Sony CyberShot DSC-V1

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!

Bought this Sony DSC V1 Digital camera about 6 months ago and I have to say it is the best camera I have owned.The lens on this camera is made by Carl Zeiss which is a top quality German Optics manafacturer and German optics are the best you can get.The build quality is exellent with the camera been made out of metal it feels really solid and well put together,there are 2 features on this camera which I think are a really useful one is night framing which is activated with the flick of a switch and this allows you for instance if you were in a dark night club it would be difficult to see the subject you were shooting but with the night framing on you get a infra red black and white image on the screen (just like the ones you see on TV when they are filming in the darkness),which is very very useful,the other is night shot it is also activated with the flick of a switch which lets you take a photo in complete darkness however the picture will not be in colour but like I have mentioned a infra red black and white picture like the mentioned TV program pictures when they are filming in darkness.The battery is suffient but not the longest lasting but I purchased a spare for around £30 the info lithium feature(which tells you in minutes how much life is left in the battery rather than a series of vague lines)is an essential feature which you will find useful everytime you use the camera.To work out what memory stick you will need I purchased a 256MB memory stick and I can fit 102 pictures on in 5 mega pixel and super fine quality and the image quality in 5 mega pixel and super fine is amazing.The colour screen is clear and bright.The menus can be a bit difficult to get round and you will occasionally need to refer to the instruction book for help, but this is just a small price to pay for what in my opinion is one of the best digital cameras around.

I have had this Sony DSC-V1 camera for about 3 months and it has been excellent.

It is my first digital camera and it has been a great experience learning the ropes with it.

It has full automatic as well as manual modes and some interesting effects too.

All this and it is cheaper than the other cameras I was considering with the same features.

Great buy!

I bought a Sony DSC-V1 Digital Camera a few months ago. It was my first time using a camera (digital or not) with manual controls like exposition, aperture etc, but my second digital camera. The previous was a Sony DSC-P72. I really like this one a lot. the picture quality is really good. There are some controls like saturation that can be really helpful to make a good picture. But the most outstanding is the noise level, specially with long exposure picture. You really have to look just for noise to find it or to be a real bad photographer. The negative point is the battery, plan to buy a second one.