Sony Cyber-shot P10
The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P10 was the first digital camera bought purely for taking pictures.
Previously, before the boon of digital cameras, a 300 Kilopixels (300 thousand pixels) resolution webcam from Aiptek was used for taking
digital pictures for processing on the computer. That proved quite unacceptable, as the quality was
quite poor. At the time of purchase (2004), this Cyber-shot was one of the top digital cameras for the consumer. It
offers 5.1 Megapixels (5 million pixels) resolution. Although there was a 8 Megapixel version available at
the time of its release, that one was mainly targeted toward photography professionals.
Mainly used for taking digital pictures, this digital camera has functioned quite well as an
MPEG-1 video recorder. Note that at VGA screen resolution, it
only records movies at 640x480 resolution similar to a webcam.
Here are some pointers that may help people who use digital cameras, with some advice specifically targetted towards Sony
Cybershot digital cameras:
- The camera does not support black and white pictures. However, it supports Sephia, which is just like black and white, except instead of shades of grey, its in shades of tan color.
Maybe this was added in instead of B&W because Sephia seems to look better than B&W.
In any case any picture in Sephia can be converted by paint software to b&w (but you can convert color pictures to B&W using paint software too)
- Blurry images can be eliminated by choosing the correct options.
It is eliminated completely if you force the flash to happen (via option) during each picture. The flash brightness is adjustible.
Blurry images happen only if the scene is bright enough and the default options automatically turns off the flash, and you can't keep the image steady.
The only problem comes is when you wish to take pictures of places that are not too bright and the objects are too far away for the flash to brighten.
In this case, forcing the flash to happen will remove any blurry images, but the long distant objects will be dark.
For this special case, you need a steady hand or a tripod. Why do blurry images happen?
Because the aperature is left open longer to gather more light for the scene. (Otherwise it becomes too dark in the picture).
Any movement during the time it is open will end up being blurry. If you leave the flash on, the camera always assumes there will be enough light,
so it always closes the shutter fast, removing blurry images.
- Cool accessory to have for this camera is the 2.6X telephoto lens VCL-DH2630 (requires another separate adapter body VAD-PHA as well).
It increases the total optical zoom to 7.8 times, which you will not regret having if you are taking scenic pictures.
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- The camera can take 22 minutes 37 second movies with the included 32MB memory stick if you choose the 160 pixels wide movies.
And with the default 32 megabyte memory stick, you can only take 1 minute 27 seconds of 640 pixels wide movies.
Increase the stick size, you and increase the length of movies proportionally.
So with 2GB memory stick, you get more than 24 hours of 160 pixel wide movies, and one and a half hour 640 pixels wide movies (length of most theatrical movies).
And they all include audio! Obviously, you would need to upgrade your memory stick to take advantage of long recording times.
A recommended one is the Sandisk Memory Stick Pro Duo 1GB, which allows you to squeeze in about 45 minutes at full 640x480 VGA resolution.
The 2GB and 4GB are also available for a higher price.
- The camera has a deep list of features. Most of the people who use it will use the default automatic mode.
There are two other modes (scenic, and programmable) that you can activate by turning the dial.
It is in these other modes that you can get special features or tune your picture capturing options.
The only thing you can't manually adjust is the focus, but the camera comes with many different auto-focus settings and predefined focus increments.
Sony Cyber-shot P10 discussion group
For those that have questions or need help with Sony Cyber-shot cameras visit Technology Depot.