7. Exposure: Good Results, Wide Choice

Like all sophisticated cameras, the R1 offers a wide choice of shooting modes, including all the standard ones such as program, aperture and shutter-speed priority, and manual modes. Naturally, beginners will find a fully automatic "green" position. Added to that are a few scene modes, including the two most useful ones, Portrait and Landscape. So photographers of all levels of expertise should find what they need.

Not surprisingly, the three standard metering modes - matrix, center-weighted, and spot - are here. Unlike SLRs, however, the R1 offers real-time control via histogram display (though it's relatively unusable in our opinion) and a display of overexposed areas ("Zebra" mode, enabled via the menu). This mode will obviously make amateurs who worry about proper exposure very happy.

For color reproduction, Sony offers a standard mode, a "Vivid" mode with brighter colors in the sRGB space, and an Adobe RGB mode for those who can use it (it's a broader color space, but requires you to use software that can support it). As for white balance, the panoply is complete, with an automatic mode, the standard presets, and also two manual adjustment modes (instantaneous adjustment and memorization of a value). The auto mode operates in a range from 3400K to 7000K, while the manual mode covers between 2000K and 10000K, letting you get good balance under conditions that go beyond the usual standards.

The 10 Mpixel sensor offers a wide range of sensitivities, from ISO 160 to 3200, and an automatic mode. This is naturally where the R1 sets itself apart from other bridge cameras - that range of sensitivities is comparable to what you find on SLRs, since the large sensor lets you use higher sensitivities without noise deteriorating the image quality too much. We'll discuss that later.

Flash: Built-In Or External?

Like all current consumer/prosumer cameras, the R1 has a built-in flash. It deploys either automatically or manually, and has all the functions you'd expect, including slow synch with shutter closure (called "rear" or "second-curtain" mode, though there's no actual curtain here). The flash is usable from 1.6' to 28' (0.5 m to 8.5 m), and in wide-angle position provided you're in Auto ISO mode, since obviously its power is limited. We found it operated very satisfactorily - our shots were rarely overexposed, which is far from being the case with all cameras. On the other hand, the R1 had a fault that's all too familiar on SLRs fitted with large lenses. In the wide-angle position, when the supplied hood was attached, a shadow of the hood was projected onto part of the image! That's very regrettable, and something we might have thought an "all-in-one" camera like this could have avoided.

Naturally this problem disappears with an external flash, which mounts on a standard hotshoe located on the camera's handgrip. Sony offers its own flashes, but you can use a standard model in manual or aperture priority mode. Synchronization works at all speeds, up to 1/2000 second!