-shot DSC-TX5 offers a modest sounding 10.2-megapixel effective resolution - and especially so in the era of 14MP compacts. Albeit this is from an Exmor R CMOS sensor which its manufacturer claims makes for a low light performance that is twice as effective as 'conventional' models. True or not, we'd argue that 10 megapixels is still plenty at the point and shoot end of the market where there is often little marked visible difference in image quality between 10, 12 and 14MP models anyway when downloaded and viewed on the average desktop.

Front	Rear

TX5 users also have the option of recording JPEG still images and easily accessible MPEG-4 format 720P HD video at 30 frames per second to either Sony's own Memory Stick Pro Duo media or the more commonly available SD or SDHC cards. The two share the same slot, but are obviously not of the same size. This makes for a rather fiddly insertion of a Memory Stick into the central portion of the wider SD-sized slot, where due to its narrower dimensions it 'wiggles' about a bit. Still, good to see compatibility with SD offered on a Sony camera, the company historically liking to stick with its own proprietary media.

Design wise, the only break from the camera's minimally slim and streamlined proportions is a raised lip on the top plate which proves useful in providing a point of purchase for the fingertip when operating the lever for the commendably silent 4x optical zoom. Once again this Cyber-shot employs a folded optic that ensures at no point does the lens stand proud of the body. Thus you don't get the problem of the sliding lens cover clunking against the optic itself when powering down the camera, as happened on early Olympus Mju digicams. The fact that the zoom operation is silent means that its full extent can also be usefully accessed when shooting video, so users don't have to suffer degraded image quality from having to utilize a digital zoom instead when recording movies.

The TX5's lens starts out at a wide-for-its-class 25mm (35mm equivalent) and runs to 100mm at the telephoto end, making it as adept at shooting landscapes as it is group portraits. Plus for those photographers looking to take in just a little bit more, the camera also features Sony's impressive-in-action Sweep Panorama function. This rattles along capturing a series of images and stitches them together in camera to provide a single narrow letterbox format image providing a wider view that the lens or a standard panorama feature would allow.

Aiding handheld shooting performance in low light are also Twilight (found amongst its nine scene modes) and Anti Motion Blur modes. Again selecting these prompts the shooting of a burst of images to combat the effects of hand wobble - in each case six frames which are then combined to produce a single (in theory) low noise, blur free image. However we found in practice that while indeed minimizing softness, this seems to have the knock on effect of sapping colour from subjects, resulting in a literally pale imitation of the scene before the lens. So while useful in getting handheld shots one might otherwise have not attempted at all, the solution is not a wholly perfect one.

The other two physical controls on this Sony Snapshot's top plate are a narrow lozenge-shaped shutter release button, plus what at first feels like a rather extraneous on/off button. However if operating the camera with the sliding faceplate mechanism otherwise closed - to review photos for example, rather than take them - then this dedicated power button does indeed come in handy.

As with any digital compact that strives to make itself as small as possible, there are some compromises. We've already mentioned the single yet dual format card slot, and another is the positioning of the lens, which, by being located over at the far edge of the faceplate, can often fall victim to fingertips straying into shot when gripping the camera in both hands. Though, with use, you become more aware of where you're putting your fingers to avoid this irritation, hand the camera to anyone else for a quick portrait of you and yours and there will inevitably be tell tale finger-shaped blobs appearing in the corner of the frame.

Front	Top

Next to the lens at the front is an indicator lamp for the self-timer/AF assist lamp, built in microphone plus very narrow lozenge shaped flash. These, like the lens, are all hidden behind the sliding lens cover/faceplate when the camera is inactive, so protected from fluff and scratches when transporting the camera in a pocket.

The back of the camera continues the minimalist design ethic of Sony's T-series, being given over entirely to the 3-inch widescreen ratio touch panel LCD with the only physical control a dedicated playback button sitting just above it where the edge of the backplate meets top plate. Otherwise a couple of raised ridges to the right hand side of the screen provide some purchase for the thumb when gripping the camera, the mirrored faceplate at the front meaning that it's easy for fingers to otherwise slip and slide around. The dedicated playback button is useful in that with the camera otherwise in its dormant state it can be pressed to quickly review images without having to press an additional power button to turn the camera on first. Again this not only makes for intuitive user-friendly operation, but also speeds up use of the TX5.

Slide open the lens cover at the front and the LCD blinks into life in just over a second, briefly displaying the Cyber-shot logo before providing a view of the scene or subject in the absence of an optical viewfinder alternative. As mentioned earlier, when taking still photographs the screen is cropped to a 4:3 ratio as a default, functional white icons presented legibly against black bands either side of the main image rather than directly across it.

Among these icons is a means of choosing from a selection of recording modes. Here we have the default point and shoot setting of Intelligent Auto, regular Program Auto, Sweep Panorama, 1280x720 pixels Movie Mode, Anti Motion Blur and Handheld Twilight modes, plus Backlight Correction HDR for compensating for subjects backlit by the sun, and finally, Scene Selection mode. Select this last option and the screen fills with a plethora of further icons, including pre-optimised settings for High Sensitivity shooting, Soft Snap, Landscape, Twilight Portrait, Twilight, the food photographing 'Gourmet' mode, along with the more familiar Pet, beach, Snow, Fireworks, Underwater and lastly High Speed shutter option for practicing your golf swing.

