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Sony digital camera opinions?



 
 
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  #1  
Old April 19th 05, 03:58 AM
Cathy
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Default Sony digital camera opinions?

I've been looking at a couple of Sony cameras which I quite like- newer
ones that came out not long ago. They use AA batteries and one comes
with a charger for AA batteries, but they told me in the store, you can
use any any kind of AA chargeables. The memory stick is proprietary to
Sony which I knew. I saw a message here that gave me the impression
that a Sony may not be such a good idea because of proprietary memory
sticks. I know they are more money than SD or CF, but I would probably
only get a 128 MB memory stick, which is not much more money than the
SD.
As you go up to higher memory cards, there is more difference in money,
but I doubt I would be going any higher than 128MB. What are peoples
experiences or opinions here of Sony digital cameras?

Cathy

  #2  
Old April 19th 05, 04:36 AM
Michael Johnson, PE
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I have had a P200 for two months and am very pleased with it. It
doesn't use AA batteries but its lithium battery lasts for about 370
shots or 3.5 hours of viewing time on the LCD. I haven't come close to
draining a battery yet. The newer Sony's all seem to have very good
battery life.

As for the picture quality, I have been very satisfied with the P200.
It's not on par with the photos from our Digital Rebel but they're
surprisingly good for a point and shoot camera. I doubt you would be
disatisfied with most of the compact cameras available today. The hard
part is determing what features are most important to you and then
finding the camera that has them.

Cathy wrote:
I've been looking at a couple of Sony cameras which I quite like- newer
ones that came out not long ago. They use AA batteries and one comes
with a charger for AA batteries, but they told me in the store, you can
use any any kind of AA chargeables. The memory stick is proprietary to
Sony which I knew. I saw a message here that gave me the impression
that a Sony may not be such a good idea because of proprietary memory
sticks. I know they are more money than SD or CF, but I would probably
only get a 128 MB memory stick, which is not much more money than the
SD.
As you go up to higher memory cards, there is more difference in money,
but I doubt I would be going any higher than 128MB. What are peoples
experiences or opinions here of Sony digital cameras?

Cathy

  #3  
Old April 19th 05, 05:15 AM
Cathy
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Default

"Michael Johnson, PE" wrote in message
...
I have had a P200 for two months and am very pleased with it. It
doesn't use AA batteries but its lithium battery lasts for about 370
shots or 3.5 hours of viewing time on the LCD. I haven't come close

to
draining a battery yet. The newer Sony's all seem to have very good
battery life.


The girl in the camera shop today, said that the two Sony's I looked at,
both used AA alkalines and AA rechargeables, and with one of the Sony's
it came with a charger and 2 AA rechargeables. The other one just came
with rechargeable batteries but you would have to buy a charger. It was
cheaper than the one with the charger and rechargeables. The girl said
that the newer Sony's are mostly coming out with AA batteries.
I like that idea more than proprietary chargers and batteries. I was
wondering about the memory stick and how it performs as compared to SD
and CF. I checked the price of a 128MB memory stick, (not the Pro
version) and it was not much more than the 128MB SD memory cards, as the
MB's went up, so did the difference in price between memory stick and
SD. Also, is there a big difference between memory stick and Pro
version? which do you use?

As for the picture quality, I have been very satisfied with the P200.
It's not on par with the photos from our Digital Rebel but they're
surprisingly good for a point and shoot camera.


Have you taken any indoor pictures with a flash? and is red eye a
problem with flash?

I doubt you would be
disatisfied with most of the compact cameras available today. The

hard
part is determing what features are most important to you and then
finding the camera that has them.


Thanks.

Cathy

Cathy wrote:
I've been looking at a couple of Sony cameras which I quite like-

newer
ones that came out not long ago. They use AA batteries and one comes
with a charger for AA batteries, but they told me in the store, you

can
use any any kind of AA chargeables. The memory stick is proprietary

to
Sony which I knew. I saw a message here that gave me the impression
that a Sony may not be such a good idea because of proprietary

memory
sticks. I know they are more money than SD or CF, but I would

probably
only get a 128 MB memory stick, which is not much more money than

the
SD.
As you go up to higher memory cards, there is more difference in

money,
but I doubt I would be going any higher than 128MB. What are peoples
experiences or opinions here of Sony digital cameras?

Cathy


  #4  
Old April 19th 05, 08:32 AM
Ron Hunter
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Posts: n/a
Default

Cathy wrote:
I've been looking at a couple of Sony cameras which I quite like- newer
ones that came out not long ago. They use AA batteries and one comes
with a charger for AA batteries, but they told me in the store, you can
use any any kind of AA chargeables. The memory stick is proprietary to
Sony which I knew. I saw a message here that gave me the impression
that a Sony may not be such a good idea because of proprietary memory
sticks. I know they are more money than SD or CF, but I would probably
only get a 128 MB memory stick, which is not much more money than the
SD.
As you go up to higher memory cards, there is more difference in money,
but I doubt I would be going any higher than 128MB. What are peoples
experiences or opinions here of Sony digital cameras?

