PSP Camera review and full res sample shots

[Zobachka]

Wanted to find some samples of what PSP camera can do before buying but it, but there weren't any. I bought it so here's a little review and some shots.


I'm using the dax 3.03 OE firmware - all photos and videos was taken by XMB "Photo -> Camera" tool.

1. This camera have two focus modes - regular and macro. That was a surprise for me =) In regular mode camera takes focus from 30cm to infinity, in macro mode camera focuses somewhere about 10 cm. To switch between modes you need to turn a lens.

2. Photo resolution differs from 320x240 to 1280x1024 (4:3) however only 1280 is usable, because in 480 and 640 mode it use some creepy resize method (not bilinear or bicubic resample - more like "nearest neighborhood"). I hope they'll fix it later.

3. There is digital zoom. The less resolution you choose - the more zoom you'll have. (320x240 - 3x-zoom, 1280x1024 - no zoom at all).

4. It really can take 1.3 MPX shots. But you'll need perfect conditions for it. A lot of light and an iron hand =) Don't move you hand after the shutter sound - PSP takes a photo aprox. 2 seconds after the sound =)
Indoor low light photos have a lot of color noise.

5. Colors are good! What you see is what you get. There's exposure settings (from -1.5 to +1.5) and white balance. You can choose them manually.

6. Video mode rulz. 30 fps is really flawless. But again - you need a lot of light. You can film 20 minutes of video in 480x272x30fps mode on 1gb memory stick in one piece (ChottoShot software have a restriction on only 15 seconds of video - in XMB you can film as much as you want)

I attached some sample shots. Сigarette and coin was taken in macro mode.

Here you can download a 40 seconds video converted with 3GP (480x272 - you need 3.03 OE-B firmware to view it on your PSP):
~3 mb
http://www.koneko.ru/PSP/MAQ04849.MP4
http://www.koneko.ru/PSP/MAQ04849.THM

So. I think this will be usefull for those who didn't make a decision on buying yet.

[chrono75]

Wow, lol, that camera picks up the "Marlboro Lights" text on that smoke nicely, it's just too bad you were less than three feet away from the object you were taking a pic of, that's a photographers rule... Looks good to me if you were into that kind of thing... How much space does each image take up?