| A | is outstanding and exceptional, rated in the top 10% of digital cameras. |
| B | means they are good, with some standout features. |
| C | means they are mediocre, and probably more trouble than they are worth. |
| D & F | mean they are absolutely awful or old. Avoid at all costs. |
- 5 out of 5
- 4 out of 5
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- 4 out of 5
Pretty good except for RED-EYE and lack of sufficient manual mode settings
( - 12/14/05)Sony ALMOST did a great job.
Battery life, shot-to-shot delay and flash
recharge cycle times are vastly improved over
older sony models.
The camera works very well in outdoor lighting,
and its' macro mode is good.
It also works fine, while using the flash, as
long as the subject is within 10 feet, AND
the subjects pupils are NOT dilated.
If the subject's pupil are dilated and the
subject is looking at the camera, red-eye is a
problem.
Even when you set the red-eye pre-flash on, it
is not adequate to prevent red eye.
There are many improvement over the older sony
cams but 2 steps back on: a) flash placement,
and b) memory stick changes require power ON/OFF/
ON cycling. Both of these design flaws were not
present in earlier sony cams.
GOOD: battery life, shutter lag, recycle time
between flashes, excellent size LCD display..
POOR: flash is positioned directly above lens.
look at pro-cameras, and you will see the flash is
off-axis to the lens. The reason: red-eye
prevention
other negative: memory stick can not be changed
while the camera is on, as was possible in
previous models. This is annoying; you must
power-cycle the camera to make a 'quick' switch
of the memory. (I think sony wants us all to
have an incentive to throw away our tiny 128MB,
256MB, and 512MB memory sticks!)
I can not comprehend why sony would put the flash
directly above the lens. This creates the perfect
setup for RED-EYE, with the flash bounced back and illuminating your loved-ones eyes as though they are demons. (sometimes it is a good thing,
depending on whom you are photographing)
Other complaint is: if you are going to put a
manual mode on the camera, why in the world would
you limit the selectable number of f stops to
only 2 (for a given amount of zoom). In total,
there are only 3 aperture settings, and I find this disappointing.
I rate it GOOD because it does a good job in
many situations.
However, be prepared for post processing to fix all the red-eye problems you will get.
