Sony Cyber-shot DSC-F828
Silly thing, that F828, why would anyone bother with a camera four years old now? Well, I would! What else you expected from a guy known to think on his own
?
Maybe you recall, when this camera finally arrived, it was welcomed as a dSLR alternative, then
dissected all along, only to be found somewhat dissapointing, since it can't hold it's own against
dSLR ( Canon EOS 300D, at that time, since it was at the same price bracket, complete with kit-lens ).
No one in their right mind would argue, or expect, that one P&S could ever match dSLR. Somehow,
people did came to Sony F-828 with such a prejudice. Bad, over-hyped, marketing on Sony part,
expectations fueled by a "popular" photography web-sites, or something else, it's hard to tell. We,
probably, won't ever know. In the end, it doesn't matter. For a complete irony, it was compared to
the cleanest output of all prosumer dSLRs, past and present, ( Canon EOS 5D is in entirely different
league ).
As you already came to expect from my reviews, I'll joyfully detail all its faults, and then, briefly, mention its good points. Given its fair share of faults, F828 review should be fun. So, lets start, shall we?
First problem you'll notice is a lack of a charger. Yes, that's right, you have to charge battery while
it is *IN* camera. Now, for a mobile phone that's relatevily reasonable, since phone remains
usefull, albeit a fixed one. Plus, additional charger would add significant bulk on-the-go. On the other
hand, when operating prosumer camera, which was fairly expensive, this is plain ridiculous. You can't
shoot, have to wait for a battery to be charged. If you have a spare, you didn't solve anything, just
prolong shoot time as twice as much, but so you prolonged charging time, when you deplete both batteries.
And how much decent charger would add to the cost of a camera? Almost nothing! Yes, I know there is eBay,
you can purchase charger + battery there, but it's such a nuisance. And what if it doesn't work? It's not
an original factory accessory, i.e. not covered with any warranty, so you'd have to ship it back across
the globe?
Apropos charging in a camera, built-in charger is a such a ultra-conservative pig, it's unbeliveable. It won't properly charge your healthy battery, if you just plug it in, and leave it to the charger and battery alone to negotiate, probably to avoid overcharging. Still, what is too much caution, is too much. Given previous experience with a Canon PowerShot A620 and set of a NiMHs, I dullifully disconected camera eact time it pronounced battery to be "FULL". Then, after some time, I plug it in again. Almost every time charger found some unused capacity, charge it up a bit, and then cheerfully proclaimed battery to be "FULL". Rinse and repeat at least a *DOZEN* times. Maybe you'll meet your battery true capacity. Mine started with just a 26 minutes of a recording capacity, now it has 170+, and I bet it'll go beyond that.
Images, despite noise-reduction employed for a exposures longer than 1.3 seconds, suffer from a liberal sprinkling of a hot-pixels at anything over 8+ sec, even at lowest possible ISO settings, i.e. 64. They're visible even at 4+ sec., but aren't so objectionable. Which is a shame, since 7-blade aperture mechanism begs for a closed down lens, to produce nightscapes with such a pronounced light stars, all of which requires ever longer exposures. It isn't that you can't make such a nice citylights, it's that it requires carefull compromising, which both slows you down, and exponentially raises possibility for an error. As an additional bonus, it seems that a camera is even more noisier, if you use a custom white balance, instead of one from a predefined set.
Lens, despite its designation ( Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T*, whoo-hoo-poo-poo ), are just an ordinary P&S lens. What significantly differentiates them from the rest of a pack is a quite wide apertures available, especially at a telephoto end, extremly versatile zoom range, but also unusually high levels of a purple fringing ( just an annoyance, can be photoshoped out ), and visible cromatic aberations, especially at wide end ( bad, as it's difficult to correct ). It's definitely worst lens, given PF and CAs, among cameras I had have. Still, it's quite useable, and given all the other things done right, just fine.
Shutter trigger, unbeliveably, isn't two stage. In my young days, when I was just begining with digital
photography, I was reading almost religiously every camera review I could find at
Phil Askey's DPReview, and, to a lesser degree,
imaging resource.
One thing that catch my eye was that they did mention with almost every camera "two stage trigger". If it's
such a common feature, why ever bother to write about it? Well, because there are cameras which don't have it!
And, not just any plastic-fantastic toy from Benq or Trust or whatever, but top prosumer model from Sony.
There is a prefocus, but it's difficult, as there is a small distinction from a prefocus to a full trigger, which is also very sensitive. When you're in a hurry, you're more likely to shoot a picture, then to prefocus. Combine that with additional penalty for writing unwanted image to a memory card, about a second, during which you have to release a shutter, and then press it again, if you want to take another one. Again, when you finally get your camera to be picture ready, despite its responsiveness, a moment's gone.
