Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S90 Digital Camera - Large Screen and Good Battery Life
Written: Nov 29 '05 (Updated Dec 12 '05)
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Pros: Large screen, battery life, features and performance, image quality
Cons: Slow shutdown, noisy ISO 400, uses Memory Stick
The Bottom Line: I recommend Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S90 if you want an inexpensive 4.1-Megapixel digital camera with a large LCD screen, good features and...
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| dkozin's Full Review: Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S90 Digital Camera |
Having had a good experience with the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S60, I decided to try the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S90. I bought it for $207 - only $20 more than what I paid for the S60. The S90 is pretty similar to the S60, but has a larger screen (2.5-inch vs. 2-inch of the S60) and includes rechargeable NiMH batteries and charger.
What Is Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S90?
The Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S90 is a 4.1-Megapixel compact digital camera with a 3x optical zoom (39-117 mm equivalent), a large 2.5-inch LCD screen, Carl Zeiss optics, powered by 2 AA batteries. The camera comes with rechargeable NiMH batteries and an AC charger.
The camera stores pictures on its 32 MB of built-in memory or on proprietary Sony Memory Stick or Memory Stick Pro media. It features fast USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection to PC and Mac computers for image downloading.
The Camera
The camera looks nice and feels sturdy in your hand. It looks and feels durable. Most of the controls of the camera have good tactile feel. The lids for battery and memory compartments are sturdy and the battery polarity is well marked. The camera has a relatively compact shape and is convenient to hold.
It has an on/off button on the top deck, which powers the camera on/off when depressed and held. Once powered, the camera opens the lid that protect the lens and extends the lens forward. This process takes about 2 seconds, after which you are ready to shoot. The shutdown is on the slow side, however. It takes about 4 seconds. The lens retracts and the lid closes.
The camera's top deck also has mode selection wheel with a shutter release button in the middle and an LED that lights up when the camera is on. The bottom of the camera has a battery and Memory Stick card compartment lid as well as a standard threaded tripod mount and a Sony proprietary jack. The supplied A/V/USB cable has a plug that fits this jack on one side and A/V and USB connectors on the other side.
The rear panel of the camera houses a large 2.5-inch LCD monitor, control buttons and a zoom control as well as an optical zooming viewfinder.
Usage
After charging the supplied NiMH batteries and inserting them into the camera, I was ready to shoot. Just as other cameras from Sony, the DSCS90 is easy to use. I have not read the manual, but was able to use the camera and all its features in no time. The camera can be used by any member of the family and by photographers of all levels of expertise from novices to advanced ones (it even has full manual control).
The camera uses menus that look familiar if you have used a Sony camera before. If you are upgrading from another Sony model or getting a second camera with the first one being also Sony, the learning curve might be nonexistent.
I like Sony's menus less than recent Canon menus or Panasonic ones. They are easy to use, but make things slow. They are certainly usable, it just takes more time to do the same thing with Sony menus than it does with Canon or Panasonic. It takes especially too much time to get to the Setup menus. But the selection of resolution is one button push away.
The easiest way to use the camera is in its Auto mode. Just rotate the mode wheel to the green camera icon, which means Auto. In this mode, you do not have to do anything other than point and shoot - the camera takes care of the rest. The camera uses 5-area smart autofocus (you can select center-area autofocus in manual modes). You press the shutter release button halfway to make camera focus (the camera shows you that it focused and beeps to confirm focus) and then you take the picture by pressing the shutter release button all the way.
You zoom in and out by using the zoom buttons on the rear of the camera. The camera has an optical viewfinder and a 2.5-inch LCD screen that is accurate, fluid (slightly less fluid in the dark) and works well in the sun and dim light (gains-up).
You can rotate the mode wheel to one of the scene modes (Portrait, Landscape, Show, Beach, etc.) if you want more control. For even more control, you can select Program mode, in which you can select ISO (80-400), white balance, exposure compensation, metering mode (multi, spot), etc.
The camera has manual focus (distance presets or 0.5m, 1m, 3m, 5m, 7m and infinity), manual exposure mode and it can display a live histogram while shooting.
LCD
The camera features a 2.5-inch fixed LCD screen and an optical viewfinder. The LCD coverage as about 100% - you can see exactly what will be recorded. The LCD is large, bright, fluid (unless it is dark), has good visibility in sunlight or darkness and good resolution.
