If you are just an amateur photographer that is either finally switching from analog to digital or just want a decent camera to take on family vacations or school projects, this is a great camera. It is small, lightweight, and does just about anything you could possibly need it to do. It won't take pictures of hummingbirds feeding across a forest bed, but it will take a decent photo of the grand canyon. The quality of the 3x optical zoom is really good, but the picture is sacrificed slightly as you try to artifically enhance it with the digital zoom. The battery life is good enough to take on extended trips from your hotel or on a hike without having to carry around a charger or spare batteries. If you plan on taking lots of high quality large photos, you will need to get a larger memory stick (64 MB will work, 128 MB even better), but the memory stick it comes with will be enough to photograph your child's birthday party as long as you download the photos onto your computer afterwards. At 3 MegaPixels, this camera will pick up individual hairs on a persons head, but you won't be able to clearly define the flea sitting in the hair. There are 5 MegaPixel cameras out there, but at the consumer level there is really no point in spending the money on one (5 MP won't come in handy unless you are student taking pictures through a microscope or a telescope) All around, while Sony's camera lenses may not compare with Canon or Olympus, Sony makes up for it with their superior knowledge of how to make a great consumer digital device and turn it into a decent digital camera. It is a great value for the price.

Sony has just about infiltrated every electronic marketplace possible and the digital camera sector is no exception. When I was researching to buy a camera, it came down to the Canon A40 vs. the Sony DSC P71. I went with the Sony because it was smaller and I didn't want to carry around the larger Canon. I wonder now if I made a mistake as Canon cameras are constantly being raved about.

The P71 being my first digital camera it would be unfair to say I was disappointed. It has a decent zoom 3x Optical and 2x digital. The form factor of the camera is a huge plus. It's very small and light and easy to carry in a jacket pocket. The LCD is 1.5" more than large enough to see images clearly. The 3.2 megapixels has allowed me to develop beautiful, clear 5 x 7 photos. Even the 8 x 10 pictures come out very well.

The strength of Sony digital cameras lies in taking outdoor pictures. The colors in natural sunlight are vibrant and clear. The pictures taken outdoors always come out beautiful - especially in areas where flowers, trees, and grass are present.
I have seen very few digital cameras that take nicer outdoor pictures than the Sony P71.

The navigation is very intuitive even if the buttons are a little small. Sometimes I find it hard to find the center "ok" button - I often accidentally slip my finger to the right or left. When going through pictures taken already, the preview images render very quickly on the LCD. The camera offer a plethora of options for shutter speed, contrasting, picture quality and resolution, as well as view.

Battery life is good. I can go through a 64 MB memory stick at high resolution on one set of batteries (and flash). Sony also provides a free set(2) of rechargeable batteries and a charger with this camera. This is a very very nice addition and accessory for this price. I bought an extra set of rechargeable batteries to keep as a spare (one set always charges while the other set is being used).

Also provided is a USB cable to hook up to your computer to download images. This is an extremely easy set up with Windows XP - just plug the USB cable into your computer and camera and XP automatically recognizes your new hardware. You don't need to install the provided software if your computer already has a default picuture viewer.

Now the reasons this camera received just 3 stars:

1) Remember how I mentioned that this camera takes great outdoor pictures? Well as great as the outdoor pictures are, the indoor pictures are as equally horrible. I don't know if it's the flash or Sony's interpretation of artificial light, but every single indoor picture is dark with an orange tint. They are clear, but the coloring is always off. It's like I'm looking at pictures through sunglasses.

2) I wish Sony would have configured this camera to leave the flash on when I turn it on. The default setting for the flash is always "off" so when you turn the flash on and the camera is idle for a minute, it turns itself off and sets the flash to the off position. This wouldn't be annoying if it didn't take the camera so long to re-initiate the flash. It takes a good 5-7 seconds to re-initiate. Furthermore, what would make most sense would be if the camera just sensed when the flash was needed and turned it on itself. That's what most cameras do.

So there you have it - a layman's review of the Sony P71. I'm not a hobbyist or a professional photographer, I just use the camera for fun to basically record memories. The Sony P71 is an decent camera. If you take a lot of indoor pictures, stay away from it, otherwise, it will serve its purpose.

This is my first digital camera & I have been using it for over one year. I use it for both my business & vacations. It is very easy to use (especially for beginers). It is also great because there is never any film to develop (for those of us who forget to drop it off or pick it up). It has some wonderful features like color or black & white, the buttons are easy to use & the instructions are great. The viewfinder on the back is very clear & choice of image size is great.

In addition to the camera I would purchase a tripod and an additional memory stick (128MB is a great price at amazon.com). If it is still available the starter pack with case, battery charger, etc... is also a good choice.

This is my latest camera and I'm using it for web purposes. The picture quality is great and the zoom is also very useful. What I love about this camera? Fast when taking a new picture, great flash option. What I don't like is the noise that the camera does when you start it and the zoom moves in and out, so you can't take pictures without somebody notices you.

I've had this camera for about half a year now and use it extensively - indoor, outdoors, panoramic, macros ... I've used it for everything.

It's good at general purpose shots in good outdoor light. By which I mean your bog standard bunch of people squinting slightly in the sun. The lens is pretty hopeless at processing other light - in particular, extremeley bright sunlight, indoors light (especially artificial light - so forget any useful night shots). As for demanding conditions like a single spotlight or a candle flame - forget it. It's also quite poor at macros - you have to focus for ages to avoid the fuzzes, and even then I've found it best to take the picture some way out and then zoom in and trim.

And does anyone else have a gripe with the entirely useless Sony explodingly-bright flash (even on its loweste setting)??!

That said, I've managed to take some crystal clear shots with exquisite detailing in *just* the right conditions and lighting with much careful focussing and framing.

A classic case of a poor workman blaming his tools perhaps! but I've had a much better experience with my DSC-S70 with its lovely Zeiss lens, for example.

So in summary a nice general purpose point-and-shoot for acceptable but not pin-sharp snaps of your bunch standing around after a birthday lunch - but not if you want to get any fancier than that.

I have had this camera for about 2 years. It's been great all the way. But recently one of my friends dropped it. The lens is having a hard time retracting back into the camera, and the LCD screen only works sometimes. It does power on and off though. I was wondering if anyone had experience in this field and could tell me if it was simply broken for good or if it could be repaired some way. If you could email me at lafever5@hotmail.com or post a review I would appreciate it.

I just want to know where I can purchase a memory stick that will work with this camera. I've had it with phoney Sony.