Cathy

Sony products are usually more expensive than others, partly because of
the general policy toward proprietary everything in their products. For
that reason, avoid buying their products. I was vastly amused by my
brother in law with his Sony 717 at the family christmas party, changing
his memory stick 'end' every few pictures, which I snapped happily with
my Kodak which gets 300 pictures on a 256meg card.
I believe some of his pictures are included on my webshots albums. Just
look for the ones with the overly intense reds with the orange tint.


--
Ron Hunter
  #5  
Old April 19th 05, 09:34 AM
Justin Thyme
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Posts: n/a
Default


"Cathy" wrote in message
...
I've been looking at a couple of Sony cameras which I quite like- newer
ones that came out not long ago. They use AA batteries and one comes
with a charger for AA batteries, but they told me in the store, you can
use any any kind of AA chargeables. The memory stick is proprietary to
Sony which I knew. I saw a message here that gave me the impression
that a Sony may not be such a good idea because of proprietary memory
sticks. I know they are more money than SD or CF, but I would probably
only get a 128 MB memory stick, which is not much more money than the
SD.
As you go up to higher memory cards, there is more difference in money,
but I doubt I would be going any higher than 128MB. What are peoples
experiences or opinions here of Sony digital cameras?

Most low-end sony camera's have pretty ordinary lenses. Don't even bother
with one unless it is a higher end unit with the zeiss lens. Even then,
you're pretty much paying more to get less compared to Canon, Nikon, Pentax,
Olympus, Casio, Kodak, Fuji (did I leave anyone out?). The one thing sony
have in their favour is that they are "lifestyle" cameras, ie trendy. This
doesn't correlate to "good image quality" or "well featured". So if you want
to look "cool" in the teenage sense of the word, buy a sony. If you want to
get better features in a cheaper camera, buy anything else.
BTW, memory stick is absolutely hopeless - many models are limited to a
maximum of 128MB. Some of the higher end models overcome this by using the
newer and even more expensive memory stick pro. Memory stick is also the
slowest format by far. It is particularly noticeable at the lab when trying
to read photos off memory stick - they chug along and seem to take forever.
Every other format flies along. I've struck another problem too - quite a
few sony cameras seem to have a proprietary JPG format, where if you open
files directly off the card with anything other than the sony software, they
will appear with the image tiled 4 or 9 times over the image area.
Basically sony cameras are crap - get one if you want to look cool, but if
you want to take photos, get anything else.

Cathy



  #7  
Old April 19th 05, 12:36 PM
Larry
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Default

In article ,
says...
Most low-end sony camera's have pretty ordinary lenses. Don't even bother
with one unless it is a higher end unit with the zeiss lens. Even then,
you're pretty much paying more to get less compared to Canon, Nikon, Pentax,
Olympus, Casio, Kodak, Fuji (did I leave anyone out?). The one thing sony
have in their favour is that they are "lifestyle" cameras, ie trendy. This
doesn't correlate to "good image quality" or "well featured". So if you want
to look "cool" in the teenage sense of the word, buy a sony. If you want to
get better features in a cheaper camera, buy anything else.
BTW, memory stick is absolutely hopeless - many models are limited to a
maximum of 128MB. Some of the higher end models overcome this by using the
newer and even more expensive memory stick pro. Memory stick is also the
slowest format by far. It is particularly noticeable at the lab when trying
to read photos off memory stick - they chug along and seem to take forever.
Every other format flies along. I've struck another problem too - quite a
few sony cameras seem to have a proprietary JPG format, where if you open
files directly off the card with anything other than the sony software, they
will appear with the image tiled 4 or 9 times over the image area.
Basically sony cameras are crap - get one if you want to look cool, but if
you want to take photos, get anything else.




This is a load of CRAP-O-LA from someone who doesnt (obviously) know how to
read a memory stick, and probably hate Sony for no good reason.


--
Larry Lynch
Mystic, Ct.
  #8  
Old April 19th 05, 02:00 PM
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Default

I'll also happily stick up for the Sony cameras (even though I don't
currently have one!), and the lenses on their low-end cameras are the
equal or better of most similar cameras. And they supply the ccd
sensors for an awful lot of those other cameras.. Rather than accept
what you read here, get over to dpreview.com or imaging-resource.com
and actually look at the reviews and the samples there. I just checked
dpreview's conclusion on a typical mid-range Sony (DSC-L1), which uses
a Zeiss lens by the way, as do most of their range.. DPReview said:
================= quote
...the L1 compares well with competitors such as the Canon SD300 and
Olympus Stylus Verve Digita (both of which sell for slightly more)
================= endquote

Memory Stick Pro are faster than the standard ones, and offer larger
capacities. But for the cameras the OP is considering, the standard
sticks should have adequate speed. It is hard to generalise given all
the speeds now available, but in general terms the standard memory
stick is *a bit* slower than standard cf/sd/xd cards, but the MS Pro is
faster.. I suspect Justin's problem above relates more to his
card-reader's system than to the memory sticks.

