Myself and hubby bought this camera at the airport on our way out on honeymoon. I've got a nice little Kodak APS camera, but we felt that for this one occasion we would treat ourselves with some of the wedding present money we had been given to a good digital camera. Upon check-in we made a beeline to the duty-free shops (well tax free or whatever it is now). We wanted something that was good value and that was easy enough so we could learn to use it on the 8 hour flight. So the nice man in Dixons recommended the Sony DSC-P10 camera (possibly because they were on special offer and the shop was doing a roaring trade in them).

**In the Box**
You get...
The camera itself, which has a stylish aluminium body.
The battery and charger, wrist strap and a 32Mb Sony Memory Stick (these are tiny, watch out you dont loose them!). USB and PAL lead.
A CD-ROM containing drivers & utilities, including Sony’s PIXELA Image Mixer.
A huge manual.

**Point & Click**
Being excited with our new purchase we had a quick glance through the quick start section and got snapping...

Taking a simple shot is easy; the camera is set to do most things automatically anyway. You simply turn the dial on the top of the camera onto the camera icon, turn on the power, and you can then take a still photo.
The various options you can set, such as image size and quality, are accessed by selecting from drop-down menus that appear on the monitor. We set the camera to take 1600 x 1200 size images, this equates to a good quality A4 size photo. You can set the size up to 2271 x 1704 (very fine) or as low as 640 x 480 (for emailing) if you wish. On our 128Mb memory stick this equated to 133 photos, or 32 photos on the 32Mb stick provided. However, you can let the camera use the auto focus and default picture size to point and click straight away if you wish (beware the default size is the highest).

So, was it easy to use? Yes, although the size of the manual is off-putting at first. However the sections are helpfully laid out into "getting started" and "shooting still images" etc. so it was easy enough to grasp the important bits in a few minutes.

*Self-Timer
The self timer is like that on a standard camera, you press the clock symbol on the control button to prepare the timer and once you have your image ready you press the shutter. You then have 10 seconds whilst the camera is beeping to get yourself in that shot! We used this function a few times, as when you're walking around rainforests in Canada there aren't always tourists to help you take couple photos!

*Movies & Sound (MPEG)
Also, another one of the wondrous marvels of digital cameras - the ability to take movie clips. Taking little movie clips is almost as simple as taking a photo - you simply set the mode dial to 'movie' and press the shutter button. A red recording symbol on the

Pictures of Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P10

Ucluelet

**Viewing Your Photos**
Downloading your photos to PC and viewing them is dead easy. The camera can be attached via a USB cable to any computer that has Win98 and above.
The drivers and some additional software are provided on the cd-rom. You don't even have to use the software provided. The drivers allow to computer to 'mount' the camera, so it sees the memory stick and your files of photos as another drive. One really great way of viewing your photos is on the TV. The camera comes with a PAL lead that attaches to nearly any TV, and you can view your photos direct from the camera, like having a projector. This is great if you want to show granny or aunt Maude your holiday piccies, but she doesn't own a PC and is too short-sighted to look at the prints!

Exposure Modes - You can adjust the exposure or EV value. Useful if you are shooting a backlit person or a bright snow scene.
White Balance - This effectively alters the colour balance, useful when shooting in special circumstances. You can also select the settings manually for auto, daylight, cloudy, fluorescent and incandescent.
Spot light metering - You can aim at a particular point and meter the light so you can adjust the focus.
Flash Modes - The camera has a standard red-eye reduction mode. You can also set the camera to auto-flash (which I tend to keep it in), Forced Flash (the flash will go off whatever the light) and No Flash. You can also change the brightness of the flash and use the auto-illuminator to help when shooting in dark places.
Multipoint Auto Focus & Centre Focus - The focus point can be either just the centre of the view, for a single subject shot or widened, for example when photographing a couple.
Clip Motion - You can shoot a number of still images consecutively to make a GIF file.
Multi-Picture Burst - Shoots 16 frames in a row, for example when shooting sports action.
Special Effects - You can add special effects to images, such as solarize, black and white, sepia and negative. Not that useful as you can do this when they're downloaded too.
Image Protection - You can specify images that you don't want to be deleted. You can cancel this too, but you have to go through several menus to do it, so you can't delete by accident!

Overall I'm really, really pleased with this camera. It looks good, it's a little a bit heavy, but that makes it feel sturdy in your hands. It's fairly easy to use and takes great quality photos.
My only real complaints are that it doesn't come with much memory, which is obviously going to add to the price. The USB jack cover is a bit weak and flimsy, but it's ok if you're gentle I guess. It also has no carry case, I think for the price of the camera Sony should certainly provide one! Ours sat in the rucksack in a sock for 2 weeks until we got back to the uk and bought a case for it!
I'm hoping that as I get used to the camera and learn a bit more about the different functions, it will help my photographic skills improve.
You wouldn't be able to use specialist filters I guess, but a quick browse through the extras catalogue shows you can buy an underwater case for scuba-diving, so that would be worth trying! There's plenty of room for personal development with this camera, I think it would suit anyone from a beginner like me to a more experienced amateur.