Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P120 — 2003 slim compact with 5.1MP CCD and Carl Zeiss 3x zoom
The Cyber-shot DSC-P120 arrived in 2003 as part of Sony's P-series, a line of slim metal-bodied compacts aimed at buyers wanting a pocketable everyday camera with a genuine zoom lens rather than the fixed-focal designs common at the budget end of the market.
It pairs a 5.1-megapixel 1/1.8-inch Super HAD CCD sensor with a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 3x optical zoom lens covering a 38-114mm equivalent range at f/2.8-5.2. Photos and short clips are framed on a 1.8-inch TFT LCD, and images save to Memory Stick or Memory Stick Pro cards, with ISO sensitivity running from 100 to 400.
For its time the P120's Carl Zeiss branding and relatively large 1/1.8-inch sensor gave it an edge over cheaper compacts using smaller chips, producing noticeably less noise at higher ISO settings and a brighter lens for indoor and dusk shooting than typical budget point-and-shoots of 2003.
On the used market the P120 is bought mainly for casual retro shooting, so it is worth checking the zoom barrel extends cleanly, the LCD shows no banding or dead pixels, and a Memory Stick card plus the correct InfoLithium battery are on hand, as Sony has long discontinued both.