Leni Riefenstahl, Eat Your Shrivelled Nazi Heart Out! (Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P51)

Member Name: "420565

Product:	Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P51
Date:	01/02/03 (300 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Effects features, Video capability, Memory Stick capacity

Disadvantages: Energy inefficient, No video sound, Rather large

First of all, a disclaimer:

As a new member of the dooyoo community, it is recommended that I follow some sort of guidelines. To the Devil with the bleeding guidelines. I haven't the time for guidelines. I'm familiar enough with my product, though some of the technical terminology may slip my mind from moment to moment, that I can dive head first into a review with little deliberation and still convey my point, in layman's terms, to a general audience. Thank you for you understanding.

I ordered this camera, the Sony DSC-P51, at the end of Summer in preparation for my impending departure to university. But at the vicissitudes of the past few months would have it, I ended up losing it, or rather the post ended up losing it, somewhere between Norway and Finland. So it probably spent my first semester brooding disgruntledly over a frozen lake in Sweden rather than clandestinely snapping blackmail photos of a sparse Finnish dining hall. Anyhow, Sweet Lady Providence be blessed, the camera arrived shortly before my winter recess, shortly before my month-long trip to Germany, where it fulfilled its purpose to an extent at which the most hardened East Berlin film director would swoon.

The software/hardware features included in the Sony DSC-P51 are, I would assume, rather standard for a newfangled contraption such as the digicam. All photos are saved on Memory Stick, a product I believe is trademarked by Sony, which, though the individuals are a trifle expensive on a university student/waiter's income, pays for itself within its first few days of use. Depending on resolution and capacity, a Memory Stick can store upwards of 1200 images; more, I hope, than I could ever want to save. In contrast with prosaic film cameras, the user must upload his digital files from the device to the computer, with the aid of a standard USB cable (one end plugs into the USB port, the other into the camera, obviously) and some sort of progra
m on CD that must be installed before anything else. Sadly, as my knowledge of computers and technology is limited to viewing flash images of haphazardly drawn peas ravaging a society of large-chinned cartoons with such names as Blode, Food, and Giblit, I can offer no further description or advice regarding the camera's features.

I can, however, extol the endless virtues of its more artistic capabilities. Unlike some of the prototypical digicams, the Sony DSC-P51 offers a variety of imagery techniques than rather spiffingly Van Gogh-ify an otherwise commonplace photo. For example, during my recent trip to Germany, I was keen on photographing the white-towerded bride over the Rhein (or is it the Neckar?) in Heidelberg. And so I did, but was rather disappointed with the result, as it was little more than the standard picture one finds in every tourist book and every scenic postcard and every cheesy German medical/psychothriller flick since 1920. But, coincidentally, I stumbled upon an effects menu, from which I could choose to either add a sepia tone to my photo, remove all colour (black and white), "solarise" (adds a sort of sponge-blotted paint look, hence my coinage of the term "Van Goghification"), or reverse tones (negative image). Depending on the situation and the desired impact, any of the above mentioned features can provide endless amounts of fun for the user, just so long as the user has a long attention span and a propensity for photography. Which you, Reader, probably do, else you'd not be reading this review.

But what's more, what I deem the Nutella on this already succulent, finely baked butter croissant, is the video feature. Though battery consuming and sadly limited in its features, the fact remains that with the Sony DSC-P51, one can record his own short video files!! And this is where the review's title comes to be of relevance. On a train ride from Duesseldorf to Mannheim (normall
y about three hours, but in my case about eight or nine), my travel companion and I decided to document the travesty of our unexpectedly extended journey. Being the fault of flooding along the Rhein and resulting inconveniences, we spent, as I just said, far too long in a steerage class cabin on a German train. Those ugly, loud, red beasts! I hate the Deutsche Bahn! I hate it so badly I spit on it! Anyway, thanks to my camera's video capabilities, I now have a documentary, or perhaps a blackmail film which I can send to Deutsche Bahn and demand some sort of compensation. Unfortunately, though I searched and searched in vain, none of the image altering features (solarise, black and white, etc.) apply when in film mode, therefore producing only very mediocre results. But still, my footage of the Rheinland's sad plight and a band of bagpipe-tooting street minstrels outside the cathederal in Cologne is enough to send Leni Riefenstahl spinning in the grave she, surprisingly, does not yet occuply. Old coot. It's about time she suffle off, wouldn't you say?

Summary: