I had decided the time had come to take the step into the digital world of photography. I had replaced a compact camera only a few months before believing they were still the best option, but the more I looked into it and thought about it I thought I would like to try a digital camera. After all I had a good 35mm camera (Canon sure shot) to back me up so what had I got to lose (apart from a lot of money!!)
So where do you start?? Perhaps the main consideration has to be budget, I was looking at spending as little as possible (well aren’t we all) and getting the most pixels for my money. (The more mega pixels the better the image quality when producing prints). But my budget quickly changed when I started to consider that I really wanted to spend the extra to get the biggest, affordable mega pixels possible at that time (July 2003), therefore I was looking from 4 million plus. I then narrowed the brands down to consider, Sony and Canon both being brands that I trusted. My 35mm cameras for the last 20 years had been Canon and video camera Sony.
I spent a lot of time on the Internet researching and narrowed down to the Canon Ixus 400 and the Sony P10. Both having features I considered important to me, Image quality (4 million plus), Zoom, Auto features e.g. focus/flash, compact size, Movie mode (the ability to shoot moving pictures with sound), Li-on rechargeable batteries.
So why did I chose the P10 over the Canon?? , mainly price influenced this but also my faith in the quality that I had received from my Sony camcorder for many years. I also went along to Jessops
and had a feel of them both to see which felt easy to handle and quality of casing. Eventually I had the option to buy the P12 for £350, which was a great bargain at the time as Jessops were selling this model for £549!! I was getting more pixels for my money so the Sony won.
Just on the subject of pricing, these cameras have drastically come down in price in the 4 months that I have had mine and are now selling for around £300 (so glad I didn’t pay the RRP!!)
So onto the camera (at last I hear you say!!)
I should at this point just make clear that the Sony DSC P10 and the P12 are the same spec camera, the P12 is basically a special edition that comes in a blue casing with an added spare battery and soft leather case. Also the provided memory stick is bigger (32mb rather than 16mb). This gives you a better deal than purchasing the P10 then adding the extras. All of which you are quite likely to want soon after using your camera for a while.
Personally I think an extra battery is essential, there is nothing more annoying than wanting to use a camera with a flat or low battery and no option to charge until you get home or to a power point. The supplied batteries ( NP-FC11) quote an approx battery life of 90 mins when using to shoot still images under average conditions. Obviously this will be affected if you use the flash more or are viewing images on the LCD. There is an option to save battery life too by turning off the LCD and using the viewfinder like a standard camera, also there is a power save function that can be turned on.Onto Memory Sticks, all digital cameras have to store the images captured somewhere, and Sony have the Memory stick. These start from 16mb which will hold just 6 images taken on the highest quality setting image size (5.0 Mega pixels) or 24 images (1.2M) or 97 (VGA) 32mb 12 images (5.0M) 50 images (1.2M) 64mb 25 images (5.0M) 101 images (1.2M) 128mb 51 images (5.0M) 202 images (1.2M) 256mb 92 images (5.0M) 357 images (1.2M)
there are options to buy Memory sticks up to 1Gb capacity but these cost twice as much as the camera!! Sony sticks certainly aren’t the cheapest on the market. I purchased a 128 stick within days at an extra cost of £50 so that should be considered in budget. If you don’t have the option to download onto PC everyday e.g. while on holiday then you are going to want either a large memory stick or spares to fill up. My intention is to buy an additional stick soon. It isn’t essential if you have access to a PC on a daily basis. Another consideration, if you intend to store images on the stick so you can take it in to be downloaded at a high street store (Boots, Jessops etc) then you will be limited to space. You do have the option to ‘lock ‘ any images so they can’t be deleted by accident.
The camera itself has a good feel, it is small, easy to handle and has a tough metal casing, this is an important thing to me as I had one toddler and a baby on the way so I wanted something that could take a few knocks. It’s not too fiddly either, which I found with some other small digital cameras, I have big hands and some felt lost or hard to handle. There aren’t too many button to negotiate either, which easy to scroll and follow the settings and menu’s. !! The other plus is the size, it come everywhere with me, easily fitting in my small handbag, hubby says it is a good pocket size too.
