Lens is quality (Kick off the digital zoom and enjoy!) Great in low light. Fun to use.

Manual focus less than ideal... Lousy for fast action if you like to see what your shooting after the first shot.

Fun camera to use. Features allow users from novice to pro to excel with the camera. Very natural color production, logical controls. Great underwater housings coming online too...

Customer Service

After 90 days you are on your own. The 1 year parts warranty is only covered under SONY's one price service which means you will spend $148.00 for the smallest of camera ills. Also, you have to spend $148.00 under the "parts warranty" to get anything replaced on the camera. At 6 months usage I have found stress cracks on the camera lens housing around two screws that are slowly but surely increasing in size away from the screws. Camera works fine but do I really want cracks in the housing? I had previously been a vocal fan and sold two friends on the camera...now not such a vocal fan. I have never had such lousy service with my Nikons...

far too many to mention, check the professional reviews.

as mentioned in some reviews, "control" button frequently "difficult. incidently, we had returned inital purchase when pop-up flash, became tempermental, & the replacement works flawlessly.

excellent camera ! you won't go wrong with this one, my wife, the "gadget woman" says this is the best buy we've ever made. we really researched before we bought, & found this to be highly recommended, & can only agree, novice to professional, easy to operate, & after 2k+ shots, we have yet to scratch the surface of its capabilities.

Customer Service

Sony,excellent.

Similar Products Used:

# of 35mm point & shoots, as well SLR's.

Large maximum aperture, great zoom range, sharp lens with excellent color rendition. Capture of digital image files is rapid and I seldom find myself waiting for the camera (except for focus -see below).

The first is my biggest gripe: No allowance for external flash except for a Sony proprietary unit that doesn''t meet my requirements. There is no hot shoe or PC connector, and due to multiple pre-flashes you can''t use a regular slave to trigger other strobes. My second gripe I kind of expected in this type of camera - autofocus is not very fast (although it is virtually silent!). It acts like about any other "point-and-shoot" camera or consumer digital camera in that when you half press the button, it takes around a second to find the focus. Once focused (or if you pre-focus) it is very quick to take the picture. The problem is when you are capturing moving subjects it is very difficult to focus and time the shutter release. Because of these two weaknesses (and I don''t see any others in this price range that are much better at the autofocus problem) I am planning to acquire an SLR body soon.

I''m a professional photographer with 14 years of experience, and recently decided to give digital a try. Rather than dive right into a pro body, I decided on a "prosumer" model in the $1000 price range. After extensive research and experimenting with other models, this is the unit I picked (April 2002). After running several thousand images through its lens, I can say I''m very impressed! Image quality is excellent. Prints at 11x14" match 35mm quality. The main point that sold me on the camera was the Carl Zeiss lens with a very useful zoom range and with maximum aperture f/2.0-2.4 (amazing - you can''t get that in 35mm!). After using it quite a bit the last few months, I have to say that the night-framing feature not found on other cameras is very useful for taking pictures in dimly lit environments. And in "Night Shot" mode you can shoot in total darkness! The pictures are greenish and pretty grainy that way, but you can put it in "Black & White" or "Sepia" modes for a nicer effect. Anyway, I have only two major gripes with the camera, both of which I was aware of before purchasing it (see under "Weaknesses" below). If you don''t mind the large lens (which reduces it''s "pocketability") and you''re looking for a camera in the $1000 price range I would very much recommend it. I like the two-speed zoom and the position of the lever, although like other reviewers I think the telephoto/wide angle buttons should have their positions reversed. Didn''t think it would be as confusing as it is, but for some reason they seem to be intuitively backward. In one of the earlier summaries someone said that the movie mode was without sound, but that is not accurate - sound is captured with the video. Someone else also mentioned that you can''t use it with standard accessories (filters, etc.). That''s not quite true - The camera accepts standard screw-in filters. You may find some problems if shooting in night modes, with internal reflections from the IR illuminator lamps reflecting from the inside surface of your filter and causing a little flare in the image. But I don''t consider this a big deal as it is a rare shooting mode, and I just remove the UV filter I''ve got in place if I''m having that problem.

Absolutely delivers

Memory stick, flash, and the worst warranty in the business (90 day labor???)

