Editorial Review:Product Description:The Sony DSC-P9 features an ultra compact and lightweight design with only 176.5g. It comes with 4.1 Mega Pixels and a wide array of user-friendly, high performance functions. The DSC-P9 is the top end model of the P-series Cyber-shot Digital Still Camera. It offers a built-in 1/1.8' 4.1 Mega Pixels Super HAD (Super Hole Accumulation Diode) CCD to produce striking images of brilliant quality. By combining advanced digital imaging technologies with a sophisticated body design, the DSC-P9 is able to achieve the state-of-the-art miniature.Equipped with the Clear Color Noise Reduction and the Clear Luminance Noise Reduction, the DSC-P9 enhances the picture quality significantly. Besides, the Multi-point Auto Focus function ensures better focus and exposure. The Multi-pattern Metering function enables the camera to get the right exposure in low light or irregular lighting conditions. By dividing the scene into a matrix of 49 separate cells, the camera is able to meter each of them separately and calculate exposure of each cell accurately when highlights and shadows exist outside the center of the frame. The DSC-P9 is equipped with various advanced lighting capabilities that allow users to capture high quality pictures without worrying lighting conditions. Additionally, the DSC-P9 offers an enhanced 1.5-inch LCD auto bright monitoring display that can increase the brightness of an image automatically on the LCD display in low light conditions. The DSC-P9 also offers MPEG Movie HQX video mode that allows users to capture nonstop, full-screen, high-resolution MPEG videos and playback on TVs. The Image Mixer Editing Software by PIXELA makes it easy to edit both still images and videos on PCs. Users can edit and insert a wide range of special effects, transition patterns as well as sub-titles into their images or movies.
Amazon.com Review:The Sony DSC-P9 builds on the success of earlier models from Sony, such as the DSC-P1 and DSC-P5. The DSC-P9 adds a high-performance 4-megapixel CCD and combines it with an excellent quality 3x optical zoom lens. The chief selling point of the DSC-P9 has to be its diminutive size--this really is among the smallest, feature-rich digital cameras on the market--at just 4.4 by 2 by 1.4 inches.
The metal body not only looks great but also gives the reassurance that the camera is robust and can be carried anywhere. Controls are straightforward and include a mode dial, a zoom toggle, and menu navigation buttons. Access to the Memory Stick and battery are from a single compartment door on the side of the camera. Input-output jacks are the fairly standard power, USB, and AV out.
The 3x optical zoom lens tucks neatly into the body of the camera when not in use and includes an automatic lens protector. In use, the zoom moves from wide to full telephoto in less than three seconds, although it is a little noisier than expected, especially as compared to the notably quiet transport on the Kodak DX4900.
The Sony menu navigation, which is fairly consistent across the range, is extremely easy to use. In capture mode, there are options to set exposure compensation, manual focus, white balance, spot metering, ISO, image size from 2,272 x 1,704 down to 640 x 480, compression levels, flash levels, and picture effects. There is also a scene selection mode that offers presets for twilight, night portrait, and landscape. While useful, this is extremely limited when compared to some other digital cameras, such as the easy-to-use Nikon Coolpix 2500 or the endlessly configurable Casio QV-4000.
The image quality is what you would expect of a 4-megapixel camera--plenty of detail and scope for cropping to get just the right composition. When using the automatic settings, the images were not as sharp as expected, although this can be compensated for using the in-camera sharpening. Both exposure and white balance were generally accurate, but it would have been nice to see the ability to take a manual white-balance reading like on the Nikon 2500. To its credit, the DSC-P9 has a powerful autofocus illuminator that greatly aids focusing in poor light conditions.
One feature we feel should be included in a camera of this quality is an orientation sensor that automatically rotates images when stored to match the photographs as taken. Despite this we would still recommend the DSC-P9 as being one of the sexiest high-resolution cameras available.
--Nick Baxter
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
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A great consumer level digital camera for any household
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 4 MegaPixels, this camera will pick up individual hairs on a persons head and it will even be able to clearly define a flea 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.
Rating: 
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Sony Cameras Have Fatal Flaw
Although the camera is fine, the memory card format represents a fatal flaw that prospective buyers should consider. The memory cards are prone to format errors (Format Error 13-01) which can cause you to lose your photos. We have 8 memory sticks and have had problems with all but 3 of them. I recommend that any one considering a Sony camera purchase do a Google Search using search terms: Sony format error "13-01" to discover what disgruntled Sony owners are saying about this problem.
Rating: 
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Battery Issues
I had my camera about a year when it stopped charging fully. It is supposed to get 120mins on a full battery and only got 20. After trying two new batteries I called Sony to be advised that they would look at it for a cost of $180!!! It would have cost me around $200 with shipping! The only people allowed to service Sonys are Sony. You can't bring it someplace else. Kind of like a Volvo in that respect. Moral of the story, when buying a camera make sure it is something that your local camera store can fix.
Rating: 
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Excellent pictures but not in low-light
This camera is top notch in many ways.
I gave it only 4 stars because of one thing: low-light shots.
Someone wrote that if you set the flash power manually to highest, it produces good low-light pictures. Unfortunately it's not true. I wish it would be. This camera is worse in low-light shots than the competition. Believe me.
It's your decision: if you can handle this, buy it, because otherwise it takes excellent pictures in normal lightning conditions. If low-light, night and indoor shots (with poor back-light) is important for you, look at the Canon S45 or S400 instead.
Rating: -
Excellent Camera - Memory sticks leave room for improvement
As a photo enthusiast with a number of photo workshops/classes and countless books on photography theory from landscape to portrait photography so I'm a very hard person to please when it comes to digital cameras. First I would like to mention that digital cameras are still a long way from matching quality of the better film cameras using 35mm slide film and no where near the potential quality of medium and large format cameras, so you need to take that into account and consider what you will be using it for. When I purchased this camera in June 2002 it was the cutting edge CyberShot. I immediately dumped the 16mb memory stick and picked up the largest available (and still to this day) 128mb Memory Stick as well as a couple extra lithium batteries. The great part is one of the batteries lasts right about as long as it takes to fill up a 128mb card!
The pictures are outstanding for a digital camera, the other thing that is really cool about it is you can capture mpeg format video with sound. Dont toss your video camera yet though, its dark light performance is hideous and resolution is not even close to a digital or tape video camera, but it is a neat feature when used under the right circumstances.
My biggest grip is Sony never came out with Memory Sticks larger than 128mb and doesn't appear to ever support it. They've produced a smaller MemoryStick version thats half the size but has an adapter to make it work but still none of larger capacity. I recently read on their web site that they are comming out with a total new format that isnt going to be compatable with any current MemoryStick device but will have capacities in the future exceeding 1 gigabyte.
At max resolution 2200x something, you can get 65 still pictures on a 128mb card. The pictures are in fact so good that you can stand 30 feet away from a soup can and snap a shot of the label, view the picture and zoom in to the point where you can read the ingredients. You can also set it down to 640x480 and get like 1500 pictures on to that same 128mb card so theres a lot of flexability depending on your needs.
Its a great camera if you need something compact and good enough to take pictures of things in every day life for instant digital gratification. If you dont plan to blow up prints the size of a poster you will have no problems with the resolution and find that the max setting is many times too much for your standard birthday party or trip to San Diego.
