Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-N1 Digital Camera
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- Digital Zoom: 6x
- Camera Type: Compact
- Weight: 0.33 lb.
- LCD Screen Size: 3 in.
- Resolution: 8.1 Megapixel
- Optical Zoom: 3x
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Nice features, great touchscreen, user-friendly, shaky photos.
Pros
Small size, Large viewscreen, Great touchscreen menus.
Cons
Red-eye problems with indoor photos, too sensitive to motion, a lot of shaky photos.
Recommended it?
No
The Bottom Line:
For controlled shots, landscapes, portraits, family photos, this camera works great. For the kids' basketball or cheer events, expect blurry, shaky photos. Wait for the second generation on this one.
I'm a professional photographer, and I love cameras. It's not always feasible to take my Digital SLR on personal trips, making snapshots, etc., so I went looking for a small, easy to carry camera that I could toss in my bag and snap photos whenever I wished. I have an older Sony Cyber-shot, and wanted to upgrade. I purchased the camera in person at my local Ritz camera store. The cost of the camera plus accessories was about $550.
The camera itself is small, about the size of a pack of cards. It is considerably thinner than the P200 that I bought it to replace. This makes it very easy to carry with me, whether in a pocket or purse. At an advertised 8 Megapixels, and a flexible zoom feature, (3x manual, 2x digital) the potential for quality snapshots really impressed me. The feature that really sucked me in, and clinched my decision to buy this camera, was the enormous 3" view screen.
Ahh, the viewscreen! I think that Sony has really hit on a wonderful idea here. The touchscreen menus are simple to navigate, intelligently designed, and I think they would be easy for a beginner to use and understand. With a quick look through the manual, I was familiar with what options were available from which menu. Settings are easy to change in just seconds. There are many pre-set options for novice users, helpful if you're shooting in sun, shade, landscape, sports, and so on. I am certain that this touchscreen will catch on with other manufacturers, and hope to see it in future cameras.
One thing to note is that the N1 uses a different memory stick than previous Sony cameras. You should include buying new memory into the price of the camera! The Memory stick Duo is smaller and thinner than the Memory Stick Pro. As I have made a considerable investment in Memory Stick Pro memory, I was a little irritated that I had to buy new cards for this camera. The good news is that the Duo cards have an available adapter that makes them backwards compatible with Pro-reading cameras and card readers.
Also be aware that the camera has a few MB of onboard memory, so you don't necessarily have to have a memory card in the camera to take photos. This storage space is intended to be used for the slideshow feature. I found it was handy to be able to pick up the camera, take a shot, realize that there was no stick in it, but it got the photo anyway. Retreiving the photos from this memory requires that you connect the camera to your computer via USB cable (provided).
Despite all the great bells and whistles of the DSC-N1, I was less than impressed with the photos. At first, I took several reference shots of the same subject in the same lighting with the N1 and the P200. I intentionally chose to take shots in poor light and bad conditions, and used the full auto settings. In all of these test shots, the N1 did worse than the P200 when dealing with backlit situations. It did better when I adjusted settings to fit the lighting and the subject. The N1 seemed to have a faster shutter release, and a stronger flash than the P200.
What has frustrated me the most is that it has been very difficult for me to take snapshots with this camera. Under controlled circumstances, it takes beautiful photos that are comparable to the photos I take with my Digital SLR. Outdoor photos look great, very crisp and clear with vibrant colors. Indoor photos, with our without flash, stink. A greater number of the indoor photos I take have to be corrected for red-eye, even while using the red-eye reduction flash option.
In the "sports" setting in a well-lit gymnasium, I was unable to clearly capture the action on the floor. In order to use the zoom to the full 6x potential, you can't use the highest resolution setting. (This is not surprising, the P200 works the same way.) At full 6x zoom the vibration from the crowd on the bleachers was enough to set off the motion warning and nearly every photo was blurred. I would have done better bringing my SLR and bag of lenses. This kind of hypersensitivity is unacceptable to me.
