Original Link: https://www.anandtech.com/show/638
Sony DSC-S70 Digital Camera
by Matthew Witheiler on October 18, 2000 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Digital Camera
DSC-S70 provided by TC Computers. Click here to get yours now.
Sony was one of the first major manufacturers to enter the digital camera market. The release of the first Mavica series camera in July of 1998, Sony stumbled into a market that only a few other companies dared to venture in. The release of the Mavica cameras proved to be highly anticipated, with Sony promising to finally deliver a digital camera for the masses. With many competing cameras boasting pixel counts of greater than 1 million, Sony entered the market with a camera that cost less but also performed worse, capturing only at 640x480 with a .3 million pixel count. What Sony lost in image quality, it promised to make up with storage technology. Sony strayed from the compact flash media that many of its competitors were using and choose to use a standard 1.44 MB floppy disk. Attracting buyers with high retail availability as well as unlimited storage capabilities via the inexpensive floppy disks, the Mavica line was off to a good start.
It was not long after the Mavica's release did the camera's low resolution and floppy disk storage methods become more cumbersome than useful. Digital camera resolutions were quickly reaching the points where they are at now, leaving the slowly updating Mavica line left far behind. In addition, the 1.44MB floppy storage method that had attracted so many in the past was quickly becoming a burden. Not only was the access time on the floppy extremely slow, making it painful to even look at the pictures one just took, the size of the floppy quickly became a design flaw. With consumers wanting smaller cameras, many companies were quick to respond, as the space requirements for including a compact flash slot were the least of the manufacturing problems. Sony, on the other hand, was forced to make a camera at least as large as a 1.44MB floppy, limiting it's size to a minimum of 3.5 inches. In addition, the limited storage space on the floppy disks prevented more than one large compressed picture to be captured on a single disk.
Although the CCD capture abilities of the Mavica series cameras increased, the floppy disk storage method remained for the most part, with only one current Mavica opting for 3 inch CD-R disks instead. There was no question that the Mavica line had reached its end recently when it slowly started disappearing from store shelves. With more and more options becoming available, Sony needed a revamp of their product line to make Sony cameras once again the consumer digital camera of choice.
Enter the Cybershot series cameras. A replacement for the aging Mavica series, the Cybershots offer improved storage, image quality and size. The upper end DSC-S70 targets the popular Nikon Coolpix 990, among others in the $700-900 price range. Can Sony regain the ground it lost in the overly long Mavica line? Let's find out.
A lot of the terminology as well as testing methodology in this review has been discussed and explained in our guide entitled: The Digital Future - A Guide to Digital Camera Reviewing. Be sure to read it before continuing with this review.
The Design
Finally not limited to the Mavica's floppy disk storage design, the S70 achieves a manageable size. Measuring 117 x 70 x 65 mm, the S70 is a bit too big for one's pocket yet too small to require a large case. We suspect that many users will opt to carry the S70 via the included neck strap or choose to just hold the camera in their hands.
The rear facing LCD is pretty much standard on digital cameras these days. The view finder, which includes a dioptric adjustment for those who normally use glasses, is exceptionally small. We think that many will choose to sacrifice battery life to keep the rear LCD on during image capture.
With the smaller size of the S70 also comes a decreased grip. No longer the meaty grip encountered when the camera was forced to be at least 3.5 inches high, the S70's grip feels rather dainty. Rather than falling in its suggested position, we often found our hand engulfing about half the camera in order to get a stable grip. Even after adjusting our index finger to the shutter button, we still found our thumb extending over the upper right corner of the LCD instead of its suggested spot below the rocker zoom button.
With exception to the power button, we found that the silver function buttons on the rear of the camera were a bit small to conveniently press with our thumb. The button feedback was not exceptional, however there is a slight click that is felt when depressing a button the full way.
One of the problems that originally reared its ugly head in the Mavica cameras is also present on the S70. This problem, which Sony likes to call a feature, is the spherical menu button. Similar to a trackball with the top cut off, the menu button is free to move in all directions, however it only responds to the common four directions of up, down, left, and right. Depressing a position other than the common four results in no function at all, unless the diagonal direction is close to one of the defined directions. The menu button feels loose to the touch and is often hard to get good feed back from.
