Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-R1 Digital Camera

This camera is for someone who is an experienced digital photographer who no longer is satisfied with point and shoot, control-less image taking. With this camera you get true WYSIWYG. What you see is what you get. This means live depth of field preview and the results of exposure compensation - live, DSLR beating!! The point of focus is not just automatic either, you can place it anywhere in the viewfinder to suit yourself if you need to.

The Carl Zeiss wide-angle 24-120mm zoom is nearly all you will ever need. The lens produces the most flattering portraits and includes everybody in group shots. The 10.3 megapixel shots allow for cropping and a third of the image prints beautifully to an A4 page edge to edge. It produces the wow factor in other people if the image you take is full of the emotion & drama you saw in the viewfinder. If you love Adobe Photoshop this camera is for you, it has an Adobe RGB setting and can shoot in RAW. (Write times have shortened since compactflash speeds have increased, take this into account when you read reviews- raw files are around 20mb.)

This camera has a manual zoom! A lens you cradle in your hands and use like an SLR, even the manual focusing ring is in the right place. The lens alone is worth over £600 so they say.

Don't buy this camera if you need lighting quick focusing in low light situations. Don't buy this camera if you want to photograph the local football team in action. To take quick action you need to prefocus and know your subject and environment - it can do this very competently. Dont buy this if you want to change lenses frequently and carry around heaps of equipment. The lens is fixed. The flash is so competent, you don't really need another one. Macro photography is not great, but there is so much scope to enlarge the image - who cares?

This is a competent bridge camera, not a compact, not a toy - this is the pros other camera, the one they wish they had when they realize that their camera can't cope and yours can. When this camera came out some people thought that you would need at least £2k of DSLR kit to get anywhere close to the quality that this camera brings to your technical capability. Get this camera if you are an experience photographer who used to love 35mm SLR photography, but hated lugging around over 3 kilos of kit. This camera is not light though, that piece of glass is your hands is solid optical brilliance.

Depending on your style of photography you will either love this, or hate it. This is like having the 2 1/4" film equivalent of the digital world. Stunning results will depend on your competence as a photographer.