Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P200

Review Date: October 24th 2005

Features

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P200 has a 7.2 megapixel, 1/1.8 inch CCD. There are 2 image quality size settings available (Fine and Standard) and 5 image size settings (7M, 3:2, 5M, 3M and 1M), which are recorded as JPEGs. There are no RAW or TIFF formats. The camera's 3x optical zoom lens is equivalent to a 38-114mm lens on a 35mm format camera. There is also a 6x digital zoom should you feel the need to use it. The camera supports Memory Stick / Memory Stick PRO memory cards. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P200 is available in 3 colours - Red, Silver and Black.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P200 offers Auto, Program and Manual exposure modes plus 9 different scene modes (Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Soft Snap, Landscape, Beach, Snow, Fireworks, High-speed shutter, Candle). The maximum aperture is f2.8 (wide) – f5.2 (tele), and the shutter speed range is 30 secs. – 1/2000 sec. There are 3 ISO speeds ranging from 100 to 400 and an Auto option. There are 5 different White Balance presets to choose from (Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent, Incandescent, Flash), plus Auto and Custom settings. The camera offers exposure compensation in ± 2 in 1/3 EV stops. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P200 offers 3 different auto-exposure metering options - Multi, Center and Spot.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P200 has a normal shooting mode, Self-timer, a Burst mode, which allows you take up to 1.1 frames/sec for 5 shots at the 7M Fine setting, and a Multi Burst mode which records 16 frames (image size is reduced to 1M). There are 3 different colour modes on offer - colour, black and white and sepia. The Macro setting allows you to focus on subjects that are as close as 6cms. the camera offers 3 auto-focusing modes - multi, center and spot. You can also one of the 5 focus presets which range from 0.3m to infinity. The built-in flash offers 4 different modes (Auto, Forced Flash, Slow Synchro, No Flash). Flash compensation is also available and there is a red-eye reduction mode and an AF illuminator. Noise reduction is automatically applied to long-exposures. Sharpness, saturation and contrast can each be altered in 3 steps.

To compose your images, you can use the LCD monitor or the optical viewfinder. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P200 has a 2 inch colour TFT LCD monitor which has 134,400 pixels which offers 100% scene coverage. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P200 can record movies with sound at 3 different settings - 640 Fine (640x480, 30fps), 640 Standard (640x480, 16.6fps) and 160 (160x112, 8.3fps). Video is recorded in the MPEG1 format. The length of the video is only limited by the size of the memory card that you are using. A histogram is available in both shooting and playback mode. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P200 supports the DPOF (Digital Print Order Format), Print Image Matching and PictBridge printing standards.

The camera's dimensions are 104 (W) x 51.5 (D) x 27.9 (H) mm, and it weighs 144g without the battery and storage card fitted. The camera is powered by either the supplied rechargeable lithium-ion battery or the AC adapter. There is a plastic tripod mount in the center of the bottom of the camera. Both wide and telephoto conversion lenses can be fitted via the 30mm filter thread.

Finally, the standard box kit contains a InfoLITHIUM NP-FR1 battery, AC Adaptor (AC-LS5), AV Cable, USB Cable, Memory Stick 32MB, Wrist Strap and a CD-ROM containing Sony software. Note that you can only store 9 images at the highest quality setting on the supplied 32Mb memory card. You will therefore need to invest in some more Memory Sticks to store your images on.

PhotographyBLOG is a member of the DIWA organisation. Our test results for the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P200 have been submitted to DIWA for comparison with test results for different samples of the same camera model supplied by other DIWA member sites.