Sony - DSC P71 Digital Camera Review

In 2001 we purchased our first Sony Cybershot Digital Still Camera (DSC-P71). This camera has photographed everything from the frosty deep-snow mornings working the winter season in Yellowstone National Park, to tolerating the heat and blowing sand of summer in Qatar (near Bahrain) while assigned there with the Air Force. If someone needs a camera, Dad will loan his out. Everyone in the family has used this camera in every situation, and it has never failed to produce photos treasured by the family.

The DSC-P71 is getting to be quite ancient in the line of Cybershots. It's body is bulky compared to the palm-sized W-80 that I keep in my pocket. This bulkiness makes it difficult to take quick, one-handed photos, but that doesn't affect the quality of the picture. Picture quality - we never intended this camera to produce the big framed pictures printed on canvas, but you know what? That can happen with the 3.2 mega pixel quality of this camera. What's even better is that we have some lovely family souvenirs that we can print out on our computer, or share on a disk or upload to a photo sharing website, so that my son in China or sister in Japan can see photos of home and family.

Another ancient feature of this camera is that it uses 2 AA batteries. I much prefer my rechargeable lithium battery. Those two AA batteries last for at most 60 pictures or about 120 minutes, maybe a little more if the batteries are fresh, so you always need to keep some fresh batteries in your pocket for outings.

The P71 is a simple camera. It doesn't have a dozen settings, but it does have macro focusing for me (flowers and insect photos as well as my chicks and ducklings) and 3x optical zoom (not a good zoom for bird photography, but it is nice getting rid of landscapes when you want a "people" picture) . It came with a 16 MB memory stick which we are still using, as well as a USB cable for downloading the photos, though my husband's computer can accept direct insertion of the memory stick. As with the newer Cybershots, there is a built in lens cover - this is my favorite thing about the camera, since I am forever losing the lens caps for my SLR cameras. It's body is made of high-grade plastic (the body looks like we bought it yesterday), and the AF illuminator is just above and to the left of the lens. The AF illuminator helps light up the subject in low-light situations (that red light) and this was not available on all cameras at the time the P71 came out. Of course, the camera takes care of "red eye". The LCD screen is very small (1.5inch square) which is too small for my eyes, so I just use it to make sure my subject is in the picture.

Want to make a movie? This P71 has two different movie options. I've never used the ClipMotion function, which, as I understand it, will give you 10 images about a ½ second apart and present it in movie format (MPEG). With the Multi-Burst you can take 16 shots in a row. People use this for bird photos, studying bowling technique and things like that. I have used it at ball games just for fun (warning: this function eats up battery life). There is no sound recorded by this camera at all.

You can edit the photo while it is still in the camera, but I prefer not to waste my batteries and do editing on the computer screen where I can actually see what changes need to be made. However, I do like the option of showing my subject what a wonderful photo I took of him when using the playback mode.

We bought this P71 when it was first available for a whopping $400+. I almost had a fit because it cost so much - that's why my husband and kids screamed, "Happy Birthday, Mother's Day and Christmas!!" when I finally saw the bill (they figure that if they say it is a gift for me, then I'll let them keep anything they have brought home) . Currently it is available for around $100, and I highly recommend it for folks who need a simple "point and shoot" camera without a lot of options to worry with. We'll keep using it as long as it works, because someone is always saying, "Dad, can I take your camera to. . . . . ?"