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Sony DSCU50 CyberShot 2MP Digital Still Camera with 3x Optical Zoom (Silver)

Sony DSCU50 CyberShot 2MP Digital Still Camera with 3x Optical Zoom (Silver)

List Price: $399.99
Your Price:
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The E:92:00 error: A SOLUTION!
Review: It seems that EVERYONE is having this error pop-up at some time or another using this camera.

Call $ony and they'll tell you to send it to them along with $139.00 and they'll fix it.

Well, don't do that. You can fix it for $0.10, and here's the reason it blinks that error and how to fix it:

The problem is the battery isn't making a good enough contact. After you put the battery in, place a dime on top of it and shut the battery door.

My camera works fine now.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Sony continues to make the best!
Review: Ive had a few digital cameras in the past 2 years, but none of the came to the quality and features that I wanted. Being the techno freak I am, I wanted a camera that could do anything I wanted it to. I was almost set on an Olympus when this Sony came in at my work. It was love at first site. For a bit more money I was getting a much better zoom, movie recorder and Sony quality. Needless to say, I got it on my Birthday and I could not be happier. Setting it up is incredibly easy *as most of Sony products are* and using it makes even a novice an expert with a few hours of practice. The layout of the camera is comfortable and lightweight, Easily held in one hand to take pictures. The LCD is bright and crisp and show almost no slowdown when viewing it. A very nice turn nob selects the mode on the camera, No more fiddling with menus on the LCD. The 3xoptical zoom is great when you want to get a little closer. An optional 6xdigital is there to, but the pictures turn out to fuzzy. This camera could do anything you want it to, macro shots, low light, fast action, low light, low background light, movies,clip art, clip motion, red eye reduction and more! The menus system is very straightforward, hard to screw up. Picture quality is awesome. Though sometimes a bit soft, easily rectified with the Photosuite 8.1 the camera comes with. It would be hard pressed to get a better program without spending alot of money. Installation of the USB software takes just minutes, and a full 32 meg Stick takes just 30 seconds to upload. *no more serial!*

One bad side, this thing eats batteries like Joan Collins goes through makeup. I went through 6AA alkaline in 3 hours the first day. VERY HIGHLY RECOMMEND getting rechargebles, Nickel Metal Hydride perferred, this camera loves its batteries.

Oh, and im talking about the 1.3pixel model. I now have the DSC-P50 and wow, the pictures are even better quality! Well worth the extra [money]the P50 costs!

Also, recommend getting a bigger Sony Stick, the included 4 meg only does 3 pics at highest setting, a 32meg will get you 34. *what I use*

In all, I am very much enjoying this camera and taking great photos....For people who want to get into the Digital realm but want a low price for great quality, the SONY DSC-P30 is absolutely hard to beat! For a bit more room to grow and higher res for wallpapers and print outs, get the DSC-P50. Either way, your getting one of the best camrea's on the market bar none!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Sony the best? Think again!
Review: Lest you think I'm a Sony basher, let me tell you I have plenty of Sony Products I'm very satisfied with. This isn't one of them.

My big debate was to buy a camera from a primarily electronics manufacturer or from an established camera manufacturer. After much thought and research I went with the P50. It came down to the P50, Canon A20, or to wait for the Nikon 775 or Olympus 510 (I bought in May `01). Shoulda waited...

I'll just summarize, otherwise it'll be a 2 page review:

PROS:

-High quality images in good light (outdoors)

-Nice size

-Only 2AA's required. Decent life if you minimize LCD display time and get 1600mAh capacity Ni-MH rechargeables. I get about 20-30 pictures with flash indoors with little or no LCD use. Outdoors maybe 40-50 pictures. (From the review below - If your flash is dead after only picture you're doing something wrong!!)

-Flash exposure and ambient exposure compensation modes.

-Takes MPEG movies. (no sound though:()

-Can use infolithium pack

-Painless connection to the PC

CONS:

-POOR pictures in low light conditions - Lens is slower than the competition (F3.8 vs 2.8 for competition), Flash is pathetically weak. Even in night mode, the camera fails to let in enough light to take pictures of a lit building, even with +2ev overexposure dialed in.

