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Sony Ericsson Xperia Play review: Camera
Toting a five-megapixel camera, the Xperia Play can produce beautiful images. Unfortunately, once again it suffers from inconsistent software muddying the offering.
Don't get us wrong, there are loads of options, including a host of white balance settings, scene modes, exposure control, colour effects and quality settings. Plus, on the hardware front, there's a decent flash.
What the Xperia Play lacks, oddly, is a zoom function, at least that we could find. We tried double tapping, pinching, scoured the menus, but nada. Also, there seems to be no way of picking out what you want to focus on beyond the auto, infinity and macro options. It's a real disappointment, because as you'll see, the camera itself is great.
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CLOSE UP: We got this sharp image using the macro mode. The colours are vivid and some of the detail on the central flower's petals is amazing
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CLOUDY DAY: Wider shots are a little more prone to fuzziness. The overcast sky is slightly overexposed here, too
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WIDE SHOT: The central area of grass here is quite pixellated at full size. Still, the colour rendition is good
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MOVEMENT: The Xperia Play handles moving subjects reasonably well. It's a shame we couldn't have focused more and zoomed in on the central subject, though
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CONTRAST: The Xperia Play has failed to capture all the detail in this dark bronze lion against a brighter sky, but it's done really well considering that we took this shot to tax it
