It's always interesting, sometimes challenging, learning to work with a new piece of equipment, and the Sony's new DSC-h9 camera is no different. There are some new things, some annoying things, and some downright challenging things. Here are a few that I've worked out.

Finding a good one The first challenge, it turns out, was finding a DSC-H9 that worked properly. I've covered this adventure in the two previous posts.

White balance I've seen this problem from my camera, and several other users have reported this problem as well. If you leave the camera in its default mode of "WB Auto," it works pretty well most of the time. But every once in a while, I take two shots in a row and one comes out with a distinct yellow cast. The happens to me indoors, usually near fluorescent lighting. I'm not sure what triggers this problem, but my answer for now is to use one of the other white balance settings rather than "Auto" when working indoors. In fact, the custom white balance (last one on the right) may give you a better rendering when working indoors, due to the many types of light that you might find.

Shutter release The DSC-H9 is the fourth digital camera I've owned with image stabilization that helps to keep pictures sharp at the slower shutter speeds. So I was puzzled when some of my early shots with this camera came out blurred. I think that the shutter release may be part of the problem. When you press the DSC-H9's release, it goes about half way down, then stops as the focus and exposure settings are adjusted. But pressing it further seems to take a lot of pressure and it suddenly goes the rest of the way with a snap. This action took a lot of getting used to. What I did was, with the camera off, play with this button, pressing it a number of times until I was comfortable with the feel of it.

Using the Remote control The DSC-H9 comes with a nifty remote control. It's possible to use this remote release for nature photography so that you can position yourself away from the camera and use the remote to trigger it when a subject appears.

The sensor for the remote's signal is on the front of the camera. If you're positioned behind the camera, you can use a small mirror, or even a judiciously placed piece of tinfoil in front of the camera to capture the remote's infrared beam for the camera's sensor.

The only problem is that the camera will automatically shut down after a few minutes and there's no menu item to disable this. But you can use the remote to trick the camera. Just press the remote's "Menu" button and the camera will stay on indefinitely. Just press the remote's red shutter button to take a picture. Then Press the "Menu" button again to lock the camera so it won't shut down.

Auto review The DSC-H9 has an optional "Auto Review" mode that lets you see the picture you just took, holding it in the viewfinder for about two seconds. But sometimes two seconds is too short for a real close look, and sometimes it seems like forever. For the first problem, just keep your finger on the shutter button after you take the picture. This locks the playback on until you release the shutter. To quickly get ready for another shot, jab the shutter button and this will take it out of "Auto Review" before the two seconds is up.

The "Quality" setting Unlike most other digital cameras, the DSC-H9 lacks a traditional "Quality" setting. You can only set it to things like "8 megapixels," "3:2" (Same as 8, but cropped top an bottom to change the aspect ratio), and "5 megapixels."

People who have read the data from stored images have found that images stored at other than the "8 megapixel" setting have slightly lower compression and theoretically better quality. Some users have reported getting better results at the "5 megapixel" setting. I tried these variations but my tests weren't precise enough to see a difference. It's certainly an area that bears further exploration.

That darned adapter ring Earlier models of the "H" series had an adapter ring that screwed into the front of the camera and covered the part of the lens that extends and retracts. This tube served the dual purpose of protecting the lens and allowing filters, accessory lenses, and the included sunshade to be attached to the camera.

The DSC-H9 has a wider angle lens than previous models and, as a result, the adapter ring is a monster measuring about three inches across the front. Sony gave the front of this tube a 74mm thread, rather than the industry standard 72mm thread. Therefore, the only filters that will fit this thing are the few made by Sony. And Sony forgot to make a lens cap for this beast.

Additional problems are that the adapter blocks the flash, the infrared illuminator for the Nightshot feature, and it casts a shadow when trying to get close for microphotography. After a few days of struggling with this, I put it away. There's a third-party company working on an adapter ring that will work properly with this camera.

Fiddling with the lens cap As a result of the above problems with the adapter ring, I've been using Sony's supplied lens cap and its tether string. This works well, but you can't use filters. The other problem is that you can't put the lens cap back on the camera without first turning the camera off. But when you do this, the lens retracts fairly quickly, and I guess that's what Sony had in mind.

Gridlines For some reason, I have a lot of trouble keeping vertical lines vertical when I shoot pictures. Sony has put in a feature where you can turn on a set of gridlines to help with aligning things. It's in the Setup menu under "Shooting Settings 1."

I bought these accessories Eight gigabyte memory stick, extra battery, rapid battery charger BC-TRG (it's smaller and three times faster than the original one),.

Slave flash The DSC-H9 doesn't have a way of directly attaching to an external flash unit, but you can use a wireless slave flash. In fact, I already had one that worked just fine with this camera. It's a Phoenix D91-BZS. On the back of the flash are two switches for setting up the flash. For the DSC-H9, set the first switch on the flash to "2N." This is needed because the camera's flash actually goes off twice, but the shutter is only open on the second flash. The other switch sets the output strength of the slave flash. I have it set on "A4" which is the weakest setting, but seems fine. You can experiment with this setting for the best results.

Additional hint: If you're using a slave flash, you can turn down the power of the DSC-H9's internal flash (it's on the main menu). This will lower the drain on the camera's battery and will speed up the recycling time.

Black and white photography A century ago, photographers like Weston and Steichen worked in black and white. Unfortunately, when they looked at their camera's groundglass, they saw the image in color and had to imagine what it would look like in black and white. One solution was a viewing glass with a deep blue tint that rendered the scene monochromatic and gave some idea of what it would look like in black and white.

Lucky me, the DSC-H9 can be set to view and shoot in black and white. (My earlier DSC-F707 didn't do this.) I know that you can shoot in color and then postprocess the image to black and white, but there's nothing like actually seeing it that way in the camera. To try it, just look for the "Color Mode" settings on the main menu. Black and white is the last choice on the right.