Perhaps the most annoying feature of the menu button is the center function button. Pressing the menu button in the middle causes it to act as an access button, selecting the function navigated to by the four directions. The main problem with this is a result of the menu button's play, which often causes a missing of the middle button and a depression of the down direction button. It is well past time that Sony got rid of the ball-like menu button and it is a shame that it was carried down to the S70.
In general, we think that Sony sacrificed stability and functionality for size.
We think that Sony should have opted to make the S70 body longer and less wide, allow for not only a more meaty grip but also larger buttons. Also, the menu button needs to be revamped, making it actually possible to easily access the S70's many features.
The Battery
One area in which all Sony cameras have shined has been in battery life. Ever since the first Mavica, Sony has used their proprietary InfoLithum batteries to provide not only long battery life but also an accurate readout of battery life remaining.
The S70 uses the newest generation of InfoLithium battery packs, one which provides not only improved battery life but also a more advanced battery life remaining meter. The S70 comes with one NP-FM50 battery which displays 146 minutes remaining when fully charged. In our testing, we found the time remaining meter to be extremely accurate. In fact, the S70's battery lasts a bit longer than the read out remaining time, lasting a full 2 hours and 38 minutes. This makes the Sony's battery life exceptional, as these tests were conducted not only with the rear LCD on but also while making periodic memory writes as well as flash burns.
The battery charger is actually inside the camera. All one needs to do is plug the power adapted into the camera while the battery is in. This is a nice feature, as it means there is one less piece to carry on trips. The only problem is that the power brick included with the S70 for power transformation is entirely too big. Larger than the size of many notebook power bricks, the S70's power brick is nearly as large as the camera: too large if you ask us.
Once again, we have to commend Sony for improving upon a feature so important in the digital camera arena. Not being able to use conventional AA batteries in emergencies may scare some off, but keep in mind that the S70's battery is better than many others, making those emergency times few and far between. Plus, with the extremely accurate time remaining meter, one always knows what to expect.
Storage
In order to move Sony cameras into the 21st century it was necessary to abandon the floppy disk storage method and move to something with more space and a smaller footprint. Rather than follow the path nearly every other digital camera manufacturer has taken, Sony chose to stray from the compact flash/smart media route and use a technology already developed in-house: the Sony Memory Stick.
The history of the Memory Stick is short, with Sony releasing it as a solid state storage option about a year and a half ago. The Memory Stick is one of the physically smallest storage methods we have seen to date. As its name suggests, the Memory Stick is smaller than a stick of gum and extremely light. The S70 is not the only Sony product to use this storage method, rather all Cybershot cameras as well as Sony's MP3 player use this technology as their primary storage method.
Although the technology is interesting, there is more than one downfall to using the Memory Stick. Unfortunately, the first downfall is not a result of the Memory stick itself but rather the one that is included in the DSC-S70 package. With 64MB and 32MB sizes already available and a 128MB Memory Stick on the way, it is unacceptable and almost insulting that Sony includes a measly 8MB Memory Stick with the S70. Barely enough to hold six 2048x1536 JPEG images (the largest size picture that the S70 can produce), the included 8MB stick can not even store one full sized (2048x1536) tiff file. Sony may have just as well left out the 8MB Memory Stick and discounted the already pricey S70. Essentially every person who is pricing the S70 should go ahead and add at least $100 to the camera's price to cover a 64MB Memory Stick, as without it the camera's functionality is severely limited. Sony should be ashamed of themselves for forcing DSC-S70 owners to buy an additional Sony product.
The aforementioned problem could easily be fixed by Sony with the packaging of a higher capacity Memory Stick with the S70, however other Memory Stick specific problems are harder to fix. First, the access time on the Memory Stick in our S70 seemed sluggish, requiring a whopping 4 seconds to switch from file to file (at 2048x1536 JPEG) in playback mode.
