Howard_Creech's Full Review: Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S50 Digital Camera
The very first digital camera I ever saw was in the summer of 1995. My wife and I were living on Okinawa, the island capital of Japan’s southernmost prefecture. I was writing regular cultural/travel pieces (with photographs) for the Kadena AFB “Shogun” magazine. One afternoon in July of 1995 I stopped by the U. S. Air Force photo lab, and was shown a brand new digital camera. I don’t remember the exact model, but it was Kodak digital circuitry and Nikon’s F4 body. I spent that afternoon with about a dozen other photographers (Military photojournalists, part time shooters for the public affairs office, and stringers) playing with the new techno toy. The camera (and peripherals) was very expensive, and had cost Uncle Sam several thousand dollars. The resolution was quite poor, not as good as the single use ISO 400 disposable cameras that one could buy for $9.00 at the Base Exchange (BX). We shot and printed several images that day and they were barely on par with newspaper images.
Almost all of us shot either slow speed slide film or fine grain Black & White film, and none of us were impressed. I remember all of us making very unflattering remarks about the camera, and joking about military procurement policies. There were references to $800.00 hammers, $2000 aircraft coffeemakers, and $700 toilet seats. Now, less than six years later the first six megapixel digital cameras will be introduced within the next few weeks, and 3.34 megapixel cameras are the current resolution standard. While digital cameras have not managed to surpass 35mm cameras in terms of resolution and overall image quality, they have surpassed 35mm in terms of convenience, instant gratification, and overall usability.
Excellent quality 8x10 enlargements from digital images are now commonplace, and custom printed 8x10 enlargements from digital image files are virtually indistinguishable from custom 35mm prints. Six megapixel cameras will provide the extra image resolution to raise this to the level of stunning 11x14 enlargements. It is only a matter of time before digital image resolution surpasses 35mm.
The first digital cameras were like World War I Biplanes, painfully slow, image quality was very poor, and they were ridiculously expensive. Current consumer digital cameras are much faster, the quality is getting better all the time, and the prices have fallen considerably (although they still cost two to five times as much as a comparable 35mm camera) Currently available digital cameras are more like an F117 “stealth” fighter/bomber. The new six megapixel digital cameras (available later this spring) are faster yet, with much better resolution, and while they will be expensive, the prices will drop rapidly. Photographers will have more options than ever before. That’s a lot of technological progress in less than six years.
The Sony Cybershot DSC-S50 Digital Camera
The Sony DSC-S50 is actually a pretty decent digital camera. 2.1 Megapixel (1600X1200) resolution, F2.8 zoom lens (39mm-117mm 35mm equivalent), five modes for saving still images, compact design, and decent ergonomics. Shutter lag time is about one second, and the start up sequence (from the time you turn the camera on until it cycles through AF and image capture) is very fast, about four seconds. The time it takes to write an uncompressed 1600X1200 TIFF image to memory is a totally unacceptable twenty plus seconds (and with the included 4 megabyte memory stick not an option) Image quality is on par, or just a tiny bit better than comparable 2.1 megapixel digital cameras. Battery life is superior to most digital cameras in this price range.
The Sony DSC-S50 has a number of disturbing shortcomings, the most glaring of which is the lack of an optical viewfinder. Many digital shooters love LCD viewfinders and use them full time, however for shooters who want total control over their images, the lack of an optical viewfinder is an obstacle to creativity that cannot be overcome. The lack of full manual control is also problematic. The camera does have shutter priority and aperture priority modes that allow the serious photographer a degree of manual input, but the camera's digital circuitry is still making some decisions that would be better left to the photographer. In the final analysis the DSC-S50 is not compact enough to be truly pocketable, the resolution is acceptable (but not exceptional), and the feature set is nothing to write home about. Overall the camera is more about yesterday’s technology. I can’t recommend it.
Technical Specifications
Resolution: 2.1 Megapixel (1600X1200)
LCD: 2 inch
Lens: 3X optical zoom (F2.8) 39-117mm 35mm equivalent
6X digital zoom
Exposure: Automatic (7 mode) shutter priority, aperture priority, & Program
Image Modes: Jpeg, TIFF, Text, Email, Voice, & MPEG
White Balance: Automatic, four mode
Flash: Built In Automatic (with red reduction)
Battery: Lithium Ion Re-Chargeable (charger included)
Memory Storage Media: Sony Memory Stick (4 Megabyte Card Included)
Comp/Con: USB
Other Features: four step adjustable sharpness setting, time/date imprint, selectable aspect ratio for printing (4:3 for digital images or 3:2 for film aspect images) built in microphone and Voice Memo Mode, Playback (in camera) crop/trim & re-size function.
