Huge Screen, Great Camera, but... (Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T10)

Member Name: upton66

Product:	Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T10
Date:	02/02/07 (255 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Slim Design, great Macro shots, Good Battery Life

Disadvantages: Dingy shots, red-eye, tiny lens, poor design

I set myself criteria for my next camera and these were:

A big screen, don’t need an eyepiece (very old fashioned), Sony Memory Stick (already have other Sony products so could share chips), minimum 3x optical zoom, Lithium Battery, Macro settings, >3 Megapix – and the T10 was the camera for me, or so I thought.

It has the advantage of being pretty slim and it will fit in a top pocket just like the ad says, which is very convenient and does encourage you to carry it around and use it to catch the un-suspecting moments. It is like only 160 odd grams and comes in silver, black and white. Turning the camera on and off is great; you just slide the front of the casing up and down. All good so far.

The specifications are impressive to match it’s 7.2 megapixels. Bear in mind this uses a huge amount of memory so you need to buy the largest memory stick (the small duo type) you can afford, as it doesn’t come with one. The 58Mb internal memory is probably handy if you forget the memory stick or it’s full, to capture those last few vital shots

The screen is the best feature, all of 2.5inches and is very bright and pretty clear. The three times zoom is adequate, if it is much greater no-one can hold the camera steady enough to avoid shake without a tripod. The digital zoom of up to 14X, if you turn down the pixels, is usually a waste of time on any camera as there is such deterioration of the image. It has the Sony Image Stabilizer, which may make a difference, but I’m not really convinced

The Carl Zeiss lens is a great name but look at the lens! It is tiny, peeping out the front of the casing. It is a clever design, as it must zoom up and down inside the casing rather than in and out protruding from the front like a conventional camera.

The battery life is excellent and probably will take the advertised 250 pictures if you don’t keep turning it on and off, playing with the menu settings and re-viewing your captured moments. You can only charge the battery out of the camera for some reason.

There are numerous pre-sets in addition to auto: the usual twighlight, soft snap, landscape, snow etc etc. The ads carry on a bit about the high sensitivity mode of ISO1000 equivalent – well great, except the quality of the pictures is as good as useless as it would be with a real ISO 1000 conventional camera – grainy and dingy.

The autofocus modes are centre-weighted, spot and multi-point and this seems pretty convincingly accurate. You can play with the white balance in addition to auto: the usual fluorescent, incandescent, cloudy etc, fun for effects but I find you can’t really improve on auto.

You can increase/decrease the exposure which can be useful if taking pictures into or against the light or from a dark into a light area or vice versa, etc etc.

Once you’ve mastered the sequence of pressing the right buttons in the right sequence the menu settings are actually quite logical.

The movie mode is fun but as with most movie modes on compact cameras, it is only any good as a toy for embarrassing friends. Then there is the flash, oh dear, and this is where my first frustration kicked in – it is pathetic, the range is so limited.

In addition to being so feeble it is millimetres away from the weeny lens so what do you get – RED-EYE and I mean in capitals. I’ve tried everything, different distances, subject distraction techniques, the subject being off centre or looking away, taking from different angles, trying at different ambient light levels – disaster, pre-flash red-eye reduction makes little difference. This must be a design fault and is most unfortunate. The other problem is occasional sort of flare blotches, I think it is probably dust in the air caught in the flash but I’ve never known it with any other camera.

Frustration number two - my pictures just ain’t sharp, I’m sure it’s not just me. They are not sparkly bright and sharp as they should be and a good proportion are just sort of dull and wish washy, maybe lacking some contrast. I’ve tried to take control shots on all settings, exposures, speeds, sensitivity, with and with image stabilizer, you name it I’ve tried it. – I know the lack of an eyepiece takes some getting used to as you don’t have your nose to rest the camera against, but something’s not right. The screen certainly shows your shots at their best advantage but when you view them on you pc – what a disappointment.

I’ve tried a mini tripod to take control shots, and whilst only a bit sharper they just aren’t up to scratch, in my eyes anyway.

I have been back to a couple of dealers and they are puzzled. A Sony shop says my pictures are as good as can be expected. I have read a few reviews on the www and on several the red-eye is often mentioned.

Lastly it is all too easy to partly cover the tiny lens, as it is quite close to the top left corner just where I am used to holding a camera. It really is a badly thought out design altogether.

After all this negativity there is one redeeming area and that is the macro settings. Close up shots can be stunning - good, sharp, clean, bright and crystal clear. This wasn’t much comfort when I mentioned it to a dealer as he said most digital cameras (not people) take stunningly good macro shots anyway. Oh well I was pleased with myself.

Well this purchase was an expensive mistake, around £200 - I have passed it over to someone who enjoys all the different settings and effects – for me I just want a point and shoot camera that takes excellent pictures without too much thought with the ability to tweak settings in difficult light conditions. Well that’s what my Sony DSC-VI did until someone dropped it, now that was a real stunner for quality pictures.

Summary: Would I recommend it, well NO, sorry Sony.

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