The camera also has an optical viewfinder that is on the tight side (just as the vast majority of other compact digital cameras). You will not see everything that will end up on the picture you take, but it is a usual situation with zooming optical viewfinders and is preferred to the opposite (having thought something will be in the frame and then not finding it in the resultant picture).
Manual Adjustments
The camera has a manual exposure mode, where you can select the shutter speed between 30 seconds and 1/1,000 sec. You get two aperture settings for any given focal length, e.g. you can select either f/2.8 or f/5.6 at full wide angle. I found the exposure range generally sufficient, but the problem may arise in bright sunlight or snow, since the camera does not let you select a shutter speed faster than 1/1,000 sec and the aperture does not go lower than f/5.6 at wide angle (the best you can do is ISO 80, f/5.6 and 1/1,000 sec).
More on Features and Controls
The camera has a low-light focus assist illuminator that helps it focus in low light. It focuses very fast in both bright and dark environments, but can take up to 4 seconds in the dark at full telephoto.
You can use the exposure compensation in the Program mode and it comes in handy in some situations. There are several scene modes as well, which help the camera tweak the focusing and exposure settings according to the type of scene.
Performance
Aside from slow power-off, the camera is fast in operation. In single-frame mode, the camera could snap pictures as fast as I could push the shutter release button - about once per second. The focusing takes less than a second and the shutter lag (the time between the moment you push the button and the moment when the picture is taken), when pre-focused, is virtually nonexistent. In continuous mode, the camera can take pictures at about two per second for 4 consecutive frames.
When taking pictures with flash, the pictures can be taken at about 8-9 second intervals, which is rather slow. The camera has a focus assist light, which is rather bright. The focusing in the darker environments is slower than in bright light, but is below 4 seconds, even at telephoto.
Zooming
The zooming is relatively slow, but rather precise and lets you fine-tune your composition well. The camera has a 3x optical zoom (39-117 mm equivalent focal length) with f/2.8 maximum aperture at wide angle, f/5.2 at telephoto.
Resolutions
The camera lets you select the resolution for your images between 4M (2304x1728), 3:2 (perfect fit for 6x4 prints), 3M (2048x1536), 1M (1280x960) and VGA (E-mail) mode (640x480). For compression, you get a choice between Standard and Fine JPEG quality. The Fine mode uses about 6:1 compression and the Standard uses about 11:1 (about 2 vs. 1.1 MB per picture). There is no TIFF or RAW mode, but you cannot expect it at this price point.
Storage
The built-in 32 MB memory can fit about 15 photos at the highest resolution and best quality or 27 photos with Standard quality. You will definitely need to get a memory card (Memory Stick or Memory Stick Pro).
Battery Life
Sony claims that the camera can capture up to 420 high-resolution photos on one battery charge with LCD on using supplied Sony NiMH batteries. I did not validate this claim, but took about 80 pictures with no sign of battery depletion. You can turn the LCD off to conserve the battery power.
White Balance
The camera has auto white balance or you can choose among several presets including halogen, incandescent, sunny, cloudy, etc. The camera has no custom white balance setting (using a grey card). The camera's automatic white balance favors warmer color casts, and does a good job overall, aside from incandescent lighting, where you should switch to manual white balance.
Image Quality
Just as many other Sony cameras, the S90 produces contrasty photos that have a pleasing color with slight over-saturation (by default) and a slight warm cast. The camera produces very good photos with well-exposed, sharp, contrasty and richly-colored images. The camera tends to make pictures warm and the incandescent lighting in Auto white balance mode is very warm as well with reddish tint. Switching to manual white balance helps a lot.
The photos are rather sharp with virtually no softening in the corners of the frame. I found some chromatic aberration (purple fringing) at wide angle in the areas of high contrast, but just a small amount.
ISO and Noise
The S90 lets you select automatic ISO or set ISO 80, 100, 200 or 400. The situation with image noise is rather typical for this class of compact cameras. The noise is virtually absent at ISO 80, low at the ISO 100 in the shadows, gets more pronounced at ISO 200 and gets bad at ISO 400 (and some fine detail get softer to suppress noise). Still, if you are printing 6x4 pictures, the noise should be acceptable at ISO 400. And at ISO 80-100 with 4.1-megapixel shots, you can print sharp enlargements of up to 10x8-inch.