Secondly, the Sony Memory Stick is a proprietary Sony format, a quality that normally scares us away. First off, with no products but Sony products using the Memory Stick format, price is set by Sony and Sony alone. There is and will not be any competition in the Memory Stick market to force prices down. Then there is the fact that Memory Stick technology is still relatively new. We are yet to see if the technology will be used in other manufacturer's processes or even to see how dedicated Sony is to the project. If support becomes poor, Memory Stick updates to more memory may never come, leaving the user with a very limited amount of upgrade options. We would feel much safer if the support base for the Sony Memory Stick was as large as the base for Compact Flash cards.
Data from the Memory Stick can get to one's computer via a few different options, only one of which comes with the DSC-S70 package. The included transfer mode is via a USB connection that plugs directly into the camera body. After a simple driver install, plugging the USB cable into one's computer causes the camera to act as a removable storage device, coming up as a drive in Windows. The interface is not overly elaborate and gets the job done in a fairly simply way.
For those out there wanting different transfer methods, you are in luck. Sony has a variety of Memory Stick reader options. One can get an extremely slow floppy disk adapter (where the memory stick actually plugs into a 3.5 inch floppy), a fast PCMCIA adapter, or even a parallel port reader. For many users, the built-in USB connection will prove to be the most useful, making the other modes of transport unnecessary.
The Interface
The DSC-S70's menu system is very intuitive and easy to learn. Turning on the camera prompts the user to push the menu button's up button to bring the bottom dwelling menu bar into view. The bar is divided into five different drop-down menus, each separating different selectable features of the camera. The system is very similar to something one may see in a typical desktop operating system, as the S70 even has a "File" drop-down menu that includes features such as "Image Size" and an option to format the memory stick. The "Camera" menu brings up a list of different camera features that apply to each picture taken. The "Effect" menu allows the user to select various picture taking effects. The "Setup" menu allows the user to change some of the S70's OS settings, such as setting when the camera beeps and what language should be used (options are English or Japanese). The final button on the menu bar, which appears as a clock, allows for easy access to the camera's self timer which operates on a 10 second delay. A map of sorts lies beneath the menu bar, informing the user of what each menu button selection will do.
One of the S70 OS's most useful feature is the ability to easily delete the last picture taken. After taking a picture, all one has to do is hit the left menu button, an action which brings up a review of the last picture taken. In this mode, the picture filename, date and time taken are all displayed, as well as a "Delete" menu option. If one chooses not to delete the picture, hitting the return button returns the user to the record mode.
When in playback mode, the menu bar changes slightly, replacing the self-timer with an "Index" button, the "Effect" button with a "Delete" button, and the "Camera" button with a "Tool" button. Both the "Index" button and the "Delete" button do exactly what one may think, with the "Index" button taking the user into an index view mode of all pictures on the memory stick and the "Delete" button bringing up a dialogue box confirming the delete selection.
The "File" drop-down menu now includes a list of functions that can be operated upon the taken picture, such as rotating the picture or protecting it. The "Tool" menu offers two options: copy the current picture or resize it. The "Setup" menu remains unchanged.
One of the most useful features of the playback mode on the S70 is its ability to zoom in on a given picture. Limited to the 560x220 LCD screen on the back of the camera, images taken at the S70's full resolution of 2048x1536 are extremely shrunk. If one wants more detail or just wants to see if a specific part of a picture came out, it is possible to zoom in on the already taken image by pressing the telephoto zoom button. By doing so, a zoom in of the displayed picture from 1.1x to 5.0x is shown on the rear LCD screen. The image can be moved around simply by hitting the menu button in the desired direction. This is extremely nice when looking for a specific detail in a previously taken picture.
The S70's menu system was a pleasure to work with, providing easy access to all the camera's features. The only item which plagues the menu's use is the aforementioned menu button. Since using the menu button is the only way to navigate around the camera's menu based OS, we often ended up selecting features we did not intend to, resulting in frustration.
