It's just fine actually.
Written: Feb 20 '06
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Pros: Resolution, short boot up time, pic and video quality.
Cons: Colours could be more saturated, LCD resolution could be better.
The Bottom Line: Pictures look good for price. Turns on fast. Size and weight vs pictures = good value. The LCD screen could be better. 8 stars out of 10.
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| davedavedaveda's Full Review: Sony Cyber-shot® DSC-S600 Digital Camera |
I purchased a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S600 from Future Shop, in Canada, for $250 cdn plus taxes. The camera comes with a software CD, usb connection cable and well written manuals. No rechargeable batteries, no extra external memory and no usb extension cable (the latter would have been nice). I have shot film for about 20 years and have owned several cameras including 2 slr's. I have taken photography courses. This is my first digital camera, so occasionally I discuss the digital/film jump as opposed to the Sony specifically.
I immediately took the camera to St Lucia on holiday, and shot 200 pictures on both 3mp and 6mp settings during the day, at night, with and without flash. I took some very dark "mood" shots, used the selftimer, all the flash modes, a couple of the picture modes, and used the ISO mode extensively. I then returned home and took a bunch more shots of my new nephew, etc. I've used the internal memory, and a Sony brand duo pro stick in the 512 size. By the way, the memory must be Duo Pro, not just Pro. This would be Sony's newer, more expensive, and physically smaller memory.
I have printed out about 200 shots at a local Japan Camera Center (dedicated photolab retailer) and have imported the pics into my computer, where I have both burned the pics to CD and employed post processing using Photoshop to make some wallpapers, emails, etc. Finally, I have seen the undoctored pics, burned to cd, and displayed using my $120 DVD player on my "bad" TV - a 10 year old Sony 27" Trinitron. Whew - let's get to the review!
OVERALL: I think its fine, particularly for its size and weight. The pictures look very good on a computer and range from quite good to fine everywhere else, mostly due to how much light was available. I especially like how fast it turns on - it's ready to go in 1 second. I count size as a big part of value and therefore am happy with the value for money overall. The LCD screen does not have good enough resolution to adequately check the quality of low light no flash shots, but otherwise works well. I’d give it 8 stars out of 10. It doesn’t get 9 or 10 stars because the pics aren’t as good as my SLR and the memory is more expensive, and it gets more than 7 stars because the pics are almost as good as my slr outside, it’s price for 6mp, and it didn’t break when I dropped it 12” onto a table top.
PICTURE QUALITY: I think it's quite good really. Most other people think they are “really excellent”. I found myself comparing the printouts of outdoor daytime shots to my Canon F1 SLR, and really I shouldn't be doing that, so they're pretty good. They look great as wallpapers. Actually, the pics I uploaded looked better than the examples I found on the ‘net. They look fine as 4x6 printouts. Certainly far better than my older point and shoots at that size/price, and certainly far better than older digital cameras that are bigger, cost more and have less megapixels. They look better the more light there is. Low light shots look fine, just not as good as bright outdoor daylight shots (well duh). Skin tone is not bad, with and without flash. The flash is good and strong. Optically zoomed pictures look good, it's hard to tell on a printout how zoomed in I was. Actually this holds for the 2x “smart” digital zoom, which Sony sells as a “virtually distortion free digital zoom”. Sometimes I feel the colours could be more saturated. For a cheap small point and shoot I'm quite pleased with it.
I have some interesting feedback on picture quality from another source. I’ve worked in several photo labs. The most recent one still has the same manager as when I was there. We’ve become friendly over the years. When she saw I had bought a Sony she read me the riot act, saying that Canon cameras do a much better job. My reply was that I know that, but for the same features, the Canon’s were all much bigger and about $100 more, which she couldn’t argue with. In fact I still enjoy “at cost” purchasing there but bought the Sony anyway. I’m sure this will change in the next 6 months, but for right now comparable Canon’s were too big to fit in my pocket – for me this is a deal breaker. Anyway, we all held our breath while the first pics printed out. My friend admitted that other than the indoor flash shots, the quality was “the same”. The indoor shots were “almost the same”.
To sum up on picture quality, I'd like to print out some 5x7's of landscapes, but at this time I have no plans to upgrade in the future. If I did I would upgrade all the way to a digital SLR.
