Wow Sony has Out-done itself! Great Camera!!

Hi all.

I am going to try to keep this brief. For those of you familiar with Sony's Mavica line, or the DSC-S85 and sister cameras, this camera will be a breeze to operate. For those of you who aren't, I would suggest using the manual or you might screw up some of the settings and not even know what's wrong or how to fix it. Then you will end up using the manual but will be frustrated that you didn't start there in the first place.

PROS:
1. EXCELLENT photo quality! 4 megapixels of clean, crisp pictures. The ability to zoom or enlarge without pixelization is great!

2. EXCELLENT flash control (low, medium, high). In addition, the camera is perfect in low light settings such as the dungeon that is my house. You must adjust the settings properly or this won't help.

3. Easy to use, once you familiarize yourself with the modes/features/settings.

4. The BIG viewfinder. I think this viewfinder is as big as my camcorder's and it is very handy to review pictures and your subject before snapping your shot.

5. I like the ability to review a picture before actually recording it.

6. I love using the CD media (I DESPISE cables and USB drivers!!!)

7. The size and weight. Some may not like it, I do. I paid $276.00 for this bad boy and I want to feel it. I don't want some flimsy plasticky thing with a tiny viewfinder.

8. I'll be honest, before I saw the picture quality on this thing, I was ready to throw it right back on ebay. It worked great and everything, just seemed way too advanced for me and something that was way out of my amateur league. However, for you semi-pros out there, you will love everything it can do. And all the settings you can adjust to get them just right. It has a ton of things to play around with and learn about, which leads me to number...

9. It is perfect for both semi-pro and amateurs. If you want to sit back and let the camera do the work, you can have the camera do that (as I learned). If you want to be more involved the camera's decision making process, you can do that too. It is really an individual choice everyone must make for themselves.

10. Cheap media! Wow I can take over 60 shots at the BEST QUALITY level on ONE CD which costs me under $5.00. And I can reuse the cd media again and again.

11. The MPEG movie function. I will not be a big user of this as I have a camcorder. But if those priceless moments arise, I do have that option which is nice to have.

For me, the pros definitely outweigh the con. I have a strong aversion to cables, USB's, drivers and the like. My last primary camera (and current back up) is the Floppy Disk Mavica and I absolutely love it. If it weren't a meager 1.3 megapixel, I would not have had any reason to upgrade to this.

For the con (see below), there is just one. This may be deal-breaker for you as it is my boyfriend's. He will continue to use our Floppy Mavica. For me, it is just a slight annoyance, one that is easy to put up with once you see the picture quality.

The Con (singular)
...is that you must initialize a disc (one time only per disc, takes 2 min.) then you take pictures and before you can read them on your computer you must finalize the disc (another 2 min.). Initializing and Finalizing and unfinalizing are all forms of formatting a disc to make it suitable for its current purpose.

When you want to reuse the disc, you must unfinalize it and then take your pictures and you must finalize again. But it is no biggie to me. How long does it take to install, reinstall, hook up and unhook USB cables- if you can find them!!!

All in all, I love this camera and I am very happy with my choice.