A very good quality digital camera (Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S85)

Member Name: SimonCook

Product:	Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S85
Date:	19/06/02 (1018 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, very good quality pictures

Disadvantages: Zoom a little underpowered , funny 'stick' memory

With the advent of photo quality printers combined with the fact that film quality papers are becoming cheaper and readily available it is becoming far more practical and cost effective to buy a digital camera and print (as well as e-mail) photos. The advantages are vast; as long as you have disk space you will never lose a picture – if you lose the printed version you can always print another copy; it is easy to send 100 people a copy of a photo digitally – they then have the option to print a hard copy at their own convenience; as you can essentially see the photo as you take it, you always get a perfect picture – gone is the dreaded sticker on your photo saying ‘out of focus’, ‘over exposed’ etc; gone is the hassle of loading film – if you are anything like me, loading film is harder than solving some of the world’s most complex mysteries!

So finally, after getting a cell phone, a photo printer, a fax, a CD player, a DVD player, a huge TV and many other stupid gadgets I decided to invest in the latest technology and buy a digital camera – not only was this cool and hip, but it also made sense for me – I recently developed 15 films that had been lying around my house for two years – cost me nearly 100gbp!

So after researching cameras a lot and not really seeing much difference between each type to a layman like me, I decided to go for a company that had a great reputation and one for which my brother also happens to work for!

Additionally, this company (Sony) have been at the forefront of the digital camera marketplace for several years and although their cameras tend to be more expensive, they do tend to be high quality – you essentially get what you pay for.

So after reading a billion reviews, asking my friends, speaking to six million sales people and trying out all eighty two million different cameras that Sony offers (well it seemed like there we
re that many!) I decided on the DSC-S85.

So what drew me to this camera? Was it the megapixels? The comfortable feel of the camera? The Optical Viewfinder? The zoom lens? Or was it simply that it looked cool?

The DSC S85 – what do you get?
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I believe the camera is based on the popular DSC S75 – this being so ensures that it will work well without having many major problems. The camera features the following:

A Carl Zeiss Varii Sonnar 3X zoom lens – the name doesn’t mean much to me but I am told that it Is a proven high quality lens.

An accurate auto focus – this may not seem important, but in the past it has often been very difficult to use digital cameras with auto focus as they were too good –i.e. they would zoom in on every movement. This zoom seems to focus on exactly what I aim it at, making it easier to use.

A 1.8 inch LCD display – size matters – the larger the LCD display the more accurately you can ascertain what your photograph will look like – I found this size to be good, although with my eyesight deteriating, I may have preferred a larger view screen.

4.1 megapixel – what does this mean to the layman – well a standard photograph negative (35mm) has about 3000 x 2000 pixels (i.e. a total of 6,000,000 pixels – I’ve checked I counted em!). This camera comes close to this by giving approximately 2200 x 1700 pixels (i.e. a total of 3,740,000 pixels) – I’m not sure where the 4.1 comes in though!!! This although you are down over 2,000,000 pixels, the general home photographer isn’t really going to notice the difference. Where this begins to show is when you enlarge your pictures – the larger you go the bigger the effect of this lack of pixels. In my experience 11x14 is perhaps about the max size you should go – at this size you do get a little pixelization
(i.e. if you look at the photo it does not blend too smoothly, and you can essentially begin to see individual pixels) however when placed in a photo frame it isn’t too visible until you get close up.


The DSC S85 – how do I use it?
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Optical Viewfinder – the first thing I noticed is that I do not get the full image in the viewfinder. The viewfinder does zoom with the lens though. The viewfinder is simple, it doesn’t have any information on it. (Hmmm maybe I haven’t found out how to get this information!). I found that the image was generally good but for those with eye problems the image may be a little small.

Controls

Like many digital cameras, the features of the camera are linked to buttons which allow you to switch between the different modes of the camera. I suggest you ask a child to help you as I found the controls to be similar in concept to a video camera. You have options to Setup, Review pictures, change Aperture setting, change Shutter setting, or move to Manual mode. You have further options to control more detailed items such as flash, exposure, manual focus etc – being a layman I left it on Auto!

3X Zoom Lens

Without getting too technical, the zoom is equivalent to a f2.0-f8.0/34-102mm (don’t ask me to explain this!). Essentially the zoom is very good, it has a reasonable zoom. I found that it zoomed in well at longer distances and that when used in the ‘macro’ mode it seemed very ‘shaky’.


Flash

A flash is a flash, isn’t it? Well apparently not. This one has several options ranging from off!, read-eye reduction (not sure if this is useful as you can use software to do this!), auto-flash etc. I tend to turn it off and look at the quality of my picture – I find for common users you do not need to go into the advanced options for the flash – generally
, if it’s too dark – use the flash.

Battery

This is perhaps one of the reasons I held out. The advantage of a standard 35mm is that on a sunny day you do not need a battery to be able to take a picture. With a digital camera, if your battery goes dead, then you cannot take a picture.

***Note the 35mm I have is extremely old - I beleive that modern 35mm SLR cameras are just as reliant on batteries as digitial cameras.***

This camera is powered by a rechargeable 7.2v battery. The camera politely tells you how many minutes are left on the battery. As this is essentially a cam-corder battery, then it is pretty good. It recharges quickly and generally has a life of 2-3 hours. I suggest you turn the camera fully off when not using.

Memory Stick

The camera uses a ‘memory stick’. This did worry me at first as most cameras seem to use a CompactFlash card thingy – however as long as the camera allowed me to store my pictures and upload them to my PC then I have no problem. Although at first it was a little daunting trying to upload images I soon got used to it and no longer am worried about having a ‘stick’!



The DSC S85 – the techno stuff (or at least the bits I felt important)
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Resolution: four megapixel (2272x1704)
Viewfinder: Optical, zooms with lens
Picture Formats: JPEG, TIFF, GIF, and MPEG. (Computer techies will understand these – essentially these are generic computer standards that allows for most computers to read the picture.)
Lens: 3X Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar Zoom
Sensitivity Settings: Auto, 100, 200, 400 – this is really the equivalent of buying different ISO films – the higher the ISO the more sensitive the film; thus a 400 ISO will be better in the dark!
Shutter Speed: 8 sec to 1/1000 sec – this is important if yo
u are trying to capture fast moving objects – the quicker the shutter speed the more likely you will capture a fast moving object.


The DSC S85 – using the thing!
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I found this camera to be very intuitive – within minutes I was snapping annoying pictures of the kids, zooming in on their nostrils or eyes! The picture quality, to my untrained eye was exceptional – when printed on a true photo quality printer I found there to be hardly any difference from a regular camera – I did have to ‘tweak’ the printer a little to make the colors more real, but once I had found the optimum level I didn’t have to worry about this again as the quality was consistent.

It was comfortable to hold and wasn’t to big that it became a burden while carrying around. (This assumes that you leave all the additional gadgets – e.g. battery charger, uploading tools etc) back at the hotel). All of the family were able to use it quickly and easily – gone are the days of lopsided images; thumbs in front of the picture; misdirected photos etc.


Conclusion
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For the layman this is an excellent camera that will replace 35mm cameras. For a professional, I do not think that this camera is quite at the level required to produce quality photographs. It may be useful for architects and the like, or for companies that build web sites with images.

It is a mid-range camera that will probably cost up to 400gbp – a little on the high side perhaps but well worth it!


So finally I am now fully in the 20th century – whatdya mean it’s the 21st century!?

Summary: