electronics Sony Cyber Shot DSC-P93 opinions and reviews

Sony Cyber Shot DSC-P93

Targeted primarily at snapshooters who demand easy to use features and a handful of manual operations, Sony Cyber Shot DSC-P93 integrates a 5-megapixel sensor and a 3x optical zoom.

A slick, curvy design apart, it has excellent built quality and is very much portable thanks to its weight and dimensions (236 g & 117.2 x 53.7 x 35.8 mm respectively).

Placement of the controls on the camera is highly logical. You can locate a mode dial on top which permits you to exploit the shooting options and scene modes. At the back, buttons for flash, macro, self-timer etc are positioned.

A 1.5-inch LCD integrated is radiant no doubt but just too tiny for one’s liking. Ditto with the optical viewfinder.

P93 accommodates all the vital user-friendly features. For shooting in varied environs there are six scene modes; Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Soft Snap, Landscape, Beach and Candle. White Balance settings comprise Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent, and Incandescent. You can also add special effects like black-and-white and sepia to your pictures.

In the Burst mode, you get 9 consecutive shots at a reasonably swift rate of 1.4fps. While the macro shots taken weren’t great, an AF lamp illuminates nicely for adequate focusing in the night.

Pictures can be taken up to a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1944. Resizing the captured images is also possible. Inclusion of the histogram is a helpful feature. Another impressive function is its compatibility with wide-angle and telephoto conversion lenses.

Video shooting can be done in three MPEG modes; 640 x 480 at 30 and 16.6fps. For emailing purposes, you can capture lower resolution videos (160 x 112 at 8.3fps).

Internal memory capacity is limited as it is packaged with a 16MB card. But being compliant with the Memory Stick Pro, you can insert cards of as high as 1GB capacity.

Starting up the camera will take you less than 3 seconds. Powered by the 1,850mAh nickel-metal-hydride AA batteries, P93 doesn’t stop before competing close to 1,000 shots.

Unfortunately, the picture quality of P93 is nothing more than mediocre. Colour interpretation was nearly precise even as sharpness is lacking. Fringing is minimal but high contrast pictures look jaded. To compound the misery, noise is aberrant even at ISO 100 forget analyzing this feature using 400.

Ample of features are present for the beginner photographers. But there are many other cameras in this category delivering superior picture quality.