Sony's Smile Shutter - It Starts with a Smile
Reviewed on 22 December 2007
If there was ever an appropriate time to call cameras ‘smart’, now is the time. If you thought Face Detection was baffling enough, things have just gotten a lot more eerie when Sony took it one step further with their awe-inspiring ‘Smile Shutter’. All it takes is a simple smile and hey presto! The camera automatically snaps the photo right at that instant. Amazing isn’t it? Sony’s Smile Shutter function is laughably fun and captivatingly intriguing. When put to practice, it’s interesting to see just how smart this technology can be.
The Smile Shutter function is currently available on Sony’s new trio of cameras, namely the Sony Cyber-shot T70, Sony Cyber-shot T200 and the more recent Sony Cyber-shot T2. The Smile Shutter is fairly easy to use and when switched on, it detects smiles from one of two ways. Relying on Sony’s Face Detection technology that detects up to eight faces in a frame, the camera recognises the visible faces in a scene and will snap right when any of those faces start smiling. Alternatively, you can tap the touch screen to single out the face you want the Smile Shutter to be applied. More interestingly, you are given the option of setting one of three smile sensitivity levels from low, medium and high.
Seeing the Smile Shutter work in action is truly a bewildering experience for both the shooter and the subject. Once the camera locks on to the subjects’ face, smiles can be detected in a number of ways. The raising of cheeks and cheekbones, the curving of lips, the showing of teeth and sometimes even the narrowing of eyes can all be recognised as smiles by the camera. However, there are times when it can be less responsive and this was discovered as faces became unclear to the camera’s understanding. If your subjects have bangs that hang to the eyes, wears sunglasses, moves erratically or covers their mouth altogether, the camera will hardly take your photo no matter how hard they are smiling.
Adding a very human element to cameras, Sony’s Smile Shutter function is really like no other. From capturing unpredictable smiles of children to the gracious smile of a bride on her wedding, the Smile Shutter is brilliant for photographing candid moments. To some degree, the Smile Shutter takes away the need of setting up timers for group shots, when all you really need is a smile and your photo will be taken. Olympus has recently wasted no time adding a similar function to its new set of cameras (SP-560UZ, mju 820, mju 1200, FE-280 and FE-300) going slyly by the name of the’ Smile Shot’ scene mode. We don’t blame Olympus for loving the Smile Shutter like they do because DigitalRev has seen plenty of fun and practical use packed in this feature. Sony’s ‘Smile’ has definitely been contagious.