Another frustration is the amount of time the auto-focus takes between shots. While it does well using the multi-frame option, it takes too much time to refocus if you're trying to follow a moving subject. I have tried using both single-point and multi-point focus to try to avoid this, but it's still difficult to take indoor shots, with or without flash, that don't have a degree of camera shake. All in all, I'm disappointed with the quality of the photos.
I think that Sony is ahead of the competition with the 3" touchscreen on this camera. This is a feature that I expect to see on many more cameras. However, the photo quality isn't what I expected from Sony, and I'm a little disappointed that I can't use this camera as often as I would like.
The camera itself is small, about the size of a pack of cards. It is considerably thinner than the P200 that I bought it to replace. This makes it very easy to carry with me, whether in a pocket or purse. At an advertised 8 Megapixels, and a flexible zoom feature, (3x manual, 2x digital) the potential for quality snapshots really impressed me. The feature that really sucked me in, and clinched my decision to buy this camera, was the enormous 3" view screen.
Ahh, the viewscreen! I think that Sony has really hit on a wonderful idea here. The touchscreen menus are simple to navigate, intelligently designed, and I think they would be easy for a beginner to use and understand. With a quick look through the manual, I was familiar with what options were available from which menu. Settings are easy to change in just seconds. There are many pre-set options for novice users, helpful if you're shooting in sun, shade, landscape, sports, and so on. I am certain that this touchscreen will catch on with other manufacturers, and hope to see it in future cameras.
One thing to note is that the N1 uses a different memory stick than previous Sony cameras. You should include buying new memory into the price of the camera! The Memory stick Duo is smaller and thinner than the Memory Stick Pro. As I have made a considerable investment in Memory Stick Pro memory, I was a little irritated that I had to buy new cards for this camera. The good news is that the Duo cards have an available adapter that makes them backwards compatible with Pro-reading cameras and card readers.
Also be aware that the camera has a few MB of onboard memory, so you don't necessarily have to have a memory card in the camera to take photos. This storage space is intended to be used for the slideshow feature. I found it was handy to be able to pick up the camera, take a shot, realize that there was no stick in it, but it got the photo anyway. Retreiving the photos from this memory requires that you connect the camera to your computer via USB cable (provided).
Despite all the great bells and whistles of the DSC-N1, I was less than impressed with the photos. At first, I took several reference shots of the same subject in the same lighting with the N1 and the P200. I intentionally chose to take shots in poor light and bad conditions, and used the full auto settings. In all of these test shots, the N1 did worse than the P200 when dealing with backlit situations. It did better when I adjusted settings to fit the lighting and the subject. The N1 seemed to have a faster shutter release, and a stronger flash than the P200.
What has frustrated me the most is that it has been very difficult for me to take snapshots with this camera. Under controlled circumstances, it takes beautiful photos that are comparable to the photos I take with my Digital SLR. Outdoor photos look great, very crisp and clear with vibrant colors. Indoor photos, with our without flash, stink. A greater number of the indoor photos I take have to be corrected for red-eye, even while using the red-eye reduction flash option.
In the "sports" setting in a well-lit gymnasium, I was unable to clearly capture the action on the floor. In order to use the zoom to the full 6x potential, you can't use the highest resolution setting. (This is not surprising, the P200 works the same way.) At full 6x zoom the vibration from the crowd on the bleachers was enough to set off the motion warning and nearly every photo was blurred. I would have done better bringing my SLR and bag of lenses. This kind of hypersensitivity is unacceptable to me.
Another frustration is the amount of time the auto-focus takes between shots. While it does well using the multi-frame option, it takes too much time to refocus if you're trying to follow a moving subject. I have tried using both single-point and multi-point focus to try to avoid this, but it's still difficult to take indoor shots, with or without flash, that don't have a degree of camera shake. All in all, I'm disappointed with the quality of the photos.
I think that Sony is ahead of the competition with the 3" touchscreen on this camera. This is a feature that I expect to see on many more cameras. However, the photo quality isn't what I expected from Sony, and I'm a little disappointed that I can't use this camera as often as I would like.