After spending 3 years in "filmworld", I have have completed my conversion to digital with the Sony F707. Believe the reviews. The lens is tack sharp. This Zeis pulls details out of the shot that leave you stairing endlessley at the grain in the wood or the texture on the wall. If you are going to use this for portraiture you will NEED to apply a softening filter because this puppy will extract every ounce of detail from the shot. Color balance is a dream. It is a rare occurance for my pictures to select the autobalance function in photoshop and not be able to tell whether it performed its function or not...the image comes out of the camera that good. It is hard to describe unless you see it, but the colors seem pleasantly lifelike. Another thing I have noticed about this digital is the exposure latitude. From shadows to highlights, this camera extracts an amazing amount of information out of the shot, seemingly at least one full EV more than with film (and I used REALA, which is superb). Functioning of the camera, again magnificent. Other than the button placement on the left side of the lens (a superficial thing IMHO), the camera grips well and flies through most setting changes. Getting used to looking at an LCD instead of a focusing screen is a challenge, but such is the nature of digital things. To repeat the (oft-stated) obvious points, memory sticks are proprietary and WAY overpriced. This is exacerbated by Sony''s restricting the camera to their proprietary add-on flash...disgusting considering they publish ZERO information about the unit (such as guide-number and coverage). For me though, the shoe is best served as a holder for a bubble level. The memory stick is the price I pay for having a camera that represents the evolution of a design that focused on what the PROsumer (emphasizing PRO) would want in a camera. In my dream world they would have ommitted the movie capabilities (and corresponding microphone) and sealed the camera from the elements like a EOS 1D. But, such are the fantasies of poor perfectionists.

Customer Service

Sony sales was attrocious.

Similar Products Used:

Canon T90, AE1

5x Zoom, Night shoot, Movie mode, Hologram AF, Micro

Flash, can only use Sony HVL-F1000 flash and nothing else. Zoom is not wide enough.

This is a really good camera in general use. It have almost everything in it. 5x zoom up to 190mm Hologram AF did a really good job at night. Movie 320*240 mode can record up to the memory stick full. (I record a 20 mins movie in my 128M stick). It has Infrared rays emitter to light up the object when you using night mode. Battery is big but it have a long live. However, it take me 3 hrs to rechange it. The jog dial is hard to use. If you use manual mode, it take you a long time to setup. You need to set the aperture and shutter speed but only 1 dial for you. The last thing I hate most is the flash. It have a cold shoe, and a flash terminal but it does not mean you can connect your camera to your other flash. If you have a studio, DON''T BUY THIS. The flash terminal ONLY good for HVL-F1000 flash. What I have to do is make a black box to cover the flash and put a slave sensor inside. Is this stupid? Well, Sony like to do stuff like this.

Customer Service

Not yet

Similar Products Used:

None

5 Mpix, Carl Zeiss 5x zoom lens, high res EVF, fast start up, fast 3-shot burst with EV bracketing option, fast focus, superb performance in low light and darkness, easy-as-pie controls, very ergonomic swivel body and lens makes for extreme shooting flexibility, many more superb features that I can''t even list.

Needs a lens hood when shooting in bright outdoors. Flash photography could be better. White balance problem with narrow aperture/fast shutter speed when using forced flash in manual mode. Easily correctible with post-processing software. Most users will rarely run into this problem.

This camera is a dream to use. It is fast, focuses accurately (even in the dark), takes detailed, well exposed pictures with rich colors, has a true WYSIWYG viewfinder, manual focus ring, easy access to all controls, bright LCD even in sunlight, swivel lens/body, very long battery life, 5X optical zoom lens, and 5 Mpix resolution. You couldn''t ask for much more for the price.

Customer Service

Average

Similar Products Used:

Sony DSC-S70, Sony DSC-S85

Shape. Features. Long battrey life. Less shutter lag that is common to digital cameras.

View finder is LCD display and has inherent flaws of that type of display. Flash photography forces a wide open aperture and hence softer out of focus shots more likely.

Good digital camera. Unusual shape that is fairly easy to get used to. Nice 5X Carl Zeiss lens that opens upto f2.0-2.4. Faster shutter release than usual lower priced digital cameras. After using the camera I am starting to feel that digital cameras are starting to feel interesting. Good detailed if a bit over-saturated pictures.

Similar Products Used:

Olympus 2040