This camera was introduced in 2003 at a suggested retail price of $349.00. The DSC-P72 is equipped with a glass 3x, 6-18mm lens, equivalent to a 39-117mm lens on a 35mm camera. Normal focus ranges are from approximately 1.64 feet (0.5 meters) to infinity, with a Macro setting that lets you get within four inches (10 centimeters) when the lens is zoomed to its wide-angle position, and 19.75 inches (50 centimeters) at its telephoto setting. In addition to automatic focus control, the DSC-P72 offers a total of five fixed focus settings through the Record menu, as well as Center AF and Multi AF focus area options. An AF illuminator lamp on the front of the camera helps focus at low light levels. The DSC-P72 employs a technology that Sony calls "Smart Zoom," which offers a maximum of 3.2x digital zoom. According to Sony, Smart Zoom lets you digitally enlarge the image without any significant loss of image quality. In actuality, "Smart Zoom" simply means that the camera doesn't interpolate the pixels it crops from the center of the CCD array when zooming digitally. This limits the digital zoom range based on the currently-selected image size, with maximum zoom only available at the smallest image size. This is the most reasonable approach to "digital zoom,”. For composing images, the DSC-P72 offers a real-image coupled optical viewfinder and a 1.5-inch color LCD monitor. Exposure is automatically controlled at all times on the DSC-P72. The camera has shutter speeds of 2 seconds to 1/2000 of a second, ISO equivalents (100/200/400) plus an Auto setting, Maximum aperture of f/2.8 to f/5.6, Automatic exposure control, Built-in flash with five modes, USB computer interface, shooting modes of (Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Landscape, Snow, Beach preset), 10-second Self-Timer for delayed shutter release, and a ¼ inch 20 thread tripod socket.