DSC-F88: A Review of One of Sony's Latest 5MP Digicams

General Image Quality

For these pictures, the camera was reset to its factory default setting. Then, it was set to its highest quality recording setting. The pictures were then taken in Auto mode. Click on a thumbnail to view the full-size image. The crops below the thumbnails are 100%.

Auto Mode

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The F88 is capable of capturing a good amount of detail. This image also proves that chromatic aberration is not a problem on this camera.	This image also shows the level of detail that the F88 can capture. The camera does a good job retaining detail against the bright sky. We should point out that the image appears to become blurry towards the lower left and right edges.

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There is a pretty good level of detail here. Again, we are concerned about the blurriness of the left edge of the frame (with the signs, etc.). It appears that the objects in the frame become blurrier as they get closer to the edge.	Here, we can see the camera captured detail in the bright sky as well as in the shadowed subjects in the crop. We should also point out the noticeably higher noise level of this image. The slight blurring occurs in this image as well. It is more on the left side than the right.

Overall, we thought that the image quality of the DSC-F88 was pretty good despite the blur issue. There was a decent level of detail in all of the shots that we took. Also, we did not have a problem with chromatic aberrations whatsoever in any of our test images. Although we saw a tendency for the images to blur a bit around the left and right edges, the overall quality of the images was impressive.

Scene Modes

For these pictures, we took some images using the DSC-F88's Scene mode.

High-speed Shutter	Candlelight
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In High-speed shutter mode, we can see that the F88 is able to stop motion very well. However, notice the high level of noise throughout the image.	We were impressed with the low level of noise in this 0.6 sec. image taken in Candlelight mode. The image was taken with a tripod. The source of light was a 75W lamp w/shade approx. 5 ft from the subject.

Twilight	Magnifying Glass
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In this 2-second exposure taken in Twilight mode, noise was kept to a minimum except in areas of the dark sky and roof (which were not lit).	In this image taken with the Magnifying Glass Scene mode, the F88 is able to capture incredible detail at a distance of 1 cm from the subject.

With the Scene modes, the DSC-F88 offers several options for creative picture taking. We were pleased with the noise reduction capabilities of this camera in Candlelight and Twilight mode. Add to that the super macro of Magnifying Glass mode, and we are impressed with the versatility of the DSC-F88.

DSC-F88 - Movie Mode

(640x480, 16 fps)
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Movie mode on the DSC-F88 isn't anything too impressive. The video is a bit choppy at 16 fps and the image quality is pretty fuzzy. However, it is nice to have the option to record for an unlimited duration. If the video mode offered a higher frame rate, it would be exceptional.