The Lens
One feature that Sony has certainly made a big deal about in the Cybershot cameras is the use of a Carl Zeiss lens. Carl Zeiss has been in the optics business for over 150 years and has a history of being a superior manufacturer. In fact, Carl Zeiss optics are found in some of the best cameras that money can buy. Therefore it is no surprise that Sony touts the S70's Carl Zeiss lens as a major feature, stamping the Carl Zeiss name on two locations on the lens.
In sheer size, the lens just looks impressive, suggesting that this digital camera is much more than just that. In fact, the move to higher quality optics seems to be a logical step in digital camera evolution, however few manufacturers are employing this method. Sure, an increased megapixel count does result in increased image quality, however this is only good to a limited extent. There is only so much quality that can come out of an image if it is poor coming in due to a lower quality lens.
The Carl Zeiss lens is a move in the right direction, as the lens paired up with Sony's .55", 3.3 megapixel CCD produces clean and crisp images. The glass on the lens less less like that of a typical digital camera and more like that of an SLR camera. The outer glass incorporates an anti-reflective coating which can be seen in the greenish tint that the lens gives off when viewed from an angle.
The S70 also incorporate a 3x optical zoom which forces the lens to stand away from the camera body. Although the optical zoom is of great quality as a result of the high quality optics involved, the optical zoom is extremely slow, requiring 3 seconds to go from full wide angle (34mm) to full telephoto (102mm). In addition, the lens takes a full 3.5 seconds to extend from the camera body upon power-on; a slow speed which is very frustrating to work with. In addition, it is necessary to endure this 3.5 second time delay when shifting the camera from record mode to play mode and vice versa.
The front of the S70's box as well as the left side of the camera boast a 6x zoom, accomplished digitally. As we mentioned in our Digital Camera Review Guide, digital zoom is far less desirable than optical zoom. In fact, many users just choose to disable the digital zoom abilities of the camera and rely solely on the optical zoom, as the image quality is not compromised in this method of zoom. Unlike the optical zoom, the S70's digital zoom is extremely fast, producing the 6x effective zoom from a 3x optical zoom in 1.5 seconds. The added graininess that comes with the S70's digital zoom (as well as all others) should be enough to keep the vast majority of people away.
The Carl Zeiss lens has f-stops from 2 to 8 when in wide angle mode and from 2.4 to 8 when in telephoto mode, with seven stops in-between in wide angle and six intermediate stops in telephoto mode. This is about on average with other digital cameras in this price range, but still far less than what is seen in SLR cameras. Shutter speeds from 8 seconds to 1/1000th of a second are also available.
Does Sony's use of high quality optics pay off? Subjectively it is hard to tell, but it appears so. In our Image Quality section we will investigate this further.
The Features
As with many digital cameras in this price range, the DSC-S70 has a long list of features. Some are shared with many other higher end digital cameras, while some are features that few possess. As always no single product is perfect, thus we will also discuss the downfalls to the S70's feature set.
Movie Mode
Let's being with a feature that the Sony has that only a few other digital cameras possess. In addition to being able to capture still pictures at up to 2048x1536, the S70 can also capture movies in MPEG2 format. The S70 has three capture modes when recording movies: a high quality 320x240 mode, a regular 320x240 mode, and a 160x112 mode.
The camera can be set to take 5, 10, or 15 second movies when the shutter button is depressed once or it can take up to 60 seconds of continuous movies when the shutter button is held. The picture effects described below can be applied to the movies, however the zoom is locked when recording, meaning that if you start recording in wide-angle, it is not possible to telephoto zoom in.
To see just how the movies are captured, we recorded a very similar set of movies in each mode. You can view the 320 high quality movie by clicking here, the standard 320 movie by clicking here, and the 160 movie by clicking here.
The difference between 320 high quality and standard 320 are hard to see in a still picture that is so small, but zooming in on the image during playback reveals a bit lower quality image. In addition, the sound in high quality mode is drastically better than that in normal mode. The size difference between the two modes really shows how much more information is stored in high quality mode, as our high quality test movie is about 1.4 MBs larger than the standard quality one.
