Customer Reviews

Sony DSCP150 7MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom (Silver)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is a wonderful camera, it is small, light, easy to use and produces photos at 7.2 megapixels that are superb.
It is small, nice looking, starts very quickly and usually focuses with an assist light quickly.
Plenty of controls that are easy to use and pretty good instruction manual.
If you want to fool around, you can change the saturation, sharpness, exposure compensation, the usual stuff.
On shooting on complete auto ASA I have yet to see any artifacts or fringing.
When printing the results are just amazing, I also have a Nikon 8700, superb camera, when I look at the results from the Nikon, well, its really hard to see the difference.
Very fast operating camera.
I dont think I have ever been as pleased with a photographic product.
The only negative I can observe, is`that on start up, your left hand goes over the lens, and stays there as the lens comes out, I,ve gotten used to it and keep my left hand away from the lens.
Battery life is excellent, the battery charger can be used as an ac power supply, if you remove the battery from the camera.
Great machine, I love it, now, its all I use.
If you want to buy a digital or buy a new one, this is the guy to get.
Sony has gotten the message loud and clear, this is their best effort yet, it is in class of its own.

I would rate this camera 4.5 stars for picture quality, and of course its sleek size as well its quick shutter speed. However, on Thursday, January 6, 2005 Sony make the following announcement (taken from dpreview.com)
"Sony has today announced another new camera, which only has minor cosmetic changes from its predecessor, in the shape of the 7.2 megapixel Cyber-shot P200. An upgrade of the P150, launched in July, the only real difference seems to be the larger 2-inch LCD, otherwise it sports the same Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 3x zoom lens, is PictBridge-compatible and has a rechargeable InfoLithium battery plus compatibility with Memory Stick and Memory Stick PRO. It will be available in February and is expected to be priced lower than the $499 DSC-P150 when it was launched in July last year."
SO, if I were you, I'd wait another month and either get the P200 for less (!) or wait 'til they lower the price of the P150 which seems inevitable. Just hope the P200 comes in the Cool Blue Color.
Finally, if you don't need an ultracompact, I'd recommend Sony W1/W5 instead. It's bigger but also takes better pictures and costs less!

This camera has exceed my expectations.

I was upgrading from a 2.0 megapixel Cybershot that I had always been content with, though I wished I had spent the extra money for higher resolution a couple years ago when I first got it.

Simply put, I was looking for bang for my buck. I wanted something small that could be used as a point-and-shoot and fit easily in my pocket. Unlike last time, I put a lot of time into researching before I bought this time. My priorities were convenience and resolution, as well as as little lag time as possible and as much manual control as I can get for a compact non-SLR model. Oh yeah, and under $500. Am I asking too much? Apparantly not for the geniuses at Sony that came up with the p150!

It is about the size of my Motorola cellphone (slightly thicker), and both fit comfortably in my front pocket next to each other.

To be honest, I haven't had it long enough to testify to the picture quality, but the reason I am writing this review was because my one reservation in buying this camera turned out to be unfounded, and more people may want to know this: This camera is FAST. Had I read this in a review beforehand, my decision would have been much easier. I was really worried about the lag time when taking pictures. This was a frustration with my older model of Cybershot and all the reviews I read point to the Canon Elph line for the place to go if you want speed, but for the same resolution I was looking at paying twice as much for a Canon.

I'm sure those reviewers were telling the truth, but I think the difference in speed is a little overstated. I'm very pleased with the improvement from my older model.

I decided the p150 had the most bang for my buck and bought it, anxious to see what kind of lag time there was. This camera turns on in a flash. The startup sound starts as soon as you press the power button, and by the time it finishes, you're ready to start snapping pics. If you push the button straight down to snap a pic, it does take a brief moment, but if you hold it halfway for the camera to focus first, then when you're ready to take the picture and press it the rest of the way, there is no delay that I have noticed so far. That means no more of this: "Okay, everybody smile! 1... 2... 3!.... Hang on! It'll take it in a minute! Uncle Denny, keep the dog facing forwa- <click> Dang, okay let's try again..."

My only complaint is that an extra battery is pricey, but since I saved some money ordering a Sandisk 1gig memory stick at a fraction of the cost Sony charges, buying the extra battery won't kill my wallet.

You must be wondering how somebody could rate this obviously awesome camera two stars when all the other reviews are so glowing. Let me explain. My purchase goal was to find an idiot-proof, ultra-compact, high resolution point and shoot camera. Maybe I have high expectations, but I wanted a no-fiddling camera for what I consider "easy shots" and I didn't want to have to settle for 4 mega-pixels. Basically, that's it. I didn't care about video mode or manual settings or any advanced feature. If necessary, I was prepared to give in and settle for the new Canon SD300 (4mp) which my friend had bought. That's why I was hoping desperately that the P150 would work out. And it almost did.

