Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P10

Author's product rating:   

Picture Quality	Excellent
Range & Quality of Features	Diverse
Ease of Use	Very Easy
Durability	Good
Overall Look & Design	Excellent
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Compact, easy and fun to use
Disadvantages:	Memory stick provided is not sufficient  -  Further sticks can be expensive

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Being a dedicated manual user for many years I felt I had to catch up. After many months of complete bafflement, Itried to find out from numerous magazines and web sites what would be the easiest and best camera to use.
I decided to take the leap on a trip to Canada last year, and put myself in the capable hands of an assistant at Dixon's at Heathrow airport. After demonstrations of several different makes I plumped for this camera , mainly due to its ease of use and nice looks.
I have tried to make this review as user friendly as I can for the technophobes, with whom I sympathize as I am one.

The Camera

Push and point button on top
Power button on/off also on top
Menu button on back
LCD Screen and button on back
Option dial on back
Zoom and wide angle buttons on back
DC in port on back
Flip up memory stick port on bottom
Tripod screw hole on bottom
Batter access on side
Zoom on front

Viewfinder/LCD screen

The Sony DSC P10 features two methods of viewing the image that you want to take a picture of. One is an optical viewfinder (this a traditional view finder. You use it by putting the camera up to your eye ) remember that the image in the view finder is always just slightly higher than the picture you will actually get, so make sure head shots are in the centre of the picture to avoid cutting them off. The view finder is at the rear of the camera.

The LCD screen also at the back of the camera is nice and bright with good colour definition. You can use this to view your shot. This is done by just by holding the camera in front of your face (as close or as far away as you want - at arms length if you want to, what you see on the screen is what you will be taking a picture of) and then you just press the same button as if you were looking through the view finder. The LCD also acts a bit like TV screen for viewing the pictures after you have taken them. The only thing to remember when using the LCD screen is that it becomes a bit dull in bright light but you can usually over come this by cupping your hand around the screen, This forms a shield from the light.
The LCD screen is also where the information display appears when you want to edit pictures or change speeds and settings etc.

Lens

The P10 features a f2.8-f5.2/38-114mm (which basically means you can get in reasonably close to an object by using the zoom without distortion or focusing problems, you can then zoom out wide enough for a pretty ggod panoramic shot - However there is a little distortion at the extreme end of the wide zoom where the image has a tendency to bow a little( this is like looking through a fish eye lens, but hey it can make for interesting shots) .There is a 3 x optical zoom which adjusts the zoom ratio according to the image resolution (so you don't have to) Optical zooms are clearer and have a better digital resolution . The 4 x digital zoom can be used with the LCD screen to zoom in on the image once you have taken it.
When you turn the camera on and off or press the zoom/wide option buttons the lens moves in and out of the camera body - Sounds silly but I found that action very satisfying and professional.

Zoom

The camera has a 4x digital zoom which means once you have taken a photo you can zoom in using the LCD screen, you also have options to crop and resize the image, although I prefer to do this using an image editing package once the photos have been downloaded to PC. The camera also has Auto-Focus, which is very good, but it can on occasion be a little bit slow if you want to take a quick shot, however you can turn this off if you wish.

Focus

Manual (which I have to say was far to tricky and unnecessary really - I used it twice and gave up). It has three AF area Multi-Point AF or Centre AF (available through the record menu) point only. Users can select (through the Setup menu) Single AF mode---focus is locked by slightly depressing the shutter button. Monitoring mode adjusts focus continuously and locks focus when the shutter button is slightly depressed. Continuous AF adjusts continuously (even after the Shutter button is slightly depressed). See, very complicated, Hence the long sentence.

Auto focus - Which is so simple. There are several options available,the camera has settings for a range of environments,
Landscape mode sets focus at infinity,
Night scene mode uses slower shutter speeds of up to 2 seconds
Slow-synch flash that lights up the foreground This includes Twilight and Twilight Portrait for poorly light conditions, The Snow setting allows you to adjust the white balance which lessens the greyness and tendency of images to be too bright.