-Flash recharge time when using NiMH batteries is slooooooow.

-Menu system cumbersome to use if you're fiddling with exposure and flash settings often. Direct access buttons are much faster.

-Infolithium battery and charger are big $!

-Sony memory sticks more money than the competition. (though they are a nicer form factor and more durable IMHO)

In summary, if you do alot of picture taking outdoors, you'll probably be pretty happy, but if you're using the flash and indoors, probably not. Do yourself a favor and look at the Nikon, Canon, and Olympus first.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Disappointing.
Review: One thing to beware right now with any Sony electronics product is Sony's pitiful service capability. I shipped my DSC-P50 to Sony over three weeks ago. The problem? It wouldn't turn on. Maybe the battery, maybe the recharger for the battery, or maybe it's internal to the camera. I shipped it all back. The address of the service center was a secret. They have consolidated their service centers, and my camera has been shipped by Sony from Podunk, PA, where I sent it, to Boston, where it is apparently riding beneath the streets with poor Charlie on the MTA. Or, it has been handed off from one technician to another and may be underneath a large pile in a large warehouse. Today the word is, they might be finished on the 19th, which will make it five weeks since I shipped it although they claim their average is 10 working days. If I were shopping for a new camera I'd avoid any Sony product.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: This is not the real price of this camera!
Review: That's right! Something that Sony doesn't tell you when you read the specs on this sucker! I bought mine and tried it out right away. It came with a set of batteries that I plugged in and started shooting. As far as taking pictures, it's pretty striaghtforward and easy to use. Here's the catch.

When I went to download the pictures onto my laptop, I opened up the manual and guess what it says? "Do not use battery power to download pictures to computer. You must use the dc power supply". Hmmm... So I rummage through the box and guess what there's no power supply. You have to buy it seperately!

You'd think that for $..., Sony could throw in a stupid power cord! I mean charge me more for it or whatever but I was pretty...[mad] that it didn't come with the camera. Also, it only comes with regular batteries - which is fine but using them to download pictures drains batteries dead.

So if you want the power supply and perhaps the battery it's going to cost you another $... You can get the Starter Pack which includes battery, charger, and case for $... If you seriously want this camera order it at the same time to avoid frustration.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent digicam. All digital cameras eat batteries.
Review: The DSC P50 is an excellent digicam. Picture quality, features, price. The macro mode focuses as close as 1 inch. This is extraordinary for any camera out of the box.

I have seen many reviews complaining about the batteries and not having an included ac adapter or charger and why do I have to buy extra accessories and so on. Very few digicams come with complete power setup and accessory pack. Check the included accessories in product listings.

I recommend using NiMH AA rechargeable instead of the expensive infoLithium. Get about 8 batteries and a charger. This can be done for half the price of the and charger.

Also pick up at least a 32mb Memory Stick. 64mb if you can afford it. But shop around. Memory sticks can be found for less than some of the major outfitters charge.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Digital Camera!
Review: The DSC-P50 is my first digital camera ~ and I love it! It's so easy to use, takes beautiful pictures, I love the mpeg feature (although once you use it you'll wish you had sound). I bought a "Floppy Disk Adapter" so I can just plug my memory stick in the adapter, stick it in my floppy drive and download from there. It's slower that way, but if you don't have a USB port and don't want to add anymore cables to your computer, it's totally convenient and easy. There are still more features I'm learning about this camera! Great buy! (p.s. I also purchased the InfoLithium S battery and it takes about 2 hours of pictures :)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Camera!
Review: The one thing I have bad to say about my camera (a 1.3 megapixel - very similar looking to the above) is that the movies have no sound. However, I did download a great program and put together the photos, some of my movies and add some music and they make great gifts! :)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Camera !, I actually bought 2 more !
Review: The only thing I would like to see on AMAZON is better descriptions on items, this one has no details so ill give them to you all since I now own 3!, Sony 2.1-Megapixel Cyber-Shot Digital Camera Model: DSC-P50 3x optical and 6x digital zooms get you in close to your subject, while a high-speed, auto-focus illuminator lends sharp focus in the dark (this was really neat, sort of a night-vision option), Memory stick storage (comes with a 4-meg), LCD viewer and the older "peep-hole" style allowing you to shut the LCD off for longer battery life, on/off optional Flash, USB connections and even an mpeg video mode to let you capture and ceate your own movie shorts (no sound), Very simple to use once you get the buttons down, Only thing I didnt like was no rechargeable battery pack?? or power cord??, (they sell them seperately), a plus+ is that like I said the LCD can be shut off saving your AA batteries from drainage so fast like most camera do!, Smallest resolution 640x480 (real sharp) largest is 1600x1200, also SOLARIZE, B&W, SEPHIA & NEGATIVE ART Image modes when taking pictures// very neat, white balance controls and normal/fine picture modes, sharpness, flash level and ISO controls often ignored on other cameras are ON THIS ONE!, To me as a buyer.. WELL WORTH THE MONEY!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Sony DSC P-50 is a very good camera!
Review: The P-50 and Canon A20 were my final two choices. I decided to go with the P-50 because it used only 2AA batteries and had the MPEG and Clip Movie recording features which is very neat.

