CNET editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 07/11/2003
- Released on: 04/01/2003
 |  The four-way controller pad provides fast access to flash, metering, and self-timer settings, as well as menu navigation and quick image review. |
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The P32 makes an unobtrusive travel companion. It weighs slightly less than eight ounces with the batteries and the Memory Stick installed, and its attractively designed, compact plastic body is closer in size to Canon's tiny Digital Elphs than to many other budget cameras.
The icons labeling the controls are easy to understand. The mode dial, the four-way controller pad and its Select button, and the digital zoom are all intuitive enough that you can start snapping pictures without reading the well-written 114-page manual. Onscreen menus are similarly well organized; almost all the options are written out, and you'll readily grasp the few symbols. The only annoyance is the need to use the menu to turn red-eye reduction on and off; this function should be available via the flash button.
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| You can change the resolution easily in shooting mode with the button at the bottom. |
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| The simple mode dial lets you switch between shooting, playback, video-clip capture, and camera setup. |
Sony's engineers obviously put a lot of thought into the location of the camera elements. The slot for the batteries and the Memory Stick is on the side--handy when the P32 is on a tripod. You're not likely to accidentally press any of the buttons, and the rubber panel covering the USB, A/V, and DC ports on the back provides a secure and comfortable grip when you're shooting one-handed.
As you might expect with a budget camera, the P32 lacks an optical zoom, instead offering an f/2.8, 33mm autofocus lens. But despite the low price, this Cyber Shot's features go beyond point-and-shoot simplicity. You can take advantage of fully automated shooting, or switch to Programmed Automatic to select from white-balance presets (there's no manual option) and metering modes, as well as adjust settings such as light sensitivity (ISO) and exposure compensation.
In addition to providing center and multisegment AF, the P32 lets you manually set the focus at 0.5, 1.0, 3.0, or 7.0 meters or infinity. A notable omission, on the other hand, is a macro focus mode. Three flash levels and spot metering are available. When you're faced with a tricky lighting situation, you can select one of the scene modes: Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Landscape, Snow, or Beach. And of course the P32 gives you Sony's standard array of picture effects, including Black And White, Sepia, Negative, and Solarize.
The camera can shoot at the full 3.2 megapixels and the usual lower resolutions, plus it has a 2.8-megapixel 3:2 mode, which creates images with the same aspect ratio as 35mm-film shots. This option lets you print 4x6-inch photos without cropping. You can also annotate stills with sound memos. Instead of saving a separate WAV file that might become separated from its picture when you download them to a PC, the P32 creates an MPEG file containing a smaller copy of the photo and its accompanying audio. The only still-image file type available is JPEG; you choose from two compression levels.
The P32 supports Sony's new Memory Stick Pro media, which is available in capacities of up to 1GB. The original Memory Stick has a 128MB limit.
In e-mail mode, the P32 saves each shot at both the selected JPEG size and 320x120 pixels--a real time-saver for those who send lots of pictures as attachments. You can manually resize images right in the camera as well, creating new copies at any resolution from VGA to 3.2 megapixels.
The P32 offers a variety of moving-picture options. The most impressive is an MPEG-movie mode that can shoot video clips with sound at VGA or e-mail (160x120) resolution. Recording time is limited by only the available memory. You can also merge up to 10 successive shots to create an animated-GIF file, or save 16 tiny images in one frame. Sony recommends using this feature for such purposes as checking your tennis form.
The P32 is no speed demon, but it turns in a strong performance for a budget model and offers exceptionally long battery life by any standard. On a single charge of the included AA batteries, we shot more than 700 photos with the LCD on and the flash firing about one-third of the time. It's worth noting, however, that shooting speed slows considerably when the batteries are on their last legs.
Kudos to Sony for including long-life rechargeable AA nickel-metal-hydride batteries and a charger. You can also use alkaline cells in a pinch.
You can expect a shutter lag of about half a second in good light and as long as 3 seconds in low light--regardless of whether you're using the AF Illuminator or the flash. You can cut the long low-light wait in half by pressing the shutter release halfway before you shoot to prefocus.
Shot-to-shot time for best-quality JPEG files runs a reasonable 2 to 4 seconds, slowing to about 6.5 seconds with the flash. The burst mode, for which the flash is unavailable, takes two photos separated by a half-second interval. Flash coverage is good and comes in three levels.
The P32's optical viewfinder is on the small side, showing about 84 percent of the full image. The 1.6-inch LCD, on the other hand, provides an approximately 100 percent view and is adequately clear in both bright and dim light. The brightness of both the screen and the backlighting is adjustable, and the LCD menu items are large and easy to read. The USB 2.0 interface slightly but noticeably speeds image transfer on USB 2.0-equipped computers.
The P32 generally does a good job of gauging proper exposure both indoors and outdoors, although it sometimes overexposed slightly. While the camera's photos aren't as sharp as those from some other budget models, the results do have adequate detail and vivid yet lifelike colors. The automatic white balance adjusted well to a variety of lighting situations, accurately capturing whites and skin tones even under indoor tungsten lights.
Under indoor tungsten light, we captured warm (but not too orange), vivid colors with the automatic white balance.
Dynamic range is reasonably good, although we did see some clipping of bright highlights. We also noticed moderate noise and artifact levels, which make this camera best suited for shooting in bright outdoor light. Purple fringing at high-contrast edges was discernible in only a few pictures and only when we had zoomed in very close.
 |  |  | At ISO 100 (left), the noise level is reasonably low, but at ISO 200 (center), it becomes more noticeable. At ISO 400 (right), the picture quality suffers. |
Thanks to its AF Illuminator, the P32 usually focuses quickly in low light, but it sometimes missed the mark in our tests and produced out-of-focus shots. Because the camera has no optical zoom, you'll often be close to your subjects; the adjustable flash levels are handy for ensuring the light doesn't wash them out.
Even without an optical zoom, you're not stuck with fuzzy zoom pictures. At any resolution lower than maximum, the Smart Zoom feature uses the unused resolution to let you zoom from 1.3X (at 2 megapixels) to 3.2X (at VGA resolution) with no loss of image quality.
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