Movie Mode and sound (MPEG format)

The camera allows you to shoot very good quality video clips (640 x 480 at 15 frames per second ) along with audio. The clip length is limited to the size of Memory Stick capacity. The lapsed recording time and time you have remaining plus memory space available are displayed on the LCD.
It is almost as easy as taking a photo - you have to set the dial to the 'movie' setting then press the shutter button once. A red recording symbol on the LCD display indicates that you are shooting. To stop shooting, press the shutter again.
The quality is not as good as you would get by using a dedicated video camera, but its good enough to watch back at home or on Your PC (where you could improve it with editing soft ware)

Flash

The multi mode built in flash provides Auto, Red-Eye Reduction, Fill, Slow-Sync, and off settings, output intensity is adjustable, which is great for macro shots and close up work.
The area that the flash will light up is very good, you will be able to illuminate an outside scene to about 10 feet if you set the setting at high.

Viewing Your Photos

This is where you can use the LCD screen. Using the arrow buttons on the reverse of the camera, select the viewing mode and scroll through each image, there are also several editing options available at this stage.

Downloading your photos to PC and viewing them is very easy. The camera can be attached via a USB cable to any computer that has Windows 98 and above.

The drivers and some extra software are provided on the CD. The drivers automatically read the memory stick whilst still in the camera, or you can remove the memory stick and insert it in either, the card reader port on the PC or via a separate portable card reader (The manual explains all the options very well) The camera also comes with a lead that attaches to nearly any TV, and you can view your photos direct from the camera,

Battery
The camera comes with a rechargeable Info Lithium Battery . Depending on how many photos you take and the weather conditions (I will elaborate later) If you remember to turn the camera off after you view the images, it should last up to 2 hours for a non stop photo taking fest. If you forget ot turn it off between shots then magfically the camera will register it is not in use and turn itself off.
When I was talking about weather just now I need to point out that it may be wise to spend a bit of extra cash and buy some more heavy duty Lithium batteries, the ones that come with the camera are not really that powerful. If you intend going some where cold, say -10c or below you might find that the battery was just not up to it. We found this to our dismay in Canada. The camera would suck all the juice out of the battery within 5 minitues of exposure to the air, leading to yours truly, having to regularly tuck the camera under her arm pit, hoping to warm it up a bit to get it going - all very strange, as our cheap shoot and point Canon seemed to be just fine on normal batteries.

Memory sticks
Our camera came with 1X 32MB Memory Stick PRO, which only gives you 10 to 12 pictures on the highest quality setting. Memory Stick PRO cards are available in sizes of up to 1 Gigabyte, most other makes of Memory Stick only go up to 128 MB.
Memory Stick PRO cards are faster than standard Memory sticks but they are far more expensive than comparable flash media. I would suggest that you purchase a memory stick with a higher capacity, or see if the shop will do you a deal, unless of course you already have other items that use a compatible memory stick. However, memory stick prices are always dropping and in such a competitive market it is worth shopping around for extra storage, as you may find yourself on a trip where there are no facilities to download your pictures to disc to free up memory space.

Who is this camera Best Suited For?

Beginners who don't want to learn about f-stops, shutter speeds, exposure settings, complex compensation settings, or ISO sensitivity, New to digital and casual photographers, who know all of the above but want good quality high resolution images.
Technically I don't' think that it would appeal to demanding photographers who will quickly tire of its limited selection of advanced features they could use. However saying that I think it makes a handy addition to a semi professional camera persons Kit. It is great for catching those quick "oh I wish I'd had my camera" shots as it is small and compact enough to carry in your pocket

Technical Specifications & what you get

Resolution: 5 mega pixels (2592 x 1944)
Viewfinder
1.5" LCD screen
Lens: f2.8-f5.2/38-114mm
3x zoom lens
Exposure: Automatic plus 7 additional scene modes
Metering: Evaluative and Spot
White Balance: Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent, and Flash.
Sensitivity: Auto, (which are equivalent to film speeds of 100, 200, 400 ISO)
Shutter Speeds: 1/2000th of a second (to capture quick moving objects) up to 2 seconds
In Camera Image Adjustment
Noise Reduction
Connectivity: USB 2.0 and A/V out
Image Storage Media: Memory Stick
Power: Sony NP-FC11 3.6V 780 mAH Info LITHIUM rechargeable battery pack
User CD ROM
Soft case
Instruction manual

Price

We Paid £240 from the Dixon's at Heathrow and purchased a separate 128mb memory Stick from a branch of Radio Shack in Canada for $60 (which at the time was about £20 - jammy eh, they were £40 or so then back home)