surferdude7's Full Review: Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-P72 Digital Camera
The Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-P72 is not only a nice digital camera with good photo quality, it produces the best movies I have seen so far from a photo digital camera.
Movies
Most digital cameras that have a movie mode usually has the largest size of 320 x 240 resolution, with many of them not having sound to go with the movie feature. The DSC-P72 offers you the VGA resolution of 640 x 480 with sound and no time limit on when it shuts off, now you can record the memory stick till it is full.
Sony uses a new MPEG Movie VX System that produces some of the best video I have seen from a digital photo camera.
If you want to send a video-email then the camera offers a lower resolution of 160 x 120. Plus there is a Multi-burst mode that takes 16 frames in a row and Clip Motion that lets you take 10 shots and then it converts then to a GIF file.
If you plan to take a lot of movies I would highly recommend a 128MB or 256MB memory stick. All I had was the included 16MB memory stick and it recorded a little over 5 minutes of movies on it in the 640 x 480 resolution.
The zoom feature doesn’t work in the movie mode.
Overall the movie quality is good but a digital movie camera is better.
Photos
The DSC-P72 is a 3.2 (effective) Megapixels digital camera that gives you a resolution of 2048 x 1536. You can save them is Fine Quality or Standard Quality. The other resolution sizes available are 1632 x 1224, 1280 x 960 and 640 x 480.
With the 16MB card it showed that it would take in the 2048 x 1536 ten photos in the Fine and 18 in the Standard. After shooting the memory stick full I got 19 photos out of the memory stick when it showed it would do only 18. The 18 is a guessed amount by the camera, each photo takes different amounts of memory so you usually end up with more photos than the camera originally showed. In the 1280 x 960 it showed it would take 24 photos in the Fine Quality and 47 in the Standard Quality.
For printing it printed beautiful color prints as large as 8 x 10 inches in the 1280 x 960 resolution. Printing a photo from a 2048 x 1536 resolution showed no noticeable improvements in the 8 x 10 inch print.
The Look!
It is a small silver in color camera that can easily fit into the palm of your hand. It measures 4.75 inches wide x 2.38 inches high x 1.31 inches deep.
There is an true zoom optical viewfinder plus a 1.5 inch color LCD display that can be used for photo editing, taking and camera adjustments.
It has a F2.8, 3X optical zoom lens, with a focal range of 6mm - 18mm, this is equivalent to a 39mm - 117mm in a 35mm camera. The lens is not threaded and it has a built-in lens cover.
To the left of the lens is the AF illuminator, this helps to light up the subject in low-light conditions and to assist in focusing. Above the AF illuminator is the built-in microphone. You will also find a small built-in flash on the front top of the camera.
It takes about two seconds from when you turn it on and the lens extends out for use.
Memory
The DSC-P72 uses a memory stick for storage and this camera supports the Pro Format that has capacities up to 1GB. One Gigabyte is great, though they only include a 16MB card.
Power
The camera is powered by 2 AA 2100 mAh NiMH rechargeable batteries that produce about 3 hours of usage depending on how much you use the LCD. This is pretty good for only two AA batteries.
Included is a charger that takes about 6 hours to fully charge the batteries.
You can purchase an optional AC power supply to connect to the camera.
Other Features
3 Area Multi-Point Auto Focus
14-Bit DXP A/D Conversion
AF (Auto Focus) Illuminator
Scene Selection Mode
Multi-Burst Mode
Multi-Pattern Measuring
Auto Daylight Synchro Fill Flash
Pre-Flash Metering
ISO Auto, 100, 200, 400
Shutter Speed Auto, 1/30 – 1/2000 sec, Twilight 2 sec – 1/1000
Manual Exposure ±2.0 EV, 1/3 EV Steps
White Balance of Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent and Incandescent
Picture Effects of Black & White, Solarize, Sepia an Negative Art
Scene Modes of Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Landscape, Beach and Snow
Flash Modes of Auto, Forced On, Forced Off, Slow Synchro, Red-Eye Reduction and On/Off.
Self Timer of 10 seconds
Video Output NTSC/PAL Selectable
Photo images in the JPEG format
USB 2.0
Windows 98/98SE/Me/2000 Professional/XP Home/Pro
Macintosh OS 8.5.1/8.6/9.0/9.1/9.2
Overall
The Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-P72 is small but feels good and solid. The photos turn out very good with the best quality and size I have seen in the movie mode for a digital photo camera. Very little to no shutter lag depending on your lighting conditions.
The 1.5 inch LCD is a little too small for me, I would love to see digital cameras with a 2.5 to 3 inch LCD. Sony did well on including the rechargeable batteries and a charger, I recommend an extra set of batteries so you have a charged set with you at all times.
My biggest complaint with this camera and all I have used is, the too small of a memory card or stick. A 16MB card or stick is too small, a 32MB or 64MB stick would have been a lot nicer. My other complaint would be there is no diopter correction on the optical viewfinder.
No TIFF record mode, only JPEG! Who cares, I don’t, I have used the TIFF on every camera that I have used and find it to be just a big memory eater, the JPEG format for me produces excellent photo quality.
The ability to use a memory stick as large as 1GB is a nice option and I was glad to see it.
The camera can be used as an auto focus point-and-shoot camera or you can use it in a manual mode.
Sony is on the right track when they added the movie option with sound on the DSC-P72. I highly recommend this little beauty.
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