When shooting stills there's the further option to adjust the point of focus simply by tapping a portion of the LCD screen - the camera gives the user a text prompt to actively encourage this - thus providing the ability to bias attention to something or someone who might not be traditionally dead centre of the frame.

The above shooting modes aside, also presented within the black bands either side of the screen are a means of accessing Smile Shutter mode - with three options governing how pronounced a smile you want the camera to recognize - along with a means of controlling the flash (merely off or on in intelligent Auto mode) and altering self timer settings (10 seconds, two seconds or off). Continuous or burst shooting can further be selected here, with a choice of 'Hi', Mid, or 'Lo' speed options, the camera's maximum being a respectable 10 frames per second which it rattles through machine-gun like, the resultant shots slowly appearing as a collected series of thumbnails on its rear screen for review.

Further on-screen icons in capture mode include a virtual playback button to go with the physical button also provided, plus a self-explanatory virtual 'menu' button. Additional on-screen info squashed into the screen's top right hand corner gives an indication of battery life, the number of shots remaining, image ratio and resolution.

Battery Compartment	Memory Card Slot

Tap the 'menu' icon and even more options are presented to the user. It's here we're offered the chance to switch to 'easy' mode, adjust image size and ratio - with the ability to shoot stills in 16:9 format rather than 4:3, albeit with a resolution drop to 7MP at best - plus select macro mode, adjust exposure compensation (+/- 2EV), switch on Scene Recognition mode (if not already shooting in intelligent Auto mode), plus face detection and turn display settings on or off.

Top left of the menu screen a small toolbox icon also appears; its placing meaning that it is easy to overlook. Tap this inquisitively however and four further settings folders are presented. In decreasing order of importance, the top one, denoted by camera and spanner icon, is a Shooting Settings folder, just below which is a second 'Main Settings' folder, then a 'Memory Card Tool' folder, and lastly Clock Settings (date and time etc) weirdly get a folder all to themselves.

Going back to the Shooting Settings, it's here if shooting in Program Auto mode that the user can summon up the AF illuminator (or turn it off), as well as the compositional aid of on-screen grid lines, digital zoom, red eye reduction when using flash, plus blink alert to warn if a subject might have closed their eyes at the crucial point you fired the shutter. LCD brightness can further be adjusted. All the essentials you'd expect are here in fact.

A half press of the shutter release button and the camera determines focus and exposure in the blink of an eye. Take a shot at maximum 10.2 megapixel resolution and with barely perceptible shutter lag a shot is committed to memory in two seconds, the screen briefly freezing with a display of the captured image whilst it is written to memory. Switch to playback mode to review what you've just shot and left and right directional arrows appear at the bottom right hand corner of the screen for tabbing through previous images too. In playback mode we have the further ability to view/search images by date via an on-screen calendars - or view them collectively as a series of thumbnails, the tapping of any one of which displays it full size on the screen. There's additionally the ability of course to view all images on the back screen in the form of a slideshow accompanied by a selection of different musical styles, or hook the camera up to your TV to do the same. Curiously when we did this, the camera displayed only images shot in 4:3 ratio format, choosing to omit the images shot in Sweep Panorama mode from its selection.

A press of 'menu' alternatively when in playback mode and, along with the menu options offered in capture mode we have the ability to paint or draw cutesy hearts onto images - the kind of thing beloved of Japanese teenage girls - with a virtual eraser button also presented to wipe clean any such doodles. Colourfully chintzy borders or frames can further be chosen to garnish your in-camera 'masterpiece'. Limited retouching can also be carried out in camera - in the form of red eye correction, trimming or cropping the image as a whole or using unsharp mask to add some saving grace definition to slightly soft shots and avoid having to do the same in Photoshop. And all this with the press or swipe of a fingertip; no further skills necessary.

Once you've surveyed all the options and got used to the touch screen operation the TX5 is easy and fun to use. There are more options here than provided on regular point and shoot cameras so that users won't get bored easily - and thankfully so, given the high-ish asking price. But, at the end of the day it's image quality that counts more than a collection of features and functionality, so how does the TX5 measure up? As an ideal travel companion and veritable pocket rocket, or damp squib you should leave at home?

Image Quality

All of the sample images in this Review were taken using the 10 megapixel JPEG setting, which gives an average image size of around 4Mb.

The DSC-TX5's lens starts out at a wider than most 25mm, which sounds good on paper. However in practice we noticed a distinct loss of sharpness towards the edges of the frame at this extreme setting, particularly noticeable on group portraits, with the natural imperfections of vegetation on landscape shots disguising this effect a little better. Still, colours are well saturated and exposures even for the most part - which means good results are to be had from merely pointing and shooting with the camera, as should always be the case with the TX5's class.