The fatal flaw was motion blur on over half of what I consider easy shots. It doesn't matter how many pixels you have or how vivid the colors, if you get blurry pictures more than half the time, the camera is not usable. Blur cannot be corrected.

So, what's an easy shot?

Example easy shot #1: indoor, reasonable light, flash enabled, standard automatic mode, very low motion. The Sony auto-focus stubbornly insisted on using 1/40th shutter speed. If the subject moves at all, you get blur. The cause of the blur may partly be due to a design that places the lens on the far left of the camera body which amplifies camera movement. I tried both single and monitoring auto-focus modes to no avail.

Example easy shot #2: outdoor, sunlight, flash enabled, standard automatic mode, moderate motion (somebody walking at a distance). More motion blur! Yes, there was a workaround if you resort to using the special "sports" scene mode which uses a much higher shutter (with great results) or manual settings. But that shouldn't be required for a point and shoot camera for such an easy shot.

What made the blur so irritating was that it was not predictable. In some cases, a slower shutter would be used and in other almost identical shots a faster shutter would be used. In addition, you can't see the blur on the LCD, so you don't know when to retake the picture.

My reasoning on the two stars is that the camera was not usable for me. I returned it. I almost kept it and thought about teaching my wife to use the special modes in certain conditions, but realized that was a losing battle and returned it for the Canon SD300.

I compared the Sony and Canon for the better part of four days using at least a hundred shots of both. I even kept retesting the blur scenes in disbelief. The two cameras produced very similar results - each with their own flaws. The Canon's flaw was poor flash performance when up close - the Sony backs off when up close. Obviously, the Sony produces higher resolution pictures, but to check if 4 was sufficient, I had 20 prints of each made (three of them 8 x 10) at Kinko's on a high end dye-sub printer and the 4mp vs 7mp difference was not noticeable by the four people I surveyed. Both sets of pictures were amazing. So, I felt comfortable settling for 4mp.

Despite the fatal blur flaw, the Sony had the following pros:
* super fast operation
* nice dial switch to make auto-mode obvious
* easily pocketable (but not with tight jeans)
* dazzling color and detail
* nice flash performance considering the size

Some additional cons that I was willing to ignore:
* unusable video recording feature due to the blurring by the camera's slow lens refocus and MPEG artifacts. The video on the Canon SD300 was stunningly clear (close to mini DV).
* awkward ergonomic design with lens on far left - it bumps into your fingers when powering on and it takes you about two days to get used to this. From then on, you are conditioned to be paranoid about powering on your camera.
* zoom switch in wrong place makes holding and zooming even more awkward

Its really unfortunate that a camera with such potential has such a fatal flaw. And if you're wondering maybe I didn't read the manual or don't know how to hold a camera or drink too much coffee, believe me I tried everything. If your comfortable using manual shutter settings or using special sports mode for indoor low-motion shots, then get this camera.

I'm an avid photographer who was looking for a truly pocketable digital to compliment my larger, more full-featured Olympus digital. I also wanted something fast, both in terms of start-up and shot-to-shot cycle time and was unwilling to compromise on image quality. Lower down on my criteria list was a camera that had strong video capability -- high-res w/o recording time limits that many cameras (including many of the Canon digital Elphs that I was strongly considering). If your primary critera are size, speed, and image quality, you can't go wrong with this camera. Prior to purchase, I was quite worried, to be honest, about some reviews mentioning blurry photos. After 2 month's of use, however, I can only assume that those mentioning such problems either received faulty units or, more likely, don't know how to use this (or other) camera properly or are taking shots under conditions (low light and/or fast moving subject) where blur is normal. MY IMAGES HAVE BEEN SURPRISINGLY CRISP, WELL-FOCUSED, AND VIBRANT, even using the flash, and my most frequent subjects are my 3- and 1-year-old daughters (not the easiest subjects to shoot!). As for resolution, I was not looking for a 7-megapixel camera, but I must say, it comes in handy. People talked about the potential to crop down significantly to essentially increase the zoom capability. I was leary of this as I was doubtful that the focus on such detail would allow me to do this while retaining a sharply-focused subject, but I've been very surprised by the focus detail and am now quite glad I have all that the extra resolution to work with.