The 160x112 mode is really only useful for creating animated web cards or such, where size is of the utmost concern. Don't get us wrong, even at 320x240 high quality mode the S70 is still extremely far behind a standard camcorder, both in image quality as well as movie size. One thing that hurts the Sony, however, is the fact that the maximum recording time is set to 60 seconds regardless of the memory stick or resolution used.
LCD
Although the Sony DSC-S70 uses a standard 2" (560x220) LCD, the image quality of the LCD is superb. Colors are clear and crisp and the LCD brightness is easily adjusted in the "Setup" menu. The excellent LCD is covered by a piece of hard plastic to prevent damage. The only downside to this is that the plastic is not coated with any anti-reflective material, meaning that use of the LCD in direct sunlight is very difficult. During testing we often found ourselves looking for shade so that we could review the images previously taken.
As nice as the LCD may look, we consistently had a problem with taking pictures with it. The problem is that the S70's rear LCD appears to consistently cut off some of what the camera is seeing. We found ourselves having to adjust for this problem by framing our image in the LCD a bit larger than we actually wanted the picture to be.
A second LCD, a black and white one, is found on top of the camera. Here, camera status seen on the back color LCD is reproduced for times when the LCD is off or the camera status icons are hidden. Below you can see that the top LCD displays a lot of the camera's vital specs, including image size, battery life, and more.
Some features, unfortunately, can not be controlled via the small black and white LCD. For example, when the camera's rear color LCD is turned off, the custom features and picture effects of the camera can not be accessed. And while a top LCD icon for focus mode, white balance adjustment, and image capture type exist, these features can not be enabled unless the rear LCD is on.
In fully automatic mode, the top LCD works fine, as it allows for various flash settings to be toyed with while also displaying the camera's vital signs.
Predetermined Picture Modes
The S70 has a variety of preset picture modes to make the more casual photographer more achieve the desired picture effect. Each of these features is accessible via the "Program AE" button that resides right above the LCD.
The first picture mode that is hit after bypassing the shutter and aperture priority modes is the twilight mode, represented by a moon icon on the rear LCD display. In this mode, the shutter speed appears to be lowered down to allow for more light to enter the picture. The twilight plus mode, the second picture mode to come up, is represented by a moon icon with a small plus next to it. In this mode, an even slower shutter speed than the twilight mode is selected.
Landscape mode is next to come up after the night modes. Represented by two mountains, the landscape mode sets a very small aperture to allow for the most depth of field to be achieved. Here the camera attempts to make all items, near and far, in focus.
Next is what Sony calls "Panfocus" mode. Here zoom is automatically set to wide-angle and aperture is cranked smaller. The focus is set basically to infinity to capture objects both near and far. In this mode, the camera acts more like a simple digital camera with a fixed focus.
The final mode is the spot metered mode, represented by an icon of a box with a circle in the middle of it. When this mode is selected, a small cross hair appears in the middle of the rear LCD. The camera determines exposure based solely on what it sees in the point of the cross hair, unlike the center weighted averaging mode normally used by the camera. Spot metered mode is most useful when a very bright subject is on a very dark background or vice versa.
Creative Control
In addition to the preset picture modes that the S70 has, it also has some more advanced features for the adventurous out there. Also accessible via the "Program AE" button, both aperture priority and shutter speed priority can be selected. In aperture priority mode, a small AE with an A below it is presented on the top right of the rear LCD and F stop settings are displayed. The F stop modes are adjusted via the volume button and can be set with any of the following stops: 2.0, 2.4 2.8, 3.4, 4.0, 4.8, 5.6, 6.8, and 8.0. The aperture of the camera is cranked up and down upon adjusting it, so the rear LCD displays the image as it will be seen when taken.
Shutter speed priority mode is indicated by an AES icon. Here, once again both the F-stop and the shutter speed are displayed. Hitting the volume button adjusts the shutter speed from 8 seconds to 1/1000th of a second with 17 positions in between. The camera cranks up or down the aperture the correct amount on the fly, so once again a preview of the final image is given in the rear LCD. In addition, shutter speeds below 1/30th of a second begin to show motion blur on the rear LCD, meaning that one can accurately access how a picture will look before taking it. For example, with a shutter speed of 1 second, a preview image of a car driving by will show the car streaked across the screen. This occurs to a lesser amount when the shutter speed is faster than 1 second and shows more with longer shutter speeds. This also serves as a good warning to show if ones hands are shaking too much to take a picture at a specific shutter speed.