Computer Connectivity
The S90 uses USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection to transfer pictures to a computer. You can also remove the Memory Stick memory card (if you use it) and use a memory card reader (if you have one). Using the camera with the USB/A/V cable supplied, I discovered that the file transfer was very fast at about 3,000 KB/s using built-in memory. You may be able to get faster speeds with Memory Stick Pro.
Software
I have not used the software that was provided with the camera since I have Adobe Photoshop CS2.
Reservations
I dislike the fact that the camera uses expensive (and Sony-exclusive) Memory Stick media. The current de-facto industry standard - SD card (Secure Digital) would be a much better choice for us, consumers. Whereas Memory Stick is a better choice for Sony. That way they can make more money.
I also wish the camera had less noise an ISO 400. The ISO 400 as virtually unusable. You can print 4x6 photos at ISO 400, but they will not be completely noise-free.
Bottom Line
I recommend Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S90 if you want an inexpensive 4.1-Megapixel digital camera with a large LCD screen, good features and performance. The camera is easy to use as well.
My Reviews of Other Digital Cameras
Canon:
Canon Digital Rebel XT with Lens Kit
Canon Powershot S2 IS Digital Camera Review
Canon PowerShot A620 7.1-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Canon PowerShot A610 5-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Canon PowerShot A520 4-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Canon PowerShot A510 3.2-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Canon PowerShot A410 3.2-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Canon PowerShot A95 5-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Canon PowerShot S70 7.1-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Canon PowerShot SD200 3.2-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Canon PowerShot SD300 4-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Canon PowerShot SD30 5-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Canon PowerShot SD400 5-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Canon PowerShot SD450 5-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Canon PowerShot SD500 7.1-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Canon PowerShot SD550 7.1-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Panasonic:
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ5 5-Megapixel Digital Camera with 12x Optical Stabilized Zoom Review
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20 5-Megapixel Digital Camera with 12x Optical Stabilized Zoom Review
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ1 4-Megapixel Digital Camera with 6x Optical Stabilized Zoom Review
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ2 5-Megapixel Digital Camera with 6x Optical Stabilized Zoom Review
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ4 4-Megapixel Digital Camera with 12x Optical Stabilized Zoom Review
Olympus:
Olympus Camedia C-765 4.0-Megapixel Digital Camera with USB and ED Lens Review
Olympus D-595 Zoom Digital Camera Review
Olympus SP-350 8-Megapixel Digital Camera Review
Olympus Stylus 500 Digital Camera Review
Olympus Stylus 600 Digital Camera Review
Olympus Stylus 800 Digital Camera Review
Olympus EVOLT E-500 Digital SLR Camera Review
Sony:
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-H1 Digital Camera Review
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-M1 Digital Camera Review
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-P200 Digital Camera Review
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S40 Digital Camera Review
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S60 Digital Camera Review
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S90 Digital Camera Review
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T33 Digital Camera Review
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T5 Digital Camera Review
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T7 Digital Camera Review
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W5 Digital Camera Review
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W7 Digital Camera Review
Fuji:
Fuji FinePix A345 Digital Camera Review
Fuji FinePix A350 Digital Camera Review
Fuji FinePix E500 Digital Camera Review
Fuji FinePix E510 Digital Camera Review
Fuji FinePix E550 Digital Camera Review
Fuji FinePix E900 Digital Camera Review
Fuji FinePix F10 Digital Camera Review
Fuji FinePix F450 Digital Camera Review
Fuji FinePix S5200 Digital Camera Review
Kodak:
Kodak EasyShare C340 Digital Camera Review
Kodak EasyShare P850 Digital Camera Review
Kodak EasyShare V550 Digital Camera Review
Kodak EasyShare Z700 Digital Camera Review
Kodak EasyShare Z740 Digital Camera Review
Kodak EasyShare Z760 Digital Camera Review
Kodak EasyShare Z7590 Digital Camera Review
Konica Minolta:
Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z5 Digital Camera Review
Konica Minolta DiMAGE Z6 Digital Camera Review
Nikon:
Nikon D50 Digital SLR Camera Review
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 207
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
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Epinions.com ID:
dkozin
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 in Electronics |
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Location: California
Reviews written: 849
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About Me:
I love to push buttons on electronic (audio and video) equipment. It makes me happy.
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