tcchou71's Full Review: Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S40 Digital Camera
I was looking for a pocket-sized digicam with a wide angle lens (28mm equivalent) for landscapes and indoor photos. I also wanted something that took standard AA batteries.
That turns out to be impossible. As of this date (January 2006) the only pocket-sized cameras that reach 28mm are the Canon S series, which does not take AA batteries, the Fuji F500/F510, which has a rather soft lens, and several interesting Ricoh Caplio cameras that are quite nice, but don't take AA batteries. (I happen to have the Caplio R3, and love it. It is reviewed here: http://www.epinions.com/content_217558847108).
This makes the Sony DSC-S40 an interesting choice. It's lens reaches down to 32mm at the wide angle. Though less wide than the options above, it's still better than the 35-38mm standard on most digicams. This camera was also cheaper and smaller than the options above. It also had all the usual nice Sony features: great VGA movies, fast focus and turn-on times, autofocus assist lamp, high-quality Zeiss lens, and long battery life. This camera also used standard AA batteries, and is in fact the smallest camera I could find that did so. Although "only" 4 megapixels, images were still pretty sharp and detailed. I've been pleasantly surprised with this camera's speed, responsiveness, picture quality, small size, and low cost ($199). My only major gripe is that pictures taken in low light, even with the flash, are both noisy and lacking in detail, and are among the worst I've seen.
Here are some of the pros and cons in more detail:
Pros:
1. Speed of shooting. Like most Sony digicams, shooting feels very fast. In low light, or at full zoom, it's slower but still pretty good, and much faster than my Canon S60.
The autofocus assist lamp allows focusing in near-total darkness, and works pretty well.
2. Good image quality if light is good. Pictures taken outdoors are detailed and sharp, with very good color that is nicely saturated without looking artificial. The Zeiss lens has very little purple fringing and chromatic aberration. The only color related problem is that shots under incandescent light look yellow. But almost all cameras have this problem. Selecting tungsten white balance in the menu fixes the yellow perfectly well.
3. VGA movie mode (640x480, 30fps). This is much better than the 320x240 movies that most cameras used to offer. Better yet, the movies only use 1MB of memory per second, about half the rate for the Canon S1 IS. Unfortunately, the Sony's movies don't brighten up much in dim light. If you walk into a dim room, the Sony's video will fade to black, whereas other digicams gain up the brightness so that you can at least see something.
Unfortunately, I saw somewhat more compression artifacts than I'd like. But movie quality is secondary to me - I don't use it often, mainly because movies just take up too much space.
4. This is one of the smallest cameras that still takes AA batteries. This is hugely convenient for traveling.
5. Battery life is impressive. Whereas many cameras that take AA batteries won't run more than a couple minutes with standard alkaline's, the Sony manual specifies 110-140 shots per set of alkaline batteries, which is actually correct (I got 165 with my set). The manual claims 480-580 shots with NiMH rechargeables, which is well above average.
Cons
1. In dim light, noise in the pictures goes up very noticeably, even if you use the flash. At the same time, noise-reduction becomes very aggressive, causing severe loss of detail. This is due to the camera's small 1/2.7" sensor. By comparison, the Canon S60 (which has a larger 1/1.8" sensor) produces much better pictures in dim light. Even the Ricoh R3, which gets a lot of complaints about noise, does better in low light, because of its image stabilization and because its minimalist approach to noise-reduction preserves detail.
2. Screen fonts are tiny. I have to stare closely to read shutter speed/aperture, number of shots remaining, battery status, etc. Even though the screen is small, the fonts could have been larger.
3. The low battery warning comes on only about 10 shots before the batteries go completely dead, at least with alkaline batteries (I haven't tested this yet with NiMH).
4. Memory sticks. These cost twice as much as SD cards of the same capacity. With the awesome movie mode, I'd love to get a 1 GB card, but haven't because of price.
Despite the shortcomings, this is a pretty handy camera for traveling and shooting outdoors. But if you plan to use it a lot indoors, you may be bothered by the high noise and low detail, which is worse than the Canon S60/70/80, and worse even than the Ricoh Caplio R3, which I now use instead of this camera.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 199 This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Easy Enough for Anyone to Use
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