So, is there anything Purple Fringer ( F828 pet name by some ) can do properly? According to above comments, not
really, can't prefocus easily, penalizes early shutter, is noisy, plagued by PF and CAs, ... All true! But still,
there aren't much cameras like this, with very nice 28-200 mm, extremly fast f/2.0-f/2.8 lens, 7-blade aperture,
all main photographic controls exposed thru buttons + obligatory control wheel, superb build quality, folding body
up and down ( so you can practice waist shooting, and above the crowds ), all buttons of proper placement and
size ( well, except menu button ) and feel and operation ( compare that to
Canon PowerShot A620 ), manual zoom lens, manual focus ring, RAW, nice sepia ( no
B&W, unfortunately ).
To my surprise, given that Carl-Zeiss is renown for its ultra sharp lens, bokeh is very good. I have done some rain drops portraits, and despite slightly brighter edges in unfocused lights, it ended up quite nicely, with smooth transitions and no rough edges in unfocused areas.
Noise is there, because Sony didn't obliterate it, together with all fine details, for which I'm grateful. It's much easier to choose from NoiseNinja , NeatImage, or some Photoshop plug-in to remove it later to your liking, then put back all those details lost to noise reduction.
Shutter operations can be tricky, with time, though, it can be mastered, so it doesn't pose any more picture spoiler than any other mishap, or enviro.
As for a PF, it is visible, sometimes very, but at least, it can be photoshoped out. As for a CA, it doesn't bother me that much, because it's not that pronounced.
As for a froward build-in charger, I solved a problem by buying CF card with capacity approximately equal to that of both batteries. So, when they both die, I finished my photo session, for at least a few hours, to move pictures to computer, review them, eventually do a back-up, while recharging batteries.
In the end, it doesn't matter if your camera has shortcomings, every single one out there has.
It matters, if you can live with them, and use cameras strong points to your advantage.
I certainly can live with F828, especially because as a used, old camera, it costs less than a brand new Cyber-shot phone I bought from the same company.
Read specification at Sony, reviews at The Luminous Landscape and at photo.net, descriptions at Digital Photography Review, DCRP Review, Imaging-Resource and at megapixel.net, photos at flickr.
Send a comment
Silly thing, that F828, why would anyone bother with a camera four years old now? Well, I would! What else you expected from a guy known to think on his own
?
Maybe you recall, when this camera finally arrived, it was welcomed as a dSLR alternative, then
dissected all along, only to be found somewhat dissapointing, since it can't hold it's own against
dSLR ( Canon EOS 300D, at that time, since it was at the same price bracket, complete with kit-lens ).
No one in their right mind would argue, or expect, that one P&S could ever match dSLR. Somehow,
people did came to Sony F-828 with such a prejudice. Bad, over-hyped, marketing on Sony part,
expectations fueled by a "popular" photography web-sites, or something else, it's hard to tell. We,
probably, won't ever know. In the end, it doesn't matter. For a complete irony, it was compared to
the cleanest output of all prosumer dSLRs, past and present, ( Canon EOS 5D is in entirely different
league ). As you already came to expect from my reviews, I'll joyfully detail all its faults, and then, briefly, mention its good points. Given its fair share of faults, F828 review should be fun. So, lets start, shall we?
First problem you'll notice is a lack of a charger. Yes, that's right, you have to charge battery while
it is *IN* camera. Now, for a mobile phone that's relatevily reasonable, since phone remains
usefull, albeit a fixed one. Plus, additional charger would add significant bulk on-the-go. On the other
hand, when operating prosumer camera, which was fairly expensive, this is plain ridiculous. You can't
shoot, have to wait for a battery to be charged. If you have a spare, you didn't solve anything, just
prolong shoot time as twice as much, but so you prolonged charging time, when you deplete both batteries.
And how much decent charger would add to the cost of a camera? Almost nothing! Yes, I know there is eBay,
you can purchase charger + battery there, but it's such a nuisance. And what if it doesn't work? It's not
an original factory accessory, i.e. not covered with any warranty, so you'd have to ship it back across
the globe? Apropos charging in a camera, built-in charger is a such a ultra-conservative pig, it's unbeliveable. It won't properly charge your healthy battery, if you just plug it in, and leave it to the charger and battery alone to negotiate, probably to avoid overcharging. Still, what is too much caution, is too much. Given previous experience with a Canon PowerShot A620 and set of a NiMHs, I dullifully disconected camera eact time it pronounced battery to be "FULL". Then, after some time, I plug it in again. Almost every time charger found some unused capacity, charge it up a bit, and then cheerfully proclaimed battery to be "FULL". Rinse and repeat at least a *DOZEN* times. Maybe you'll meet your battery true capacity. Mine started with just a 26 minutes of a recording capacity, now it has 170+, and I bet it'll go beyond that.
