5 out of 5 people found this review helpful.
Sony Cyber Shot - Amazing camera for a low price!
Date of Review: Jun 19, 2008
The Bottom Line: Recommended to anyone from beginner to professional - easy to use, produces sharp pictures!
I adore this camera! It's a wonderful camera for the price – I'm sure much fancier cameras take pictures in a faster sequence, but for a moderate to cheap price, this is an amazing camera.
It's only the second digital camera I've ever owned. The first one (I can't even remember the brand) cost almost the same as this Sony, but the quality of the pictures was awful and grainy. For such a low price – I paid around 130.00 – this Sony goes above and beyond the call of duty and takes amazingly clear pictures!
It has several different settings for indoor, outdoor, indoor w/flash, indoor w/out flash, landscape, snow, water, ultra focused with blurred background, and some I'm probably forgetting. The zoom is amazing as well, focus remains clear even after zooming to the maximum.
If you use the e2 Lithium Batteries by Energizer, they have a very long life. So far, the original batteries I bought are still going. But, if you use the 'video' function frequently, I'm guessing the batteries will drain faster.
The Video function works great as well, although zooming is not enabled for video. Video records clearly and playback is very easy. For that matter, playback of all pictures is easy, as well as deleting those you don't want to keep. Accessing menus is also simple, I didn't even need to read the instruction book to find access to all the menus.
The picture sequence is average – you can't take pictures a fraction of a second, one after another, as with some very pricy cameras, but this camera is ready to snap the next shot immediately after the previous shot is taken.
When I first purchased the camera, I had assumed it took a regular SD card – but it requires a Sony Memory Stick. So, make sure you have one of those on hand since the internal camera memory is very small. At first, I almost returned the camera based on the fact that it didn't take an SD card. (I have a laptop that has an SD slot and it's more convenient). But, on Ebay I found a Memory Stick USB adapter for a few bucks and this has made transporting my picture to the computer very simple.
I would recommend this to anyone who just wants a basic digital camera that takes great pictures in all lighting conditions. I have several friends who are 'camera snobs' who were very impressed by the functionality of this camera inspite of the low price. I've owned it for a year now, it still works as if it were brand new. It's even been dropped a couple of times, but hasn't gotten scratched or broken. The lens automatically goes back inside the camera when you shut it down, making it portable and comfortable to keep in a purse or pocket.
