Sony CyberShot DSC-V1 Review

Good Points
Colour reproduction & exposure.
Build quality, and full set of features.
Very fast focusing.

Bad Points
A bit on the small side.
Battery could last a bit longer.

General Comments
Bought the CyberShot DSC-V1 to replace my trusty DSC-S75 which I've had for over 3 years. The V1 is easy to use and gets the exposure spot on every time when used in full auto or program mode. The same excellent results are obtained when using the flash too, even when close up to the subject. Colours are rendered even and natural across the spectrum. White balance is very good, apart from when set to auto in full sunlight, when pictures have a slight blue cast to them. This is easily fixed by using manual white balance or can be corrected with software on a PC afterwards. Images are clean with virtually no noise, even in dark shadow areas.

My only niggles (small ones at that) are the lens could be brighter- shots taken in the shade in daylight can require a shutter speed of 1/40sec or slower at ISO 100, which can lead to blurred images if you haven't got a tripod or steady hand. The other niggle is a drop off in detail when shooting subjects in the distance or with very fine patterns. At first this looked like JPEG compression artifacts, but is more likely to do with the limits of the fairly small lens and high resolution CCD- the same results were obtained when using the TIFF setting, which is compression free. To be fair, this is only really noticable on a PC monitor when viewed at full size, and this is a fairly affordable and compact camera!

Printed pictures come out clean and bright with good detail even at 8"x10".

This is a great little camera, especially as it can be picked up for as little as £269.

Our own V1 had a thorough workout in August right across California, Nevada and Arizona. Over 200 very satisfying pictures produced!