Images, despite noise-reduction employed for a exposures longer than 1.3 seconds, suffer from a liberal sprinkling of a hot-pixels at anything over 8+ sec, even at lowest possible ISO settings, i.e. 64. They're visible even at 4+ sec., but aren't so objectionable. Which is a shame, since 7-blade aperture mechanism begs for a closed down lens, to produce nightscapes with such a pronounced light stars, all of which requires ever longer exposures. It isn't that you can't make such a nice citylights, it's that it requires carefull compromising, which both slows you down, and exponentially raises possibility for an error. As an additional bonus, it seems that a camera is even more noisier, if you use a custom white balance, instead of one from a predefined set.
Lens, despite its designation ( Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T*, whoo-hoo-poo-poo ), are just an ordinary P&S lens. What significantly differentiates them from the rest of a pack is a quite wide apertures available, especially at a telephoto end, extremly versatile zoom range, but also unusually high levels of a purple fringing ( just an annoyance, can be photoshoped out ), and visible cromatic aberations, especially at wide end ( bad, as it's difficult to correct ). It's definitely worst lens, given PF and CAs, among cameras I had have. Still, it's quite useable, and given all the other things done right, just fine.
Shutter trigger, unbeliveably, isn't two stage. In my young days, when I was just begining with digital
photography, I was reading almost religiously every camera review I could find at
Phil Askey's DPReview, and, to a lesser degree,
imaging resource.
One thing that catch my eye was that they did mention with almost every camera "two stage trigger". If it's
such a common feature, why ever bother to write about it? Well, because there are cameras which don't have it!
And, not just any plastic-fantastic toy from Benq or Trust or whatever, but top prosumer model from Sony. There is a prefocus, but it's difficult, as there is a small distinction from a prefocus to a full trigger, which is also very sensitive. When you're in a hurry, you're more likely to shoot a picture, then to prefocus. Combine that with additional penalty for writing unwanted image to a memory card, about a second, during which you have to release a shutter, and then press it again, if you want to take another one. Again, when you finally get your camera to be picture ready, despite its responsiveness, a moment's gone.
So, is there anything Purple Fringer ( F828 pet name by some ) can do properly? According to above comments, not
really, can't prefocus easily, penalizes early shutter, is noisy, plagued by PF and CAs, ... All true! But still,
there aren't much cameras like this, with very nice 28-200 mm, extremly fast f/2.0-f/2.8 lens, 7-blade aperture,
all main photographic controls exposed thru buttons + obligatory control wheel, superb build quality, folding body
up and down ( so you can practice waist shooting, and above the crowds ), all buttons of proper placement and
size ( well, except menu button ) and feel and operation ( compare that to
Canon PowerShot A620 ), manual zoom lens, manual focus ring, RAW, nice sepia ( no
B&W, unfortunately ). To my surprise, given that Carl-Zeiss is renown for its ultra sharp lens, bokeh is very good. I have done some rain drops portraits, and despite slightly brighter edges in unfocused lights, it ended up quite nicely, with smooth transitions and no rough edges in unfocused areas.
Noise is there, because Sony didn't obliterate it, together with all fine details, for which I'm grateful. It's much easier to choose from NoiseNinja , NeatImage, or some Photoshop plug-in to remove it later to your liking, then put back all those details lost to noise reduction.
Shutter operations can be tricky, with time, though, it can be mastered, so it doesn't pose any more picture spoiler than any other mishap, or enviro.
As for a PF, it is visible, sometimes very, but at least, it can be photoshoped out. As for a CA, it doesn't bother me that much, because it's not that pronounced.
As for a froward build-in charger, I solved a problem by buying CF card with capacity approximately equal to that of both batteries. So, when they both die, I finished my photo session, for at least a few hours, to move pictures to computer, review them, eventually do a back-up, while recharging batteries.
In the end, it doesn't matter if your camera has shortcomings, every single one out there has.
It matters, if you can live with them, and use cameras strong points to your advantage.
I certainly can live with F828, especially because as a used, old camera, it costs less than a brand new Cyber-shot phone I bought from the same company.
Read specification at Sony, reviews at The Luminous Landscape and at photo.net, descriptions at Digital Photography Review, DCRP Review, Imaging-Resource and at megapixel.net, photos at flickr.
Send a comment