As soon as the DSC-T500 was introduced I knew Sony had a winner. We feared the price might be a little on the high side, and while it is (around $350 – $400), the camera offers exceptional capabilities – especially in HD videos. This is a dream camera for consumers looking for a great point-and-shoot camera and the ability to share their world in HD video on a site like Vimeo. DigitalCameraReview.com recently reviewed the DSC-T500, and provides a great explanation of the camera’s abilities and provides example pictures of various settings. They write,
“..the list of retouch options here is also trimmed down compared to many Sonys, eliminating many of the “fun” features (filters, Happy Face Retouch, etc.) in favor of a succinct but very useful and businesslike range of in-camera edits that includes crop, rotate, and red-eye reduction tools.
The T500 retains the advanced slideshow functions seen in other high-end Sony models, allowing users to add background music and tinker with shot-to-shot transitions all on the camera itself.”
And continue on by stating,
“The fact that the T500 features a large switch dedicated to changing the camera over from still image capture to video shooting might be your first clue that this isn’t your typical digicam with video capability tacked on. Using their experience designing camcorders as a jumping-off point, Sony appears to have thrown a lot of weight behind the T500’s high-def video recording capability.
As noted, the T500 offers HD video capture at up to 1280×720 (720p) at 30 fps. Unlike most digital still cameras, movie audio is captured in stereo via the T500’s front-mounted stereo microphone. From this capture, the T500 generates MPEG-4 video files utilizing the AVC/H.264 codec, which combines small file sizes with support for high-quality video and stereo audio. In fact, the only hitch seems to be that 720p clips are, for whatever reason, limited to ten minutes per file.”
The review is vast and detailed, of course, so please read on for more..
I must also admit the HD video capability of this device is really worth showing off. Despite the 10 minute limitation, check out this link to a sample DSC-T500 video on Youtube. Make sure you turn on “HD” mode on Youtube, directly to the bottom right of the movie. The quality is killer. Here are some more HD movies shot by the DSC-T500 on Vimeo.
