PSP camera and 3.00 software review

**benh** · November 24th, 2006, 23:35

Hi all

In this artical I am going to review the PSP camera and the software that came with it in the 3.00 update (I am not reviewing the UMD software, it is the software that came with 3.00)

Camera

Specifications

Name - chotto shot
Weight - 15g
Price - £30, $43, 5,000 yen
Resolution - 1.3 megapixel

Software

The software that came with the 3.00 Update is located under the Photo menu of the XMB, you must first plug the camera in to the USB socket before you can run the software.

Photo mode

When you start the software from the XMB the camera starts up in photo mode, the basic controls are..

L button to look at other pictures you have taken
Up and down buttons to zoom in or out
R button to take photo
Triangle to bring up the options menu
Select takes you to movie mode
Circle takes you back to the XMB

When you are looking at the screen to take the photo at the bottom there are details displayed about your current settings

Where you have chosen to sace ur photos to
What image quality you have
Chosen picture size
White balance option
It also displays a sort of help thing where it tells you which buttons to press

The camera in photo mode has a X2.8 digital zoom and the pictures are saved in .jpeg format

If you press triangle a menu of options appear on the screen like in the music player, video player and picture viewer and these options for the photo mode are...

Record - Takes a photo
To movie mode - takes you to movie mode
Review - Lets you look at all other taken photos while still on the camera
Settings - Lets you choose main settings including to change the shutter sounds, there are a selection of 5 shutter sounds to choose from, There is also the option to choose where you store your taken photos and there is a reset file number option
Display - This either displays your chosen settings and help text or either hide this information
Zoom in
Zoom out
Image size - choose from 320 X 240, 480 X 272, 640 X 480 and 1280 X 960
Image quality - Fine quality or standard quality
White balance - This is where you choose what type of enviroment you take your photo in, if you wanted to take a photo in daylight you will choose the daylight option, If you are in dark places you can either have Fluorescent or Incandescent or if your not sure what to choose put it in automatic and the camera should do all the work for you
Exposure adjustment - goes from -1.5 to + 1.5
Effect - This chooses the type of mode you want your camera to be in you can either have sketch, toy camera, Distortion, text ot you can just have it normal

That is all the details of the software in camera mode, on to movie mode.

Video mode

When you press select or go to movie mode from photo mode the basic controls are..

L to review taken videos
R to record video
Select to go back to photo mode
Triangle to bring up the options menu
Circle to go back to the XMB

When you are in movie mode and looking at the screen just like in photo mode it displays your settings at the bottom of the screen, it displays..

Movie film type
Image quality
where you save your videos to
how much you have recored (timer)

The camera in Movie mode has a X1.4 digital zoom and the videos are saved as motion jpeg format video and also this peice of built in software lets you record an unlimited amount of video provided that you have space on your memory stick.

Just like in photo mode if you press triangle a menu comes up like in the music player, movie player and the photo viewer, the options on this menu are...

Record - Start Recording video
To photo mode - Takes you to photo mode
Review - Lets you look at videos you have taken while still on the camera
Settings - Lets you choose main settings including to change the shutter sounds, there are a selection of 5 shutter sounds to choose from, There is also the option to choose where you store your taken photos and there is a reset file number option
Display - This either displays your chosen settings and help text or either hide this information
Zoom in
Zoom out
Movie size - This is where you choose how big your video is you can choose from 320 X 240 (15fps), 320 X 240 (30 fps), 480 X 272 (15fps) and 480 X 272 (30fps)
Image quality - you can choose from fine quality or standard quality
White balance - This is where you choose what type of enviroment you take your photo in, if you wanted to take a photo in daylight you will choose the daylight option, If you are in dark places you can either have Fluorescent or Incandescent or if your not sure what to choose put it in automatic and the camera should do all the work for you
Exposure adjustment - This goes from -1.5 to +1.5

And that about covers it for the camera and software that came with 3.00.

The only other thing i could mention is that this is something that could be added to in future firmware updates, sony could add more camera effects, more white balance options, more shutter sounds etc, something that can always be added to.

So what do you think to this?

**TCLCloud** · November 24th, 2006, 23:45

Very good, very informative, nice work.....

**swordmasterx** · November 24th, 2006, 23:51

cool now i wanna buy it from play-asia.com
:thumbup:

**toto** · November 25th, 2006, 00:00

does it record the sound too?

**benh** · November 25th, 2006, 00:08

Yeah it records sound for the video

**acn010** · November 25th, 2006, 00:10

nice info man.
sadly i cant buy it till next year, you know why.,., meow?

**toto** · November 25th, 2006, 00:17

cool; but it doesn't replace the microphone of talkman, does he?
I mean can we use talkman with this camera?

**benh** · November 25th, 2006, 00:43

Im not sure about that as i do not have the talkman but i heard sony was planning on doing a voice over ip program with the camera, where you could talk and see each other over the net a bit like skype, they were planning to release it in a firmware update but since last march we have heard nothing

**digihoe** · November 25th, 2006, 01:02

Good review, would be nice to see pictures of the diffrent quality and sizes, same goes for video... Guess I'll just have to wait for the thing to arrive at my doorstep...

Best regards!