An Alternative Suggestion
If you need to purchase a digital camera in the 2.1 megapixel range in the near future, then the Canon Powershot S10 (see my review A Tale of Two Cameras for more information on the S10) is a much better choice. Its cheaper (by more than $100) it has an optical viewfinder, allows more manual control, is compact enough to take anywhere in a shirt pocket, and it uses compact flash cards (types I & II) for digital image storage.
A Short Course in Digital Camera History
The Sony Corporation has always been an innovator and leader in the marketplace, offering consumers cutting edge technology and exciting new products. Sony was able to jump into the digital camera marketplace very early in the game. While Nikon and Canon were busy catering to the high end professional digital camera market and trying to get APS cameras up and running, Sony stole the field in consumer digital cameras by offering dozens of digital camera models and providing a simple way for almost everyone to get into digital photography without spending the children’s college money. The idea of using commonly available 3.5 floppy discs as a digital image storage media was a stroke of pure genius.
Virtually every computer had a disc drive and by storing images on 3.5” floppies then uploading those images directly to computer, digital images were immediately available for manipulation, email JPEGs, or placement in on-line photo albums, or on personal webpages. No card reader, no scanner, no peripheral hardware was needed at all, and the floppies could be purchased for less than $1.00 each. In the early days of digital photography when image files were often 640X480 and digital cameras generally offered less than one megapixel resolution, the 1.44 megabyte floppy was a great option. Today digital camera resolution is usually between two and four megapixels, and a 1.44 megabyte limit on digital image files is ridiculous, like the dinosaurs, 3.5" floppies are a thing of the past. Nine and ten megabyte “RAW” single image digital files are commonplace today.
A Few Observations on the Digital Camera Marketplace
The economy, from all appearances, is rapidly headed for a major downturn, possibly even a recession. In an adverse economy, the plethora of digital camera offerings in the technology marketplace is going to dry up very fast. Under a strictly “Darwinian” economic competition, only the strong marketers with viable products are going to survive. For the past five years it was possible to sell the public almost anything, and the number of digital camera models proliferated faster than tactical nuclear weapons during the “hot” days of the cold war. Many manufacturers who had no experience with digital image technology were suddenly making and selling digital cameras. The demand was so strong that almost any digital camera was assured of gaining at least a modest market share.
Where is Digital Imaging Going?
The next generation of digital cameras will offer six megapixel (6,000,000 pixels) resolution, the Contax “N” (6 megapixel) from Kyocera and the new Nikon D1X (5.74 megapixel) will both be available later this spring. Ten megapixel digital cameras (with large, energy efficient CMOS sensors) are no more than two to four years away. Today’s maximum digital resolution is 3.34 megapixel, but that will be the lower end of the digital resolution spectrum in just a year or two. Which brings us to the question of digital image storage, this is a very important consideration, since digital image files keep getting larger and larger. The most popular storage media formats today are Compact Flash and Smart Media. Compact flash will win out in the end because the makers have already seen the writing on the wall, and the new IBM MicroDrive which is designed to be used in compact flash slots, making it possible to provide a single type of media storage device that will cover everything from 2 megabytes to 1 gigabyte.
Speculation on the Media Storage War and its Likely Outcome
The Memory Storage media wars have caused an illogical and inefficient proliferation of different digital storage media formats, and one casualty of the coming economic massacre in technology hardware will be the easy availability of numerous “media storage” formats. I see Sony swinging away from 3.5 floppy discs and the memory stick in favor of concentrating all their energies on making the CD-R the alternative digital storage media. They have already introduced this technology in the Sony MVC-CD1000 digital camera. This allows Sony to convert their current and future technology to CD-R. Sony will try to avoid the public outcry and outrage they faced when they decided to abandon the BetaMax format in the closing days of the Video Recorder wars, but the company will eventually accept reality and start offering products that use compact flash for media storage.
In a tighter marketplace consumers will not support three or four memory storage media formats, look for the Sony memory stick and the 3.5 floppy disc (as image storage media) to join the BetaMax , Quadrophonic (four channel stereo), long play 33 rpm records, 45 rpm singles, 110, disc, and 126 film cameras, and the laser disc on the trash heap of technology history.
Some Digital Camera Buying Advice
Wait until Christmas, and 3.34 megapixel digital cameras will be selling for $500.00. Manufacturers are also going to start including some of the optional (but necessary) peripherals like battery chargers. Larger compact flash cards will also be part of the deal in a more competitive marketplace. Many of the digital cameras available today will disappear, over the next several months; victims of mediocre technology, poor customer support, and increasingly savvy consumers who will refuse to accept the “we can sell anything” philosophy that has driven the digital technology marketplace for the last five years. Once the dust settles, consumers will have fewer choices, but those choices will feature better engineering, improved performance, market proven ergonomics, and cutting edge technology. The sellers market of the past few years will metamorphose, in a decidedly Darwinian manner, into tomorrows buyers market.
For information on How to Choose a Digital Camera please see my review:
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