One thing missing is a fully manual mode. There is no option to set both the shutter speed and the aperture manually, something that many high end cameras have.
Exposure settings can also be adjusted in the S70. The first button that is hi-lighted when going into the "Camera" sub menu is "Exposure." Here one can over expose or under expose shots from -2.0 to +2.0 in steps of .3EV. An on-the-fly preview of the selected exposure setting is given in the rear LCD, showing if the shot is going to be extremely over exposed or under exposed.
White balance of a shot can also be adjusted, however the only four modes available are indoor, outdoor, hold, and auto. The auto function of the camera seems to work well, selecting the proper white balance reasonable well for each shot.
In the same "Camera" drop-down menu, image sharpness and flash level can be adjusted. Sharpness can be set from -2 to +2 and results in some extra definition to the image. Flash level can be set as high, normal, or low. Each setting is as it sounds, either making the flash brighter in high mode or darker in low mode. Some examples of our standard image taken with these settings altered are shown below.
Although the S70 does offer focus control besides the built-in auto focus, the focus support is rather weak. The macro mode is useful when photographing images at about a distance of 3 centimeters away. The problems come when one attempts to adjust the focus any more. Unlike the smooth manual focus of other cameras, the S70 offers only five manual focus modes, being: .5m away from the subject, 1.0m away from the subject, 3.0m away from the subject, 7.0m away from the subject and an infinity focus mode. These auto focus modes are pretty much worthless and we would much rather see a continuous manual focus option
The final creative feature of the S70 is its ability to alter the colors of a picture before it is taken. The five modes that can be selected are: solarize, black and white, sepia, negative art, and off. Below are pictures of our test image with each of these picture effects enabled.
One feature we were looking for in the DSC-S70 that it does not have is an ISO adjustment. No camera specs tell us what the ISO equivalent for the S70 is, but we suspect that it hovers around the 200 range and is variable depending on lighting.
Image Size
The S70 is able to record at five different resolutions: 2048x1536, 2048x1360 (3:2), 1600x1200, 1280x960, and 640x480. You may notice that all resolutions except for the 2048x1360 are at a ratio of 4:3. Sony includes the 2048x1360 ratio in order to produce a picture of a 3:2 ratio that matches the ratio of a printer. Below are sample images of each size to show how the images differ.
Speed
After a bit of use, there is no question that the S70 is a slow camera. First, as mentioned before, the extension of the lens at power on 3.5 seconds. A full boot from power on to still image mode take 6 seconds, quite a long time to wait when you have just the right picture.
The camera takes about 1.3 seconds to auto focus and take a picture in the best situation. Under more trying conditions, the auto focus takes what seems to be unreasonably long, taking up to 2.5 seconds to focus and record. The lag on the camera once the shutter is depressed after focus is not bad, running about .1 seconds.
Memory stick reads are writes are also slow, most likely as a result of the S70's lack of a large memory buffer. This is seen when in playback mode, as images seem to crawl to the screen. Often time we ended up passing over the picture we wanted simply because we thought that the S70 was just not responding due to a mistaken button push.
Additional Comments
One thing that the S70 lacks that nearly every other camera in this price range has is a burst mode for taking continuous pictures. Holding down the shutter on the S70 accomplishes no good, as the camera is only able to take one picture at a time. This was most likely done to cut costs, as such a feature requires the embedding of RAM as a temporary storage place. It is too bad that Sony left it out.
Image Quality
Perhaps the most important part of any digital camera's job is reproducing images. Our inclination with the S70 was that with its Carl Zeiss lens and its 3.3 megapixel CCD that it would produce fairly accurate colors and crisp images.
