I am a firm believer in the saying "Your get what you pay for". I am sure that there are many people who are much shrewder shoppers than I am, but most of the time, true QUALITY comes at a premium.

The Sony DSC-P1 Cybershot is no exception to this rule. I bought this camera some months ago, and actually took it with me on a trip to California. Not only was I glad that I had this little buddy around, but I found myself cursing the times that I didn't have it.

Let's first discuss the CONS. There really aren't many to mention. I think the biggest problem I had with this camera was the fact that it was somewhat heavy. Putting it in my outside pocket caused my jacket to unevenly shift to one side, but when I held the camera by the wrist strap, I had no problems. I often would put it in the front pocket of my jeans when I didn't have a coat, but then sitting down with this borderline clunker became somewhat uncomfortable. On another note, I didn't find much use for many of the programmed photo effects. I spent some time trying them out and actually DID use the Sepia tone, and B&W options, but other than that I didn't find much of a need to force pictures to look a certain way. Lastly, the battery life leaves something to be desired, but I must admit that I do overuse the LCD screen, so this probably led to the constant recharging.

Now the PROS. I could really go on about these. First, the camera is an absolute BREEZE to use. Basically, you just turn the sucker on, and snap. That's all. Whether you use the viewfinder or the LCD screen, your pictures will invariably turn out very well. Much of this probably has to do with the Carl Zeiss lens which Sony uses for this camera (Carl Zeiss makes some of the best and most expensive photographic lenses in the world - top quality comes at a premium). I had a few difficulties in low lighting conditions but for some of these I was able to make the necessary adjustments with the auto white balance. A few didn't come out as I had hoped, but the lighting was just far too dim. The red-eye reduction feature was very good, and I only got a few pictures featuring people doing their best imitations of Mephistopheles. Changing between resolutions was very easy, and the intuitive interface on the LCD made (after-the-fact) editing, erasing and organizing the photographs kid play. All the functions were easily controlled, and it was a snap to figure out animation feature without the manual (I didn't bother bringing it with me on the trip). I also managed to record a few sound clips for a few photographs, but my personal tastes made me shy away from this feature (that's just me). The included battery charger was extremely useful, since the battery could be charged directly from the camera even while it was on. This meant that I was able to plug the camera into a wall socket, go through my day's pictures, erasing what was either bad or unusable, and then just leave it on the nightstand to recharge overnight (or even for an hour - that usually was a good amount of juice for the next outing). I managed to fill the included 8MB memory stick, and half fill another 32MB memory stick on my trip. These little varmints are very convenient and fit in your wallet (although I wouldn't suggest that). I wish I had taken two 64MB sticks with me to take all my pictures at hi-res rather than 640x480 (which was nevertheless MORE than adequate). Insertion/removal of the memory sticks is very easy, and you can dedicate different sticks for different purposes (i.e. 32B for LARGE pictures or , 8MB for regular day-to-day snaps), and interchange them as needed during your day. Lastly, transferring the images to my computer was very convenient via the USB port which made the camera look like another hard disk (you simply select all the pictures from the Sony, and copy them to a local hard disk just like regular files). If anyone is interested, the ACTUAL pictures that I took using this camera can be seen ONLINE at the following URL:

http://www.dsp.toronto.edu/~oracle/images/california/california2001-1.html

Sure this baby is pricey, but like I said, you get what you pay for.

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 800.00