Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-P72

Reviews: Electronics

Digital Cameras | PDAs | Communications

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Kurtis Kronk
Brian
Iocombo
Oct. 14, 2003

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Overview

As is readily apparent, this camera has style. Not only does it look nice, it is also lightweight and compact. The DSC-P72 has many features that are sought after by the majority of the market (3 MegaPixel, 3x Optical Zoom + Smart Zoom, Shoots MPEGs, Stylish, Compact!) but it does lack in a couple of areas!

As noted on the Sample Photo page, the camera produces a small amount of noise in images. More noticeable in some shots than in others, there is always a little bit of noise in the photo in various areas. If you need to use a high ISO setting, you will end up having even more noise. This, however, is not the end of the world. When you make the images you shoot a bit smaller, most of the noise becomes much less noticeable. If you intend to print photos from shots taken with this camera, you shouldn't have any quality problems if you shoot at the highest resolution, and then scale down the image accordingly before printing. Shrinking images to 5x7 should yield great results.

Something I would have like to see on this camera is adjustable shutter speed. As it stands, you can make the shutter move slower, but you can't set it to stay open for X amount of time. The shutter speed is determined by the amount of light in the shot, and whether or not you use flash. It would be great if you could set the shutter to stay open for a variable determined by the user (e.g. a certain amount of time (seconds, milliseconds, etc!) rather than have the variable controlled by the amount of light in the composition.

Another thing that I was disappointed to see was the brightness of the movies this camera shot. Unfortunately, if you don't have plenty of light where you are shooting the movie, you may find yourself straining to see when you play it back. Even with EV set to +2.0, movies shot indoors with normal lighting turn out darked than I would expect. On the plus side, you can use video editing software to brighten up the movie. I found that Windows Movie Maker was more than sufficient for this.

One small quibble applies only to those that decide to purchase a Memory Stick Pro.The Memory Stick Pro which is compatible with this device is quite new. In fact it is so new that if I want to take the Memory Stick Pro from the camera and put it into my Sony Vaio laptop to transfer the pictures, I can't. Why is this? It is a sony product, right? Yes, it is, but it was designed before Memory Stick Pro hit the market, and as such, is incompatible. However, the included standard 16MB memory stick is compatible.

Something that could be perceived as a bad thing is the camera's tendency to exaggerate colors. Instead of getting pictures that look true to life, often times you will get pictures that look 'overly' vibrant. However, I find this to be a matter of personal preference. I personally like having brighter colors in my shots, but that's just me.

I was impressed in many ways by this camera. On previous digital cameras I have used, I noticed vignetting and overall dark pictures with little definition and poor color. This camera produces vibrant colors and overall great quality images. The camera's flash mechanism is more than sufficient for dark shots such as low-light indoor shots or twilight portraits. There is no vignetting (darkening of the corners) and with the help of the adjustable EV and White Balance, you don't have to worry about crappy, dark shots.

The camera is very user-friendly thanks to Sony's easy to use menu system and controls. If you are a novice photographer, you can leave the camera on the default Automatic settings so that it determines the correct settings for you.

Battery life isn't something to worry about with the DSC-P72. Sony includes two rechargeable NiMH batteries + a battery charger with the camera. NiMH batteries last much longer than standard Alkaline batteries. In addition to having high quality, long-lasting batteries, the camera can be made to get the most out of the batteries. You can set the LCD's brightness and backlight setting, and if you want you can even turn the LCD completely off and use the optical viewfinder to compose shots.

Something I would like to point out is that the included memory stick may not be enough for your intended use. Sony includes a 16MB memory stick, but you can buy additional memory sticks with much greater capacity. The DSC-P72 does support Memory Stick Pro. In fact, I purchased a 256MB Memory Stick Pro to go with the camera, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend you do the same, especially if you intend to use the camera for vacation or something else that requires many successive shots without transferring images in between shots.

Conclusion

Overall this is a great digital camera. With great image quality, vivid colors, & perhaps best of all it is very easy to use, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this camera to the average user, but if you are an experienced photographer you might want to look at some other cameras with more features. In fact, a friend of mine asked for my suggestion on purchasing a digital camera and ended up purchasing this camera. Furthermore, we liked this camera so much we decided to buy a second one for ourselves. The only real problem with this camera is its tendency to produce noise in images. The noise isn't too noticeable unless you are looking for it.

Pros

Stylish
Compact
Long lasting batteries
Great image quality
3x Optical Zoom + Smart Zoom
Records Movies
Easy to use (point-n-shoot)
Offers limited editing in playback mode
Memory Stick Pro compatible

Cons

Some noise in images
Lack of shutter controls
Movies shot in low light come out a bit dark
User doesn't have full control over settings. (bad for experienced photographers only)

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Page 12 of 12

Home >>

Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: First Looks
Page 3: Camera Controls & Layout
Page 4: LCD Screen
Page 5: Features
Page 6: Included Software (Image Mixer 1.5)
Page 7: Sample Photos Pg. 1
Page 8: Sample Photos Pg. 2
Page 9: Sample Photos Pg. 3
Page 10: Sample Photos Pg. 4
Page 11: Pictures of DSC-P72
Page 12: Overview & Conclusion

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Add Comment

8 User Comments

1 - Posted by EmoMakesMeCry on October 14, 2003 - 10:21 pm

that's the camera that i've been lookin at getting......now to just get the $200

2 - Posted by Kurtis on October 14, 2003 - 10:24 pm

$200? where do you plan to buy it for that amount? lowest ive seen is like $300.

Ebay or something?

3 - Posted by EmoMakesMeCry on October 14, 2003 - 10:27 pm

my friend has one and bought a bigger better digicam so he has offered to sell it to me for $200.

4 - Posted by Kurtis on October 14, 2003 - 10:33 pm

ah nice. don't forget you could get a nice new one from ioCombo $321.95 - $10.00 with coupon code: ttlio0001

$311.95 :D

5 - Posted by Mister E on October 15, 2003 - 9:08 pm

I was just researching this camera... Anyway, thanks for the great review. I just have one question: How long is the shutter lag (time from pressing the button to taking the picture)? I really hate having to wait a second or two to take a picture, and I need to know this before I buy the camera. Any reply would be greatly appreciated.

6 - Posted by Kurtis on October 15, 2003 - 9:40 pm

when you use flash, there isnt really shutter lag, but you ahve to wait for the flash to recharge, which takes 2-3 seconds.

When you use no flash, it will take about half a second to take the shot, and then you can immediately take another picture, but you will want to focus again first which takes about another second.

We use this camera for all our reviews, and i used it on vacation etc... and the short wait wasn't a problem for me

hope this helps, and thanks for your kind words. let me know if you have any more questions

7 - Posted by Neolander on November 23, 2003 - 7:01 pm

I still love my Nikon Coolpix 950, even though it's considered obsolete and in the aging process.

The Nikon Coolpix 950 is only a 2MP digital camera, but I'm still amazed at the quality of the photos it takes that rivals the quality of some of these new 3-4MP cameras. Given the resolution/pixel count is not as high, the balance between the colors and capture of the depth aspect and shadows is amazing.

Since my Coolpix was bought as remanufactured and it's already considered old going on 2-3yrs, it's already showing its signs of wear and tear with the switch that's going out on me, but it still takes awesome pictures :) Nikon is a bit more pricey than other digital cameras, but the quality shows for it.

A review I found on the CoolPix 950:
http://www.steves-digicams.com/nikon950.html

8 - Posted by Guest on April 15, 2004 - 7:10 pm

Great review - extremely through! Nice to have real photos to review as well.

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