7 out of 7 people found this review helpful.
Worth Paying Extra Bucks For Extra Bangs. Make Sure You Read The Manual Fully.
Date of Review: Dec 15, 2007
The Bottom Line: As someone who can't justify owning a professional SLR and does not have the required neck muscles either, this camera was a revelation. I've rediscovered photography. Thanks Sony.
I bought my DSC T100 in July 2007 at London Gatwick airport prior to sightseeing in Venice. You only get one chance to visit such a romantic place for the first time so I wanted a reliable camera.
My priorities, in order of importance, were picture quality, better than 3x optical zoom without telescoping action, build quality, large screen, ease of use, compact size, at least 5 Megapixels, and finally a fair price, up to #300(600 USD) in my case.
I was tempted by the new Casio Exilim with 7X zoom but my previous earlier Exilim was uneconomic to repair after landing on it's fully extended zoom 2 years earlier. So the 'internal' zoom of this model appealed to me greatly.
I carefully scrutinised the build of the camera and could tell it was meticulously put together and appeared to be of more robust construction than others I looked at on the shop counter. The Olympus Muji did look more bullet proof but only had 3X Optical zoom. Digital zoom is almost meaningless to me, optical is what counts in my opinion. Extra pixels strike me as a gimmick too, unless you want to make mural sized prints.
So in the end I opted to spend around #280, with a case thrown in, but not the memory stick. I would recommend picking up a spare battery too as I had to recharge each night after about 6 hours of shooting and videoing gondolas, palaces and churches. I quickly found my way around the menus having taken the trouble to read the whole manual, unlike some reviewers going by the complaints about bad pictures.
I soon realised it had a very accurate 'point and shoot' Auto Adjustment option as a default, on the Shooting pulldown menu. Three clicks down and I was in Movie Mode. So I could not fault the ease of use. Likewise the excellent Macro, and flash options. I can sympathise with those people who did experience blurred shots. I found this out a few months later when I strayed on to the Program mode while experimenting taking night shots of fireworks. It just takes a little clarity of thought to diagnose the cause rather than getting lost in the more advanced options. You simply need to go back to Auto Adjustment.
It is a very sophisticated piece of kit but if you follow the manual you will be rewarded for investing in extra reading time, practise and those few extra bucks.
