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"Picky Details" for the Sony DSC-P32 digital camera
(Timing, Power, and Storage Info)

Timing
Since they're rarely reported on but very important to the picture-taking experience, I measure both cycle times and shutter delay times for all the cameras I review, using a test system I designed and built for the purpose. (Crystal-controlled, with a resolution of 0.001 second.) Here are the numbers I collected for the Sony DSC-P32:

NOTE: My qualitative characterizations of camera performance below (that is, "reasonably fast," "about average," etc.) are meant to be relative to other cameras of similar price and general capabilities. Thus, the same shutter lag that's "very fast" for a low-end consumer camera might be characterized as "quite slow" if I encountered it on a professional model. The comments are also intended as only a quick reference: If performance specs are critical for you, rely on the absolute numbers to compare cameras, rather than my purely qualitative comments.

Sony DSC-P32 Timings
Operation	Time (secs)	Notes
Power On -> First shot	2.2.33	Time from power-up to first shot captured. Pretty fast, as the lens doesn't have to telescope out.
Shutdown	3.94	Time for camera to finish writing to the Memory Stick. A little slow.
Play to Record, first shot	0.83	Time until first shot is captured. Very (!) fast.
Record to play	4.27/2.30	Time to display an image immediately after capture. First number is for maximum resolution, second is for minimum. The max-res time is quite slow. (If the camera has finished saving an image to the Memory Stick though, the switch to playback mode is quite fast, less than a second.)
Shutter lag, full autofocus	0.393	Only one number for this measurement on the P32, as there's no zoom lens, hence no separate wide/telephoto measurements. Very fast, much faster than average. (Average is about 0.8 seconds.)
Shutter lag, manual focus	0.288	Time to capture, using one of the P32's focus presets. Pretty fast.
Shutter lag, prefocus	0.090	Time to capture, after half-pressing Shutter button. Much (!) faster than average.
Cycle Time, max/min resolution	1.36/1.55	First number is for maximum resolution, fine-quality files, second number is time for minimum res, normal-quality. Both are quite fast. At max res, the camera shoots this fast for the first two frames, then drops to an average cycle time of 2.18 seconds, still quite good. At small/normal resolution the camera can shoot a great many files without waiting for the Memory Stick to catch up.
Cycle Time, continuous mode	0.44 (2.28 frames/sec)	No difference in continuous mode cycle time for large or small files, but large images take 5.4 seconds to write to the memory card after a burst of two, vs 2.6 seconds for small ones.

Power
The DSC-P32 uses standard AA-cell batteries. It ships with two high-capacity (1850 mAh) Sony-branded cells and a nice little battery charger. I strongly recommend purchasing at least one additional set of rechargeable NiMH AA cells though, to provide added power for extended outings.

Since it doesn't have an external power connector, I couldn't measure the P32's power consumption as I normally do. Using the rather unscientific approach of just running it on a normal set of batteries until it stopped, I came up with a worst-case run time of roughly 2 hours 10 minutes on true 1600 mAh batteries, or 2 hours 37 minutes on the 1850 mAh-rated cells that Sony ships with it. Excellent battery life, but I still strongly recommend purchasing a second set of cells.

Storage Capacity
The FinePix F410 stores its photos on xD-Picture cards, and a 16 MB card is packed with the camera. As always, I strongly recommend buying at least a 32MB card, preferably a 64MB one, to give yourself extra space for extended outings. (Particularly given the large size of the F410's maximum-resolution images.) The chart below shows how many images can be stored on the included 16MB card at each size/quality setting, and the approximate amount of image compression applied in each mode. (The more image compression that's applied, the smaller the image files, but the lower quality the photos will be.)

 

Image Capacity vs Resolution/Quality 16 MB Memory Stick		Fine	Normal
Full Resolution 2,048 x 1,536	Images (Avg size)	10 1,560 KB	18 865 KB
	Approx. Compression	6:1	11:1
1,632 x 1,224	Images (Avg size)	16 970 KB	30 520 KB
	Approx. Compression	6:1	11:1
1,280 x 960	Images (Avg size)	25 634 KB	41 383 KB
	Approx. Compression	6:1	10:1
640 x 480	Images (Avg size)	98 162 KB	246 65 KB
	Approx. Compression	6:1	14:1

 

P32 Review
P32 Test Images
P32 Specifications
P32 "Picky Details"
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