Apparently, I bought two award winners

Joanne (one of Lynn's bridesmaids) bought a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T200 last month, and it is now somewhat broken not quite right, since she's been clubbing a lot, and because of the alcohol, people invariably drop it or hit something with it. So she asked me if I knew anything about the life-cycle of Sony's digital cameras, specifically regarding how often they release new versions of their cameras (which in turn would affect how quickly their prices may drop).

In looking up that information, I found out that the T200 apparently won a 2008 International CES Innovations award. Which reminded me that I saw a sticker on the box of my TZ3 for an award, too.

Of course, I had to look that up. It seems to have won the 2007/2008 European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA) Award in the "Compact Camera" category. From the same place, SanDisk's Extreme III SDHC cards also won in the "Memory Card" category. Good to know, I guess.

Also, judging from the layout of their websites, it looks like the T200 is Sony's current flagship in the area of ultra-compact digital cameras, while the TZ3 is Panasonic's current flagship in the area of consumer digital cameras.


The photo above was taken with the TZ3 at 10x optical zoom (click on the image for full-size). Compare with photos I took using the Minolta DiMAGE X50, and the Panasonic DMC-FZ1. The difference is quite staggering... although I haven't been able to take a decent version of the moon at night yet. Will have to play with the settings a bit more.