Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T20

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Features
The menu system has been completely redesigned, however. The Menu button now brings you to either the shooting or playback menu, depending on the mode you're using at the time. A second button labeled Home brings you to a general setup menu where you can select shooting or playback mode and adjust a variety of other setup functions.



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If you're used to another camera's menus, you should probably tour these menus, or read the manual carefully, since certain functions may be in a different place. For example, you have to delve into the Home menu if you want to format your memory card, while many cameras have this function in the Play menu.

Overall, the menus are well designed. The shooting menu lines up all available functions on the left side of the screen, and available options extend to the right across the screen as you move from one to the next. In program auto mode, you can adjust all the expected functions, such as metering (including center-weighted and spot), sensitivity (up to ISO 3,200), exposure compensation, white balance, and more.

We were pleasantly surprised to find flash compensation, and while there are only three steps (minus, zero, and plus), it was enough to keep the flash from blowing out flesh tones when sitting across a small restaurant table. Also, if you're a more experienced photographer, you might like the fixed-focus options, which let you set focus at 0.5 meter, 1m, 3m, 7m, or infinity in case you don't want to wait around for autofocus to do its thing.

That brings us to one of the more complained-about issues with the T10 (from our readers, at least). The T10 and T20 can both occasionally capture an image without completing the autofocus process. According to posts by our readers, Sony tech support has said that the cameras are designed to do this, though we don't know why. That means you have to be sure to press the shutter halfway and wait for focus lock (aka prefocus) before capturing your images if you want to be sure to capture an in-focus image. We typically prefocus when we shoot to cut down on shutter lag, so this doesn't interfere with our normal shooting routine, but if you don't like to prefocus, this might not be the camera for you.

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