Digital Cameras That Do Thinking for You
Most digital cameras have more settings than the average person knows what to do with — from common adjustments for nighttime and face shots to obscure settings for sports, fireworks and snow scenes.
When the moment comes to take the perfect picture of a snowy mountaintop, Fourth of July fireworks or soccer goal in midkick, most people forget about these features or don’t know how to use them. And while many digital cameras can now detect faces and make sure they are in focus, they can’t tell whether that face is smiling or not. The results aren’t bad, but they could be much better.
Sony’s Cyber-shot DSC-W170 uses Smile Shutter Mode to snap pictures when a subject smiles.
This week, I tested three new digital cameras that claim to do the thinking for you. Some digitally analyze the scene you’re about to capture, automatically choosing the setting that would take the best picture. Others can detect when a subject is smiling so as to automatically know when to snap the photo. One camera even attempts to digitally alter frowning faces into smiles, with amusing results.
I tried out Sony’s $300 Cyber-shot DSC-W170, Kodak’s $250 EasyShare Z1085 IS and Olympus’s $200 FE-340. Only the Sony includes all three of the aforementioned features; the Kodak has scene detection, and the Olympus camera has built-in smile detection. I found the automatic scene detection offered in the Sony and Kodak cameras to be the most useful feature for everyday photos. It improved my photos and didn’t require any extra adjustments. I handed the cameras to other people to take pictures, without having to change any settings.
The automatic smile detection offered in the Sony and Olympus cameras was fun to use and could be especially helpful for families whose young kids never seem to smile at the right moment. But it didn’t work consistently and had trouble detecting my bearded boss’s smile and even that of a beard-free colleague.
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