Is this the perfect digital camera? I don't think any camera is perfect. I'd love to have manual white balance (though I've yet to have a photo that has not had the auto setting do a wonderful job on) and other manual controls, RAW support, a more powerful flash, better burst shooting, and other high-end features. But for cameras in this class, this camera is hard to beat. If you can go with something just a little larger (but still quite small), take a look at the fairly new Olympus C-7000. For those considering the P200, read the reviews carefully as I've seen some reports that noise is more of a problem, though in general it seems like a worthwhile upgrade, especially if you can get it at a lower price. Amazon's current price on the P150 is sure easy to beat from reputable sources now with just a few quick searches. If you are looking for a backup battery (I've never needed mine - it lasts forever), check out batteries-dot-com for a much cheaper alternative. As for flash, Vivitar's DF120 far exceeds Sony's branded model for half the cost. I tried to buy the Vivitar DF200 as a more worthy slave flash but Amazon's stock was depleted and not resupplied. If flash is important to you for this or other digital camera, there are some very capable, pwerful SLAVE flashes available (can use with most/any digital camera type, no need to mount, easy to use, add much versatility to your camera).

Pros: Size, Above average to excellent photos, 7MP camera, KISS camera, big pictures, fast everything speed, movies with sound. Quality rules, sharp detail, stunning color, long battery life, truly point and shot for beginner or expert.

Cons: Weak flash, lack of advanced features if you're looking for that, microphone/speaker is kind of small, exacting manual control is sacrificed to keep it small, could have included a larger Memory Stick and case.

Summary: I just got my Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-150 & I love it. It has 7.2 megapixels, so my pictures have stunning detail. The color is also excellent; even on an automatic setting. The movie mode has is excellent; with 2X the frames/seconds & 2X the resolution (I regularly record my golf swing, so this is an important feature). It's only time limitation is amount of memory (many cameras have 30 second limits). I also regularly use the mult-burst mode to take 16 pictures in ~2 seconds (also for my golf swing). In bright light, I can increase the shutter speed to 1/1,000 second to capture more high-speed detail. The Battery life is much better than my old camera (I get ~3 hours/charge). I carry my DSC-150 everywhere, so I'm capturing pictures I would have otherwise missed. I highly recommend it.

Bottom Line: It's an excellent choice for anyone who wants professional resolution & color pictures in a tiny camera.

Considering that this camera can be purchased for around $400 (mine was less with a rebate), this camera is unquestionably the best buy of the year. I have compared the photographs taken with this camera with ones from my old Canon Powershot G2 and there can be no debate: the pictures produced by this camera are more pleasing, more detailed, more natural, less "digital" looking. The camera is a pleasure to operate, has a good build quality, is compact and has exceeded my expectations in every way.

I purchased the Sony charging cradle for this unit, and this, too, is well built and makes the camera much easier to charge and to download photos to the computer.

The camera has its limitations: it simply does not have all of the manual controls of my G2 and the viewfinder is not of the same quality as the G2 (no diopter control, does not really give a feel for what is showing up on the lcd screen). But these are limitations of most of the point and shoot cameras I looked at. I highly recommend this camera!

Pocket sized camera with amazing resolution! Great for snapshooters, even good for a pro who wants to carry in a pocket a camera good enought to remember his vacations. Fast and reliable! Great Carl Zeiss optics! Low noise at ISO 100. For under U$500, this is a great choice, even if you don't use so many mega pixels...

My choice came down to Sony P150 or the Canon S70. I went with the Sony P150 for these reasons.

Pros:
-Small and compact
-Lots of add-ons (wide-angle and super telephoto lens, external flash)
-Cheaper than S70.
-Unbelievable battery life. 180+ mins on full charge.
-Excellent photo quality. Handles all shots well, but you may need to use manual controls.
-Very good flash. Three levels of flash, highest level illuminated total darkness shots very well upto 12-15 feet.

Cons:
-Limited manual controls, but mostly sufficient.
-Narrow lens compared to Canon's 28mm wide angle lens.
-Cannot save pictures in RAW mode
-Some noise in pictures taken with auto mode.

Also Recommended:
-Tripod: As with all non-DSLR cameras, low light, non-flash shots are tough. A tripod and a steady subject will do you well.
-Media card reader: USB cable does not attach well to the camera.
-Wide-angle lens: If you take indoor shots, this will get you more of the room in one shot. Very useful.

I am an accomplished amateur film photographer with 20 years experience and I am in a profession that demands perfection. I bought this camera five days ago before a trip to Savannah, GA. I love it!!! I can't imagine having more fun with a camera. The images are beautiful. And I didn't even consider the movie mode. I have already emailed several beautiful short films to friends. And, amazingly, it fits easily in my pocket.

There is something wrong with anyone that doesn't like this camera.