I'm glad I went with the P-50. Here is my pro and con list for the P-50:

Pros:
* 3 optical zoom (it zooms fast)
* Uses 2 AA batteries. Don't get the battery pack. Just get 6 NiMh batteries with a rating of at least 1600mha, which are inexpensive. I got 4 Energizer 1600 mha NiMh batteries and a recharger at Target for only $... NiMH batteries last twice as long as alkalines and I haven't had to worry about my batteries dying.
* MPEG and Clip (GIF) movie modes are real fun. No sound on the MPEG, but spending an extra $... for a camera with sound wasn't worth it to me. For you who design web pages, you'll love the Clip (GIF) movie mode.
* Memory Stick, although expensive, is much more compact and stores more memory. However, the 4MB stick that comes with the camera is lame unless you plan to take only lower quality resolutions. I got a 64MB stick and at FINE quality (if using STANDARD quality, double all the numbers below) can hold the following: 67 1600x1200, 174 1024 x768, 400 640x480. As you can see that's alot of pictures.
* ISO flexibility and twilight mode. This helps when shooting in low light. The AF illuminator really helps the camera to focus in low light.
* Can crop pictures and cut MPEGs.
* If you change the Power Save mode to "off", then the camera lag time (a common complaint in these reviews) after you take a picture is very minimal. It's actually fast compared to other digital cameras I've used.
* Very fast transfer rate using the USB driver. The camera becomes another drive in Windows Explorer that you just drag to your hard drive. Very fast. I have Windows ME which allows Windows Explorer to view in thumbnail mode, so I can even preview all the pictures before moving them to the hard drive.
* The video out mode is cool. Just plug in the supplied jack cord to your P-50 and to your TV or VCR and see a slide show of your pictures you just took.
* If you auto-focus by pressing the shutter button half way, then the camera takes the picture very fast with almost no lag time, unlike other digital cameras in this price range,
* 37mm threads and the fact the optical zoom stays within the camera allows you to use an UV filter for better picture quality and as a lens protector.
* You can view your pictures taken also in thumbnail mode. Also, the camera tells you your settings (i.e shutter speed, iso, EV, etc.) of the picture.
* The camera allows the option to imprint the date onto your digital photos. This is a must for me as I never remember the date of the picture without this feature.
* The lens cap comes with a lens strap so you won't lose your cap.

Cons:
* 41mm lens. If you know photography, you will realize that most SLRs and point and shoots have 35mm lens. The lower the number, the better the wide angle, which allows you to take more area from the same distance making your objects also larger. However, the above pros by far outweigh this. If you're not a camera junkie like I am, you probably won't even notice this.
* The viewfinder only shows approx 70% of the actual picture taken and is slighty "skewed" to the left. If you think you got your object centered using the viewfinder, you'll will find out that the subject will be slightly left in the actual picture. The way around this is to use the LCD, which shows 100% of the actual picture and is not skewed.

All in all, in the 2.1 megapixel range and under $... as of 9/8/01, I feel this camera is the best one.


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