Sony Cyber-shot DSC-R1 review

What you need to know

Reviewed by: Lisa Gidley

Reviewed on: 21 October 2005

Tags: Sony, Sony Cyber-shot DSC-R1, lag, digital photography, photography

We like:

Excellent image quality; an impressively flexible LCD screen that's viewable from many angles; a sharp Zeiss lens; effective white-balancing features; a wide range of ISO sensitivity; quick performance

We don't like:

With most heavy components on the left side, the chunky body is somewhat off-balance; can't shoot raw in burst mode; the in-camera review function magnifies to only 5x

You might also need:

Fast 2GB CompactFlash card

CNET UK judgement:

If you don't anticipate a need for multiple lenses -- which many users won't, given the crisp 24mm-to-120mm-equivalent lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 -- the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-R1 makes a worthy competitor to the dSLRs in its price range. It's a handy, versatile camera with excellent image quality

Full review:

Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-R1 represents an intriguing bridge between the world of user-friendly all-in-one prosumer cameras and the more complicated world of high-quality digital SLRs. It has an easily rotated LCD screen, plenty of manual bells and whistles, a sharp and versatile Carl Zeiss lens, and a 10-megapixel CMOS sensor nearly as large as those found in typical dSLRs.The resulting images are impressive, and the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-R1 is relatively easy to operate once you've navigated through the slightly awkward interface a few times. It can take a while to sort through the features spread out among more than a dozen buttons and dials, but even relative newcomers to digital photography should be able to take decent photos right out of the box. Continue Reading...