To put this hypothesis to the test, we took out our GretagMacbeth color checker described in detail in our Digital Camera Review Guide. Let's see how the S70 interpreters real life colors:
Actual colors. |
S70 colors. |
As you can see, the S70 consistently seems to produce colors that are a bit on the light side, making them brighter than normal. The white and gray reproduction are good, with a washout not really becoming apparent until the full black color. Other colors, such as the light red, just appear lighter in the S70's eye. All in all the color reproduction of the S70 is not bad at all, as it is better that it consistently produces light colors than producing different problems with different colors.
Next, to judge the optics of the S70, we turn to our IEEE resolution chart, shown below.
As you can see with our close up images, the Sony S70 begins to loose detail horizontally at 9. Vertically, detail is held for a bit longer, with the lines becoming solid at about 9.25. Finally, with the 5 degree offset, the lines remain visible in the 9 box.
The Gallery
Our testing of the DSC-S70 involved many picture filled days around Duke University's campus (as many test days will). Let's take a look and see what kind of pictures the S70 can take and how accurate they are. All pictures are taken in fully automatic mode at 2048x1536 unless otherwise noted. (Note: these pictures are in JPEG format simply because the included memory stick will not capture any full size TIFF files)
The Specs
Sony
DSC-S70
|
|
Price | $800 |
CCD Pixel count | 3.3 million |
Resolutions | 2048x1536, 2048x1360, 1600x1200, 1280x960, 640x480 |
Color Reproduction | Slightly light |
Lens | Carl Zeiss |
Optical Zoom | 3x (34mm - 102 mm) |
Digital Zoom | 3x above optical |
Aperture | F2.0 / 2.5 - 8.0 |
Manual Focus | Macro, .5m, 1.0m, 3.0m, 7.0m, Infinity |
Shutter speeds | 8" to 1/1000th of a second |
Flash | Built in, external available |
Sharpness adjustment | From -2 to +2 at 1 |
Exposure compensation | -2 EV to +2 EV at .3 EV |
White Balance | Auto, hold, in door, out door |
Aperture Priority | Yes |
Shutter Speed Priority | Yes |
Manual | No |
Preset Picture Modes | Twilight mode, Twilight plus mode, Landscape mode, Panfocus mode, Spot metering mode |
ISO modes | Auto (?) |
Burst Buffer | None |
Image Storage Options | TIFF, JPEG, GIF (2 color black and white), MPEG2 (movie mode) |
Zoom speed | 3 seconds |
Time to take a full picture from scratch (at full resolution) | 1.3 seconds (best case) |
LCD | 2" (560x220) |
Storage Method | Memory Stick |
Included storage | 8MB Memory Stick |
Battery | Sony InfoLithium NP-FM50 |
Battery Life | |
PC Interface | USB |
OS | Sony |
TV-out | NTSC or PAL |
Tripod mount | Yes |
Special features | Movie mode |
Conclusion
There is no question that the Cybershot series cameras are a step in the right direction for Sony. As we have seen with the DSC-S70, Sony is out to make a camera that will quickly appeal to the consumer, with aggressive looks and a equally impressive performance.
There are some problems with the S70, however. First off it is extremely slow, a fact which frustrated us constantly upon its use. The proprietary Memory Stick format makes us wary, as prices could rise or products could be be discontinued easily. The camera's grip left some to be desired, as it seemed a bit delicate in our hands. Finally, smaller issues such as the troublesome menu button and lack of a few features, left us a bit disappointed.
However it seems that for every bad on the S70 there is an equal and opposite good. The color chart shows that the S70 can accurately reproduce colors rather accurately, with colors a bit on the light side. The impressive Carl Zeiss lens shows Sony's commitment to high quality optics and the 3.3 megapixel CCD proves that Sony is out to battle with the big dogs.
Does the S70 match up? Well, what it looses in speed and features it makes up in image quality and optics. We think that the S70 is a good option in the $800 price range, however it is very hard to place the product here as an additional $100 should be tacked on for almost mandatory 64MB Memory Stick. At $900 the S70 is still a good camera, however the competition gets tougher, with cameras like the Nikon Coolpix 990 and the Olympus C-3030Z competing for your money.
We think that the S70 will be a good camera for some time now, far outlasting the former Mavica series cameras.