Sony DSC-P92 Cybershot Digital Camera

[Henry's Notes] -> [Slackware] -> [Cameras]

25th December 2003

[Sony DSC P92 digital camera]

I've had a Sony P50 digital camera for a while. I've written notes about it as well. In the middle of 2003, I bought another Sony camera, the Sony P92 Cybershot. This has some major advantages to the P50.

it came with two nickel-metal hydride batteries, 2100 mAh
battery usage is much lighter so the batteries last longer
5 megapixels. At maximum resolution I get images that are 2592 x 1944 pixels.
no lens cap to be manually put on and taken off, it has an iris that automatically opens and shuts. I really like this feature.
it's physically smaller
when you record movies, it records audio now. The P50 didn't do audio. And it's got audio playback.
a few minor menu settings have been added, but essentially the operation is the same.

As always, there are some drawbacks.

comes with an inadequate 16 meg memory stick. At least that's better than the P50 which came with a 4 meg memory stick.
no TIFF format images, only jpeg. No compression choices. This irritated me, even through I didn't use it much with the other camera. At 5 megapixels, each photos stores at just over 2 meg, so it's not doing a huge amount of compression which is good.
Harder to get photos in dim light. The P50 was slightly better.
Straight lines that aren't horizontal or vertical get the jaggies.

I've been using the camera with the date/time stamp on. This is good for easily determining when you took the photo, but when you finally come to print a photo, that date stamp looks mighty ugly. I turned it off when I discovered that I can determine a lot of information about the photo from meta data stored inside the JPG image by the camera.

I used ImageMagick's "identify -verbose" command and this is the sort of information stored in each photo and easily accessible. Now I can see what settings I used and try and improve my photography.

Image: dsc01842.jpg
  Format: JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group JFIF format)
  Geometry: 2592x1944
  Class: DirectClass
  Type: true color
  Depth: 8 bits-per-pixel component
  Colors: 211471
  Profile-APP1: 5339 bytes
    Byte order: Intel
    Image Description:
    Manufacturer: SONY
    Model: DSC-P92
    Orientation: top - left
    x-Resolution: 72/1
    y-Resolution: 72/1
    Resolution Unit: Inch
    Date and Time: 2004:01:11 23:17:57
    YCbCr Positioning: co-sited
    (null): 
    Compression: JPEG compression
    Manufacturer: SONY
    Model: DSC-P92
    Orientation: top - left
    x-Resolution: 72/1
    y-Resolution: 72/1
    Resolution Unit: Inch
    Date and Time: 2004:01:11 23:17:57
    Exposure Time: 1/8 sec.
    FNumber: f/2.8
    ExposureProgram: Normal program
    ISO Speed Ratings: 320
    Exif Version: Exif Version 2.2
    Date and Time (original): 2004:01:11 23:17:57
    Date and Time (digitized): 2004:01:11 23:17:57
    ComponentsConfiguration: Y Cb Cr -
    Compressed Bits per Pixel: 4/1
    Exposure Bias: 0.0
    MaxApertureValue: 48/16
    Metering Mode: Pattern
    Light Source: Unknown
    Flash: Flash did not fire.
    Focal Length: 8.0 mm
    Maker Note: 1504 bytes unknown data
    FlashPixVersion: FlashPix Version 1.0
    Color Space: sRGB
    PixelXDimension: 2592
    PixelYDimension: 1944
    File Source: DSC
    Scene Type: 
    Custom Rendered: Normal process
    Exposure Mode: Auto exposure
    White Balance: Auto white balance
    Scene Capture Type: Standard
    InteroperabilityIndex: R98
    InteroperabilityVersion: 
    Thumbnail: 2947 bytes
  Resolution: 72x72 pixels
  Filesize: 2.2mb
  Interlace: None
  Background Color: grey100
  Border Color: #DFDFDF
  Matte Color: grey74
  Dispose: Undefined
  Iterations: 0
  Compression: JPEG
  signature: f5113ce7ede6f647552ae8469360f0ff612588f42cbd7f16cccac349357d6eb9
  Tainted: False
  User Time: 1.250u
  Elapsed Time: 0:02

All in all though, I am pretty happy with the camera. The physical bits are definitely better, like the smaller size and the automatic iris. The quality of the photos is much better, with the 5 megapixels. I keep it on maximum definition settings so I get the most amount of data to work with. This causes a problem with the number of photos per memory stick. I have a number of 128 meg memory sticks, and at 2.2 meg per photo, I get about 50 photos per memory stick. I was used to getting 100 photos with the P50, so I went out and bought a 256 meg memory stick for this camera. I actually got a 256 meg Memory Stick PRO. This caused me problems.

I was using Slackware 9.0 with the 2.4.20 kernel. The USB modules wouldn't recognise the camera. The camera was too new. But I could put the memory sticks in my PNY card reader and transfer the photos under Linux that way. Except it wouldn't read the Memory Stick PRO. So if I took photos on the Memory Stick PRO, then I could only get them off under Windows. So I stopped using the memory stick PRO because it's more trouble than it's worth these days to reboot to Windows for anything.

[Sony Memory Stick PRO]

But time marches on and things change. Slackware 9.1 was released with the 2.4.22 kernel and the USB modules in that kernel release recognised the camera. But the usb-storage module still wouldn't recognise the Memory Stick PRO cards. The 2.6.0 kernel was released, and as Slackware 9.1 was 2.6 ready, I installed the 2.6.0 kernel. This time, the usb-storage module recognised the Memory Stick PRO cards. I can now access all aspects of the P92 under Linux. One thing I have also noticed is that the USB mounts and umounts are more reliable. No false starts, no false error reports. It's very stable and very good.

Connecting:

kernel: hub 1-0:1.0: new USB device on port 1, assigned address 3
usb.agent[27228]: ... no modules for USB product 54c/10/450
kernel: scsi4 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
kernel:   Vendor: Sony      Model: Sony DSC          Rev: 4.50
kernel:   Type:   Direct-Access                      ANSI SCSI revision: 02
scsi.agent[27256]: bogus sysfs DEVPATH=/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1f.2/usb1 \
 /1-1/1-1:1.0/host4/4:0:0:0
kernel: SCSI device sda: 487936 512-byte hdwr sectors (250 MB)
kernel: sda: Write Protect is off
kernel:  sda:<7>usb-storage: queuecommand called
kernel: Attached scsi removable disk sda at scsi4, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
kernel: Attached scsi generic sg3 at scsi4, channel 0, id 0, lun 0,  type 0

Disconnecting:

kernel: usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 3

Now I have to upgrade Linux on my laptop because when I travel, that's where I store my photos. That's not going to be an easy task. A desired task, but not an easy task.

Henry's Notes

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Sony DSC-P92 Cybershot Digital Camera

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