P 200 flash shutter

[originalstarlite]

Maxx2,

Thank you very much for spending time on that explanation, and I will certainly experiment with the settings. Although I have owned3 SLR cameras and this my second digital, spanning 35 years, I feel removed from this P200. The manual is in my opinion a disgrace and the number of people complaining of blurred pictures in the Sony area indicates the problems the camera creates with no help to be had in the "manual."

There are so many things not explained very well about its interface. My Canon S30 had a book of information that really puts the Sony documentation to shame.

[maxx2]

originalstarlite wrote:

Maxx2,

Thank you very much for spending time on that explanation, and I will certainly experiment with the settings. Although I have owned3 SLR cameras and this my second digital, spanning 35 years, I feel removed from this P200. The manual is in my opinion a disgrace and the number of people complaining of blurred pictures in the Sony area indicates the problems the camera creates with no help to be had in the "manual."

There are so many things not explained very well about its interface. My Canon S30 had a book of information that really puts the Sony documentation to shame.

Yeah, the manual isn't very good, but the Cybershot Life Tutorial on CD is supposed to be very good (we don't get it here in Canada, probably because it doesn't also come in French). The good thing about Sonys is that they are fairly intiutive, so you don't need to look at the manual much.

Most of my indoor shots are sharp without messing with the shutter speed.
I had a Canon S70, and it produced the roughly the same percentage of blurry indoor pics and the P150 (actually, it was worse as it had a *lot* of trouble focusing indoors). Many people use one hand or hold these little digicams at arm's length. I use both hands and even try to use the optical viewfinder and brace the camera against my face to reduce camera shake. I avoid using Auto mode, and select Center AF and recompose if necessary so thatI control where the camera is focusing. I half-press and wait for focus confirmation if the subject has little detail, low contrastor there is not much light. The P150 (like many otherdigicams including the S70) will still take a shot if AF fails, so it's important to wait for AF confirmation in tricky focus situations.

My biggest beef with the Sonys is that their auto exposureprogram tends to select smaller apertures instead of faster shutter speeds. For instance, in bright sunlight at full zoom, I'dget f/10 and 1/100 instead of f/5.2 and 1/400. At f/10, the lens is quite soft due to defraction, and at full zoom 1/100 is certainly more conducive to blur due to camera shake than at 1/400. That's why I'm glad there is a manual mode! If only there was a Program Shift feature like the larger models. Aperture priority would be nice, but rather limited since the lens only has 2 aperture settings...

Maxx