Pre-PMA 2003, 15:00 GMT: Sony has today announced its first foray into the compact prosumer market since the excellent DSC-S85. The DSC-V1 is designed to battle against Canon's hugely popular PowerShot G3, Nikon's Coolpix 4500 and Olympus's C-5050 Zoom. The DSC-V1 has a five megapixel sensor and a four times 'Carl Zeiss' zoom lens. It has all the major manual controls you would expect, as well as various shared enhancements including MPEG VX (VGA, 16 fps), USB 2.0, color saturation / tone adjustment, Smart Zoom and MS Pro support. All this plus a flash hot-shoe, metallic case and it measures just 99 x 65 x 57 mm (3.9 x 2.6 x 2.2 in) - about the same size (from the front) as Canon's PowerShot S330 (Digital IXUS 330).

Click here for our hands-on preview of the Sony DSC-V1

Press Release:

SONY'S CYBER-SHOT DSC-V1 DIGITAL STILL CAMERA: FOR WHEN PHOTOGRAPHY CROSSES OVER FROM HOBBY TO PASSION

PARK RIDGE, N.J., Feb. 24, 2003 - For all those digital photographers who spend time on web sites or with magazines obsessing about the trade off between features and pocketability, Sony is introducing the Cyber-shot® DSC-V1 digital still camera.

"A signature of Sony design is an ergonomically comfortable device small enough to become part of everyday personal gear, but powerful enough to satisfy sophisticated needs," said Steve Haber, senior vice president for Sony Electronic's Digital Imaging Products Division. "The Cyber-shot V1 camera is just this combination."

Available in May for about $700, and barely larger than a deck and a half of cards, the Cyber-shot V1 camera will offer a 5-megapixel imager and a Carl Zeiss® Vario-Sonnar® lens with 4x optical zoom sharpness and color accuracy. It will also feature a hot shoe and accessory terminal. Plus, there are several Sony-only features, including a rechargeable Infolithium® battery system, with to-the-minute awareness of remaining battery life, along with Nightshot® and NightFraming features for taking crisp pictures in no or low-light conditions.

Let the User Experiment

This model was built for a special class of photographer who wants ultimate control over the picture-taking process, but who also wants the option to call upon automatic features to help balance light and exposure. Among the features that will appeal to the purist are:

Manual Exposure Controls: Flexible exposure control is provided with aperture priority, shutter priority and manual exposure modes for better command over motion and depth of field.

Program-Shift Dial: Situated next to the LCD for easy access, this dial allows the user to select from a range of available combinations of aperture and shutter settings for control over motion and depth of field while remaining in an automatic exposure mode.

Five-area Multi-Point Auto Focus: The camera evaluates five separate areas of the frame and intelligently focuses on the subject, displaying the selected focus point, or the user can choose any of the five points for manual control.

Hologram AF™ Illuminator: Projects a laser pattern on the subject to create contrast for precise focus, even in low or no light.

Multi-Pattern Measuring: Independently meters the light in 49 points of the frame to establish the optimum exposure, even when highlight and shadow aren't centered in the frame.

Auto Fill Flash: When the subject is backlit or in shadow, the fill flash automatically fires to provide optimum exposure.

NightShot Infrared System: Captures infrared images in total darkness at a distance of up to 15 feet.

NightFraming System: To capture crisp images in low or no light, this feature illuminates the subject with the NightShot system for proper framing, focuses with Hologram AF illuminator and lights the scene with the appropriate amount of flash.

Sony DSC-V1 specifications

* Sony's new "Smart Zoom" will only allow digital zoom at lower image sizes
and only when zooming will not affect image quality