27 von 27 Personen fanden diese Produktbewertung hilfreich.
A Great Choice.
Bewertet am: Apr 21, 2003
Fazit: Excellent for those who want beautiful images easily. Poor choice for those who want movies from their still cameras.
I have been looking and looking for a new camera to replace our bulky, but simple and reliable (but only fair picture taker) Sony Mavica FD73. My other choice (Besides the more expensive Nikon Coolpix 3100) was the (also more expensive) Sony Cybershot P72. I recommend any of these cameras, and I was set to buy the Sony, but at the last minute I cheaped out and bought the 2100. No regrets. I bought the camera (along with 128mb memory card (the stock 16mb card will be kept in the bag as a spare) and carrying case) at the new Best Buy in Harrisburg, PA. I also bought a set of 4 Nickle-Metal Hydride rechargable batteries and charger at Walmart for less than $20. I keep 2 in the camera and two in the charger/in the camera bag along with the original Lithium battery pack as spares.
Hands down, the best feature of this camera is it's compact design. It is very small. My family likes to go camping during the summer, and last year we found the Mavica too cumbersome to haul around. The 2100 is perfect size. It will easily slip into a shirt pocket. I like the way it looks and I like the way it feels in my hand. It feels perfect.
The photo quality is top notch in the 2mp range. I really wanted a 3mp camera, but after using the 2mp version, I have no regrets. I have no plans to blow up any pictures to 8x10 size. To be honest, I've blown up 640x480 pictures from the Sony Mavica to 8x10 and they looked fine from about a foot away. Anyways, back to the 2100...pictures are sharp, and colors are accurate. I have pretty much stuck to the auto mode or the auto mode with red eye reduction. In red eye reduction mode, there is slightly longer wait between when the shutter button is pressed, and when the image is recorded...not due to shutter lag, but due to the pre-flash anti-red eye activity. This is enough time for the subjects of the pictures to get a little antsy and start looking off in other directions. I'm not sure whether or not I'm going to use the red eye reduction or just doctor up the pictures on the PC after the fact.
In regular AUTO mode (non red eye mode), you press down the shutter button half way and wait for the camera to focus and determine flash level. This works quick. Once the red light (for flash) and green light (for focus) become solid, just press the button the rest of the way and the image is recorded. No shutter lag. My rating below refects shutter lag in AUTO mode only.
There is one problem...I would like to be able to shut off the LCD monitor to save battery, the camera doesn't seem to be able to focus and/or determine flash settings quickly with the LCD off. I have purchased some rechargable batteries, so I don't mind keeping the LCD on, but I'd really like that option to work properly. I'm not sure if this is a problem with my camera or if it's a feature problem.
The camera has a 3x Optical zoom and a digital zoom that I avoid like the plague. Digital zooms tend to add too much digital noise to the image. The optical zoom is excellent.
Images can be manupulated by the camera after the shot is recorded. They can be zoomed and cropped. I tried this but found the results to be less than stellar...too much digital noise in the final result. It's kinda fun, though.
The camera has several difference image modes that I haven't played with too much yet. I pretty much am a point and shoot kind of guy. Images (and movies) can be viewed on a TV screen using the included cable. This is a great feature! I will be able to send VHS tapes of our photos to my grandparents.
The movie mode is ok as a toy, but I didn't buy this camera for movies. It will take 15 second movies with no sound. Viewing them on the television is reminiscent of watching old color super 8 movies. If movies are important to you, buy the Sony P-72...it does better quality movies with sound and aren't limited to 15 seconds. I personally have a Sharp Viewcam that does this much better than any digital still camera. ;-)
I was concerned about the software specifications...it requires at least Windows 98 SE. I am currently running Windows 98 (not SE), so I took a chance and installed the software and hooked up the camera. No problems. I got lucky. Once the included USB cable it hooked up to the camera, the software automatically fires up and you can start downloading. Images download very quickly and appear in an Internet-Explorer like environment. Very nice. From there, a right click on any of the pictures can get you to the various included image manipulating tools. I attempted the panoramic image creator with less than stellar results, but I didn't get much time to spend with the software.
The software also includes the ability to email a dumbed-down image automatically using your default email client. The VGA images are still very good and the size is very managable. I also checked to make sure the software doesn't leave the VGA images laying around the hard drive...HD's can get filled up very fast by software that doesn't clean up after itself. Only good news to report there.
I have nothing else to add other than I really like the camera and we're very satisfied with the resulting images we took this last weekend (Easter 2003).