Using the camera is very easy, I prefer to leave it on 5.0M setting and shoot away, at least then if I do want to print or have printed any images then I have them
Pictures of Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P12
Sunset captured with no flash, set on Auto
stored in the highest quality. You have 5 imagine sizes to set the camera too, 5.0M, 4.5M (3:2), 3.1M, 1.2M and VGA (for creating home pages). Obviously the lower the setting the more images you will fit onto the memory stick, you do have the option to resize any images that are stored on the stick but I find this very long winded and confusing, as you can’t always tell which images you have done and once of P.C they are duplicated.I shoot the majority of my images using auto adjustment mode, this will select the best settings for the current conditions. I would say this is 80% successful but as you get to know the camera you know when to change the flash mode to suit the lighting etc. My one criticism is that if you are trying to shoot in a hurry or in low light you don’t get good results, the image can be out of focus, blurry or badly lit.
The speed of the camera will vary again on light conditions, it can be frustratingly slow when trying to catch a good picture in low light, again this is dependant on flash settings and sometimes by the time the camera takes the photo the moment has passed. For all of you who have taken pictures of children you will know what I mean! There are adjustments for shooting into light sources, red eye etc.
The zoom ranges again are dependant of what image setting you are one. The higher the setting (5.0M) the less zoom you have. There is also an easy to switch to Macro mode for close ups, which gives you a different level of image again, I often shoot a whole stick of the same subject and switch between the macro and normal mode when doing close ups.
You can view any images on the LCD screen and delete anything your not happy with quite easily, there is a quick button to view the last imagine which is useful too. There is also a supplied cable to view through TV. Deleting is easy, although you can’t always see how good the image really is until downloaded onto the computer or seen on a large screen such as TV. You can delete and view individually or the whole lot. Again I tend to shoot a stick download then delete from P.C, as it is easier to see the quality. You can also rotate, zoom and view your pictures as a slide show; again I tend to do all this on the P.C.
The camera can be set up to suit you, adjustment of image quality, exposure, colour tones, flash level etc can all be personalised. There are different modes, e.g. Clip motion, Multi burst, still images with audio attachments. Scene selection modes e.g. Fireworks, Sports, Beach, Snow and landscape, all of which are supposed to allow the camera ideal settings, I have tried a couple of these with not much success. I think it is a case of playing to see what suits but sometimes you don’t have time to do that, as your subject may not be available again. There are also special effects that can be added, solarize, sepia, negative art etc again something that I haven’t really used.
Finally I guess there is the movie mode. You can choose sizes 640(VGA) or 160(mail size) the length of movie is dependant on memory stick size, 16mb on (VGA) 42 seconds 32mb 87 secs 64mb 176 secs 128mb 354 secs 256mb 641 secs
A video camera it isn’t but it is great if you need to capture a moment, and I find generally have plenty of space on my 128mb stick to do this and have room for photo’s too.
The supplied cable to transfer images to P.C is a USB cable and this is quick and easy, I don’t use the supplied software as I find it complicated to follow, I let my windows X.P handle the photo’s and it is great. All numbered and referenced into my chosen files. It also makes it quick and easy this way to download any pictures for printing. The manual is easy to follow and understand, I read it through once when I had the camera and again a month or so later which I found better as you understand the camera better.
As a first time purchaser and user of a digital camera and more importantly the P12, I am exceptionally happy. It is great, I can shoot away filling a whole stick with anything then choose the best to print, I was put off digital cameras because I didn’t want the hassle of printing my own pictures (would need a new printer) but the options to download online or take your sticks in to be ‘developed’ are great. The actual cost to me is less than purchasing a film and having them developed, the major bonus is that I am not paying for pictures that are no good. The quality of the pictures I cannot fault, the colours very true to life and the ease of use is brilliant. As mentioned above my only criticism has to be shooting in a hurry or low light. I would highly recommend this camera to anyone looking at it for a 1st time digital camera, I drive my friends mad talking about it, in fact I am quite proud of it when it comes out!!
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Advantages: Smart looking, lightweight, easy to use but many more functions/settings to discover. Disadvantages: No zoom on Movie Mode. Can't use one battery and charge the other.
carly_pussycat 31.01.2004 (31.01.2004)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P12
Advantages: High picture quality, light weight, many functions, records audio and video Disadvantages: Very complicated to use, flash seems to have a lag
laurencekogan 07.09.2004 (07.09.2004)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful
Review of Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P12
Advantages: Smart looking, lightweight, easy to use but many more functions/settings to discover. Disadvantages: No zoom on Movie Mode. Can't use one battery and charge the other.
carly_pussycat 31.01.2004 (31.01.2004)
·
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P12
Dec 19th, 2003
(Dec 21st, 2003)
very helpful by (100%):