I have had an extremely good run out of their gear - it is generally
reliable, well-designed and tough (yes, even the low-end of their
range), and even though I now have an Oly camera, the camera that I
think I prefer over all those I have used is the classic Sony DSC-F717
- I miss the old girl. Bad reds? Only if you don't know how to
post-process, and use a red-challenged printer... The older F707 did
have over-saturated reds, but even that was easy to deal with. Again
take it from DPReview (admittedly an old review..) who said:
=========================== quote
Even a year on from my DSC-F707 review I find myself unable to name a
new five megapixel prosumer digital camera which takes better pictures
than the DSC-F717, and that is saying a lot. The key to the success of
the DSC-F707 and F717 is the flexibility and quality of that fast F2.0
- F2.4 five times optical zoom lens. It's sharp and fast with a
trademark silent focus and zoom system which must be carried over from
Sony's camcorder line. Sony has also proved that they listen to users,
the F707 wasn't without its problems, a few of which were fixed in that
model, the rest of which appear to have been addressed in the F717.
Most notable is colour balance which is greatly improved, no more
washed out and oversaturated reds, no more 'glowing greens'
====================== endquote

And maybe it's different in the US, but here in Oz, the Sony cameras in
the low-to-medium quality range are *exceptionally* well-priced
compared to the competition. And if anything, I think Olympus makes
the trendiest looking cameras, eg that mju thingy..

Anyway, take all these posts with a grain of salt - we're all biased!
And remember my favorite saying:
"The plural of anecdote is NOT data."

If you are interested in a particular camera, get over to the above
mentioned websites, and look at the reviews. There is much less bias
over there..!

  #9  
Old April 19th 05, 05:05 PM
Ed Mullikin
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I've had the Sony DSC-F717 and liked it quite well. I sold it and bought
the Sony DSC-F828 and I like it fine. They do make a 256 Memory Stick which
I have. It requires one to change a switch position from the A to the B
position when "one side" fills up so, in effect, it is two 128s in the same
case.
"Cathy" wrote in message
...
I've been looking at a couple of Sony cameras which I quite like- newer
ones that came out not long ago. They use AA batteries and one comes
with a charger for AA batteries, but they told me in the store, you can
use any any kind of AA chargeables. The memory stick is proprietary to
Sony which I knew. I saw a message here that gave me the impression
that a Sony may not be such a good idea because of proprietary memory
sticks. I know they are more money than SD or CF, but I would probably
only get a 128 MB memory stick, which is not much more money than the
SD.
As you go up to higher memory cards, there is more difference in money,
but I doubt I would be going any higher than 128MB. What are peoples
experiences or opinions here of Sony digital cameras?

Cathy



  #10  
Old April 19th 05, 06:12 PM
Cathy
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"Ron Hunter" wrote in message
...
Cathy wrote:
I've been looking at a couple of Sony cameras which I quite like-

newer
ones that came out not long ago. They use AA batteries and one comes
with a charger for AA batteries, but they told me in the store, you

can
use any any kind of AA chargeables. The memory stick is proprietary

to
Sony which I knew. I saw a message here that gave me the impression
that a Sony may not be such a good idea because of proprietary

memory
sticks. I know they are more money than SD or CF, but I would

probably
only get a 128 MB memory stick, which is not much more money than

the
SD.
As you go up to higher memory cards, there is more difference in

money,
but I doubt I would be going any higher than 128MB. What are peoples
experiences or opinions here of Sony digital cameras?

Cathy

Sony products are usually more expensive than others, partly because

of
the general policy toward proprietary everything in their products.

For
that reason, avoid buying their products. I was vastly amused by my
brother in law with his Sony 717 at the family christmas party,

changing
his memory stick 'end' every few pictures, which I snapped happily

with
my Kodak which gets 300 pictures on a 256meg card.


But if he had a 256 MB memory stick, wouldn't that take the same amount
of pics that your Kodak takes? I have looked at a few Kodaks, but almost
all, except the DX 7440 which is too bulky for me, are all 1.6" LCD
which is much too small for me.

I believe some of his pictures are included on my webshots albums.

Just
look for the ones with the overly intense reds with the orange tint.


You mean his camera didn't take good pictures? The Sony pictures I've
seen on review sites, have all been good. Maybe the newer Sony cameras
are better?

Cathy

 




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