I can't believe I have aquired a digital camera now
 

Have been thinking of getting a digital camera for some time now, and finding out today, that a perticular offer from dec. last year still was current made me just grab that last camera in that store.

I got myself an Sony DSC-P71 Cyber-Shot, and after fiddling with this gizmo in the middle of night, I can conclude two things;

1) The usability and overall impression is... quite impressive. THE most facinating aspect, is the 120000 pixel LED screen, which (I dare say)could act as a mini-mini-tv if such an feature existed.

Downloading via usb to the computer is fast and pretty easy and straight forward.

2) The only thing that puzzles me (actually I'm happy with this purchase, but...) is that the pics is stored as jpeg's, with either "fine" or "standard" mode (I haven't see a difference yet). I've seen other cameras having the tif? format as storage format, and I wonder if the pic would be less grainy on plain diffuse surfaces with a different format. Anyway, with a maximum pic-size of QXGA, well... I guess it's good for something :) (I'm a newbie at digital cameras).

Well, as a third thing, I want to mention the battery life, which for a first use is impressive (I feel), considering the horrifying reviews about digital cameras on the web, telling about "huge" power drains. I have fiddled with the camera for almost two hous now and I still cannot see a degrading on the battery indicator (but I have also fiddled with photoshop in the meantime, thus the camera was shut down).

It has a mpeg recording function, which could be fun.

Below is a... kind of commemorative of a maya-project lost due to formatting of the hdd. :) The Hawk.

You probably won't be able to save in any other format than Jpeg if that's what it's doing now. Mine is Jpeg only, but you can always change the format once it's onto your computer you know. And you should see a difference in quality between fine and regular pixal settings. Mess around with the menu a little. Maybe there are some other features you can adjust to make the image turn out better. Wish you luck with your new toy!

Thanks!

Well, as a ps to my first post;

Here's some of the "main" menu items;

-Exposure control (-2 up to +2)
-Focus Options (7 options)
-White balance (5 options)
-Some icon setting
-Iso (4 options)
-Res (5 options)
-Pic Quality (2 options)
-Rec Mode (?)
-Flash Level (3 options)
-Effects (4 options +off-setting)
-Sharpness (-2 up to +2)