Great Quality/Great Video/Bad Panoramas

Author's Rating:

Pros: Batter Life, HD video, 12.1 megapixels

Cons: Panorama option not very good.

The Bottom Line: 
For anyone who wants individual photos with great quality and want to shoot great video, this is for you.

Author's Review
This wonderous little item takes such quality photos (12.1 mp) that it is more than you will ever need.  Its sleek, smooth design packs a serious punch.  It works well in cloudy, low light conditions.  But there are some very obvious cons to this camera.

Namely, if you always notice that your shot doesn't encompass everything you want and need a panoram funciton, this camera is not for you.  There is a stitch assist button, but the ISO option remains on each individual shot, so that when you stitch the shots together and difference in light will be picked up and the "panoramic" feel is lost.  It handles any weather condition shots and even does great MACRO shots, but the panoram option leaves more to be desired.  MUCH more.  And the photos don't even get stitched inside the camera, you need to manually put them into this program that comes on the cd, and stitch them using a program.  I had a kodak easyshare and it did it inside the camera seemlessly.  Yes, this option allows you to choose as many photos as you want to stitch, but it doesn't do a good job.  I was standing on the beach and thought I got a great job, flew home and stitched it together and it looked terrible.  And now that shot is lost forever.

But if you just want to take this camera to all the parties and record your friends doing stupid things, this is for you.  The camera takes HD footage, and uploads to the computer easily and quickly, and looks almost camcorder like in quality.  It is really quite impressive. 

The camera has great battery life, so you never need to watch out for that.  But the panoram option is terrible.  If this is what you are looking for, Sony is coming out in March a program where every camera (even the low end models) who have an X after their name will have this great panorama option that is incredible.  I returned this camera and I will wait until march.  But if you just want great individual shots and great HD video, this camera is Awesome!