Fantastic travel camera
Written: Jul 24 '05
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Pros: 1. Phenomenal battery life 2. Fast start-up and little shutter lag 3. Pocket-sized.
Cons: 1. Poor manual 2. Not great in low-light 3. Many screen icons
The Bottom Line: Great for travel - it is pocket-sized, has a great battery, and enough manual controls for those who want to use them.
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| gstriph's Full Review: Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-P200 Digital Camera |
I like a camera that will fit in your pocket for use when traveling and have been a Nikon Coolpix user for years. I was looking for a camera with great battery life because recharging and spares can be difficult on the road, pocket-size so I'd actually have it with me, and some control over exposure with either scene modes or manual controls. I wanted at least 5 mp because I like to crop a lot and play in Photoshop.
There are a lot of professional reviews with all of the nitty gritty details (e.g. Steves Digicams website http://www.steves-digicams.com/2005_reviews/p200.html) so these are my personal observations.
Size: There are skinnier and lighter ones out there but this is small enough to easily fit in a guy's pants pocket or shirt pocket without turning on...yet big enough to hold securely for good photos. It has a 2 inch LCD and an optical view finder as well. The view finder shows about 80% of the true photo area -- this is really annoying but many of its competitors are doing away with viewfinders. I like to be able to hold the camera close to my face in low light for less of a camera shake. The LCD is fine in bright light but has an erratic performance in low light so the viewfinder is good to have for that too. There are thinner and smaller cameras out there but they lack the depth of features or have relatively poor battery life so you have to carry extra batteries.
Modes: There is a fully automatic mode that works well. There is a manual mode -- you can select 2 f-stops (varies by focal length of the lens) and all of the shutter speeds. This sounds useful but I'm not really sure of the real need for this mode given the scene modes which do the same thing. It's not a true manual -- you can't pick any f-stop but it does allow you to force a particular shutter speed. Unlike 35 mm photography, you can't really pick a wide aperture to blur the background by depth of field because the DOF is fairly large in a compact digital camera. The manual mode will also tell you how far off you are from the camera's thoughts about the correct exposure. There is a program mode which basically lets you modify the automatic mode -- i.e. the camera selects but you can purposely over or under expose, sharpen, saturate, change the white balance, etc. There is a live histogram display to guide you if you understand how to use it. There is a movie mode. I've always thought this was a joke in a digital camera but this one does a great job! On my first day playing with it, I shot a video from about 10 feet from the action and burned it directly to a CD. It was amazing -- the sound and quality were really quite good. The scene modes include the usual -- sports, portrait, landscape, etc. It would be really nice if the LCD showed the name of the mode in English (like Nikon) instead of just some obscure icon. Finally there is a display mode that is fairly routine.
Battery: This is just remarkable. The battery life is better than any digital device I've ever used and the indicator of remaining time seems pretty accurate. I know people will flame me on this, but this is the first digital camera I've ever had where a spare battery just doesn't seem that needed -- it has several hours of use on a single charge and seems to last longer than the manual would suggest.
Speed: The professional reviews have these things timed to the millisecond -- my comparison is the the Nikon Coolpix. Start up is fast - around 1-2 seconds to start and less than 1 to turn off. Prefocused there is almost no shutter lag and prefocus seems to be somewhere around 0.5 seconds. It seems to buffer and move on quite quickly.
Sharpness: This camera seems to have problems in certain situations according to some reviewers. I have gotten sharp photos in normal room and bright light and with the flash. In dim light, without the flash, I've seen better jobs with other cameras (and miss the Nikon's "best shot selector" mode). It has an orange focus light in low light that is distractingly bright to others around you. Overall, I'm pleased. It has spot, center, and average focusing modes.
Menus: Things aren't always where I'd put them. I'd say this is average for other cameras but nothing to brag about.
Screen: The LCD is bright except in dim light (where it is variable). There are a *lot* of little icons that it can show you and I'm not sure that a mere mortal would be able to remember them all.
Flash: I was pleasantly surprised. The flash was pretty strong. I took a dinner table of 8 photo out to about 12 feet and everyone turned out pretty bright. The program menu allows you to set flash to higher or lower intensity. Red eye seems to be less of a problem then most cameras that I've used...however, the in-camera red-eye reduction requires searching down several levels in a menu system -- it is not on the camera back (where , inexplicably, slow-synchro is taking up this valuable turf). Other choices are off and always-on.
Manual: The manual is bare bones. There is a read-first foldout then the paperback. Anything that is in the fold-out is not repeated in the book so you better keep and look at both. It is not well written. Fortunately, the camera is fairly self-explanatory because Sony is not helping you here.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 327
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
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Epinions.com ID:
gstriph
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Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 1 member
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