In terms of what this diminutive Cyber-shot offers to make it stand out from the crowd, the Sweep Panorama feature is fun for anyone wanting extra wide landscapes (wider than the 25mm lens will already allow that is), though the resultant images are small and fuzzy when downloaded and viewed on a desktop. Sony claims the technology has been refined to better align images even when people are moving in the frame. That may be so, but the occasional disjointed overlap still results. Still, it does prompt the user to take a wider range of photographs than they might otherwise and get an overall view of a scene that's closer to what the human eye captures than a camera lens could normally provide.

In terms of low light photography, with an adjustable ISO range stretching from a higher than usual starting point of ISO 125 though to ISO 3200, there is theoretically the ability for the camera to cope with a wide range of lighting conditions. Whilst the additional auto ISO setting works well, surprisingly good results are to be had up to and including ISO 1600, what visible noise there is at this setting comparable with performance at ISO 800 from rival point and shoots. So if you need to push things a bit in low light - despite the fact that there's a lack of anything approaching a decent grip on the camera - the TX5's Exmor R CMOS sensor does seem to live up to its manufacturers hype. Even at ISO 3200, though overall detail has softened, it avoids the watercolour effect that blights so many rivals at this setting. Overall a good showing from this slender Sony.

Noise

There are 6 ISO settings available on the Sony CyberShot DSC-TX5. Here are some 100% crops which show the noise levels for each ISO setting.

ISO 125 (100% Crop)	ISO 200 (100% Crop)
ISO 400 (100% Crop)	ISO 800 (100% Crop)
ISO 1600 (100% Crop)	ISO 3200 (100% Crop)

Sharpening

Here are two 100% crops which have been Saved as Web - Quality 50 in Photoshop. The right-hand image has had some sharpening applied in Photoshop. The out-of-the camera images are a little soft and ideally benefit from some further sharpening in a program like Adobe Photoshop. You can't change the in-camera sharpening level.

Original (100% Crop)	Sharpened (100% Crop)

Chromatic Aberrations

The Sony CyberShot DSC-TX5 handled chromatic aberrations excellently during the review, with very limited purple fringing present around the edges of objects in certain high-contrast situations, as shown in the example below.

Example 1 (100% Crop)

Macro

The Sony CyberShot DSC-TX5 offers a Macro setting that allows you to focus on a subject that is just 1cm away from the camera when the lens is set to wide-angle. The first image shows how close you can get to the subject (in this case a compact flash card). The second image is a 100% crop.

Macro Shot	100% Crop

Flash

The flash settings on the Sony CyberShot DSC-TX5 are Auto, Forced Flash, Slow Syncro, No Flash, with a Red-eye Reduction option in the Main menu. These shots of a white coloured wall were taken at a distance of 1.5m.

Suppressed Flash - Wide Angle (25mm)	Forced Flash - Wide Angle (25mm)
Suppressed Flash - Telephoto (100mm)	Forced Flash - Telephoto (100mm)

And here are some portrait shots. Neither the Forced Flash setting or the Red-Eye Correction option caused any red-eye.

Forced Flash	Forced Flash (100% Crop)
Red-eye Reduction	Red-eye Reduction (100% Crop)

Night Shot

The Sony CyberShot DSC-TX5's maximum shutter speed is 2 seconds, which is not good news if you're seriously interested in night photography. The shot below was taken using a shutter speed of 1/10th second at ISO 400.

Night Shot	Night Shot (100% Crop)

Sweep Panorama Mode

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX5 allows you to take panoramic images very easily, by 'sweeping' with the camera while keeping the shutter release depressed. The camera does all the processing and stitching and now even successfully compensates for moving subjects. The main catch is that the resulting image is of fairly low resolution.

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX5 camera, which were all taken using the 10 megapixel Fine JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample Movie & Video

Product Images

Front of the Camera

Front of the Camera / Lens Cover Open

Isometric View

Isometric View

Rear of the Camera

Rear of the Camera / Image Displayed

Top of the Camera

Bottom of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Side of the Camera

Battery Compartment

Memory Card Slot

Conclusion

Tougher than it looks with its neatly diminutive dimensions, Sony's TX5 is a camera you'll find yourself readily slipping into a pocket when heading out for the day. You may not take your best and most admired shots with it - you'll need a budget DSLR you could otherwise snag for a similar asking price for that - but with the camera about your person you're sure to take ones that you otherwise wouldn't have.

That's the case too with the TX5's less run-of-the-mill features such as Twilight and even more unique Panorama Sweep mode. Both of these encourage further experimentation, and that's not what we'd normally expect from a snapshot camera. Add in the fact that you can use this camera not only in the dark but also in the rain, the cold and at the beach, and you have a versatile travel tool that won't take up much space at all in your luggage. It shoots HD video too, so all the latest must-haves are covered in the one package.

The only real drawback then is the high asking price. The UK's largest e-tailer was selling the Sony TX5 for £299 at the time of writing though, which, as we noted at the outset, is much more like it. Sure, it still ain't cheap, but then sometimes you just have to bite the bullet to get mostly everything you could hope for from a pocket camera.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	4.5
Ease-of-use	4
Image quality	4
Value for money	3

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX5 from around the web.

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