Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P100

Viewfinder (4.0)
I am not a fan of the tiny optical viewfinder on the Sony DSC-P100. It is too small for most eyes, requiring the user to squint. You will get a headache pretty fast if you use it for more than a few minutes. I also had a problem holding it close to my face due to the length of the camera. The left side of the camera protrudes a little too far, and my nose got in the way, preventing me from being able to hold the camera close to my face comfortably. Optical viewfinders in general aren’t very accurate, giving 75-90% image coverage as opposed to electronic viewfinders that show you what the LCD screen is projecting. This can be a problem if you’re carefully composing an image, but if you’re just taking snaps it won’t be a huge deal.

LCD Screen (7.0)
The 1.8-inch, 134,000 pixel LCD is a pretty decent size for a camera this small. There were a few things I didn’t like about this particular screen. There was a slight delay before what was actually happening in front of me appeared on the screen. There is also a fair amount of solarizing which is the darkening effect that happens when you don’t look at the screen straight on. The image sharpness on the LCD screen was pretty good, but there was a delay when in playback mode which I found annoying. When you first bring up an image it appears fuzzy and then slides into focus a second later.

If you go into the Setup 1 section of the Setup menu, you are given the option of adjusting LCD backlighting from normal to bright or dark. Bright mode helps when taking photographs outdoors, but also uses the batteries up very quickly.

Flash (6.5)
The DSC-P100 allows you to choose from auto, forced flash, slow-synchro, or no flash. The effective flash range is 1.6 feet to 12.5 feet. Auto flash mode goes off automatically in lower light situations; forced flash mode goes off in every lighting situation. Slow-synchro also goes off regardless of the lighting situation, but the shutter speed is lower in this mode, allowing background objects to be lit as well. As you may have guessed, no flash is the function used to turn the automatic flash off.

Zoom Lens (6.5)
The Sony DSC-P100 follows the long line of Sony cameras equipped with the impressive Carl Zeiss Vario Tessar lens. It has an optical zoom of 3x, which is pretty standard for a camera of this class. This is the first among the Cyber-shot P-series to incorporate the Carl Zeiss, which shows that Sony is working hard to narrow the gap between high quality image producing cameras and point-and-shoot cameras. The two categories are merging fast and Sony is trying to take the lead. The digital zoom (activated through the menu) lets the camera’s zoom exceed 3x, but distorts the image by enlarging the pixels within the field of view and produces images of a much lower resolution. Aside from the 3x optical zoom, the Sony DSC-P100’s lens doesn’t offer any special features such as lens extensions or attachments that are offered in many other cameras in this range.