OPERATION: As I mentioned it boots up very quickly. It zooms quickly and quietly. All the buttons work well and have the right amount of pressure etc. I never took a pic by accident, or failed to take one. Sometimes I have to take a second stab at the power to turn it off; I guess it likes to be held a bit longer than I want to push it. No problems turning it on though, and yet I never turned it on by accident in my pocket. The lens shuts if it's left on playback for a bit. After you take a pic the pic is displayed a second then you go back to capture mode. There is a very easy to use button that brings the pic back for consideration. The "in focus" and "flash is ready" lights and beeps and icons are loud/bright enough, even in some very loud chaotic situations (Castries market for example). It does take a bit too long to achieve focus (only used the spread metering, not the center metering). One has to push the shutter release half way down and wait for it to do its thing. It’s particularly easy to access common settings, like how many megapixels you’re shooting in, the flash modes, playback/shoot, and erase the last shot.
The LCD works fine. It could use more resolution – it’s not a good representation of how the pic will look. It works fine when I hold it above my head, off to the side, etc. I think I had to use the optical viewfinder twice out of 200 shots due to bright sunlight obscuring the lcd. The info displayed on the LCD is good. You can easily turn the info or the screen itself off/on as you wish.
The menus are a bit funny (upon calling the menu you can go both up and across, which threw me) but I got it and that was that. Now that I've got it it's fine, and I like that there isn't a lot of confirming to be done - choosing common tasks uses less button pushes rather than more. Since these settings are on the screen (or not your choice) as you're taking pics you know you've got what you wanted.
FEATURES: Well at $250 the big story is the 6 megapixels, and as mentioned they do their job quite well. The extra ISO sensitivity works very well; in fact I can't see where I'm going to use ISO1000. The pic can get quite noisy using higher ISO's in low light situations. The beach pic mode didn't seem to make a huge difference - auto worked just fine. The slow sync flash mode doesn't work great - the people are overly flashed. The background does show up however so at least it does work. The ISO setting works very well to take darker "mood" shots, although some may be noisy depending on something I haven't quite figured out yet. I did get some great dark mood shots lit by candles. Unlike film, these types of shots seem more vulnerable to graininess. I guess, since this is a dig pic, that's actually pixilation. Anyway, it's different from film and not quite as good. However, given I would probably never have taken the shots in film in the first place I prefer what I get from digital. I just take several shots and throw away the bad ones. You get the bracketing without wasting the film. I feel this is a major strength of shooting digitally and the Sony makes a good partner in this endeavor. One thing I like is the ease with which you can resize your shots after they are taken (if you need to free up memory for example, you can resize a bunch of 6mp shots down the 3mp). When resized, a copy is made, so you can check and then erase the big one. It’s irritating that the resized pic is put at the end of the shots however, and you have to resize them one at a time.
The zoom works well. One note about the digital zoom – this feature only works on 3mp sized shots and lower. At 6mp, you get the 3x optical zoom only.
The camera takes AA batteries which I far prefer over a built in battery. You can buy them anywhere.
I haven't shot any video yet, but I've looked at a lot of video off the web. In my opinion, if you can't shoot a video in 640 x 480 at 30 fps you shouldn't bother. The DSC-S600 does shoot 640x480 at 30fps, so I'm happy with that feature. When memory comes down a bit I'll buy a 2 gig card and shoot some. the 'net reports the sound and pic quality on video's is quite good, for what that's worth.
BUILD QUALITY / MEMORY / BATTERY LIFE: Build quality is fine. Actually we dropped this about 12” on to a wooden table (woops!!) and it worked fine after that abuse – way to go Sony! All the little doors seem strong enough. The rubber cover for the USB port gets annoyingly opened when I pull it from my pocket. It’s only held in by nubbins molded to the part – I could see this area potentially becoming a problem, we’ll have to wait and see. The camera has 32meg of on board memory which is enough for 20 3mp shots, or 10 6mp shots. Pics don’t look horrible on 3mp, especially when they’re all indoor flash shots of your nephew running around, so it’s helpful to have it. I also used a 512kb Sony brand memory stick. The memory has to be the new, more expensive Duo Pro type. Yes, it’s harder to find and more expensive. At this point in time you won’t find it in the duty free at the airport, even though everything else is there. Given the Pro sticks are there, I expect they will appear shortly. I still found some in St Lucia when I needed it. Yesterday I checked out the local Chinese rip off store – they had a Chinese aftermarket 1 GIG card for $125 cdn. That’s cheap enough for me. Battery life is exceptional. Basically 1 pair of NiMH shot the entire 200 pics (I took 6 pairs and a charger, ha ha ha). We spent endless time reviewing them and composing them as well.
SUMMERY: I found the market to be a dizzying array of choices. I put about 5 hours of research into it, and this is what I picked. There might be a better camera for the price out there (probably is) but I didn’t find it conveniently for sale where I live (Toronto, Canada). I’m happy with my choice despite the memory being more expensive.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 200
This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
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Epinions.com ID:
davedavedaveda
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Reviews written: 1
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