Home :: Cameras :: Digital Cameras :: 3 to 3.9 Megapixels  

2 to 2.9 Megapixels
3 to 3.9 Megapixels

4 to 4.9 Megapixels
5 Megapixels & Up
Advanced Point-and-Shoot
Digital SLRs
Extended Zoom
Professional & Serious Amateur
Simple Point-and-Shoot
Ultracompact
Under 2 Megapixels
Sony Cybershot DSCS70 3.2MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

Sony Cybershot DSCS70 3.2MP Digital Camera w/ 3x Optical Zoom

List Price: $899.99
Your Price:
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 2 3 4 5 >>

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Good camera takes a while to learn.
Review: This is a good camera but it takes a while to learn I beleive thats why the poor reveiw. I have used 4 digital cameras and chose it over the olympus 3.3 megapixel which has a high rating. But being a electronic technician for 30 years the switches on the olympus looked like they couln't wait to break. This camera is sturdy and will last a long time.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Too expensive for a toy, too poor for a tool
Review: ...Good things:

1. Color. Second camera of all I tried afterNikon Coolpix that delivers color as bright, right and clear.

2. PC Connection. Once you connect this toy to your USB port, Windows senses it, asks for drivers and when you supply those, the memory stick in your camera appears as just another (removable) drive to your Windows, the drive that works at least as fast as my hard drive.

3. Battery. They have lithium ion rechargeable one like on best Sony's camcorders.

That's it. Now bad things that made me bite the [bullet] returning it back to Fry's:

First thing -- financial trap: pretty typical for Sony, you basically have to buy about 1.5K worth of stuff to be comfortable with this product. The supplied 8M memory stick stores about 4 to 5 maximum resolution pictures, and the best stick they have (64M) stores about 40. Usually when I go to a trip I take about 200 shots, so I had to buy 5 (five) 64M sticks...Additional lenses...Small stuff like floppy disk adapter, adds up quickly. It's much worse than with a Sony camcorder -- I bought a good one for about a grand and added about half of that of stuff. They say -- you can delete some pictures you don't need which is BS - the display on the camera is too small and the quality of the picture on a TV delivered via AV out is too poor.

AV video signal out - useless. I guess it's there to view the pictures and "movies" on the TV, but because of different resolution, the pictures appear mangled, distorted beyond recognition, you can't enjoy them, you can't decide which to keep which to erase.

It's awfully slow when it comes to grab focus and especially KEEP IT focused! Making pictures with this camera is like dancing salsa with a sloth for a partner. You can take still pictures of an object which is really still, rather totally, ultimately still. If it moves it's useless.

5 sec MPEG -- useless. It's jumpy, skips moments and you can't control which moment it will skip, can't control resolution, the camera can't keep the focus if the object is moving back and forth.

Often it turns on unable to focus at all -- you have to shut it down and turn it on to regain ability to control the focus.

It's faster than many other cameras I tried, but still not enough. It's still slow, slow to start, slow to make next pictures. No fast draw.

Resizing - useless, and especially bad if you got some straight lines on wrong places in your picture. Depending on source resolution, target resolution and moon phase - they may appear curved and Sony does not deliver the magic of avoiding it.

The bundled software -- worse than your average. Can't even autobalance exposure.

Bottom line: too expensive for a toy, too poor to be a practical tool. If you want a toy, Canon ELF S100 would probably be a better choice.

By the way on one of the included booklets they describe self as "Sony CyberSh t" with a one of their hot lenses placed between h and t. Interesting insight. I guess, I just picked a letter to put into there on the top of their lens.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Totally Fascinated
Review: With nearly seventy years as an amature photographer, I became fascinated at an early age. The DSC-S70 seems like starting all over again. I was impressed with the feel and weight of this camera, it's a pleasure to use. The color and resolution surpasses anything my 1.3 pixcels camrea did, The S70 give me great choice of image sizes, I use 1280x960 most of the time, this size makes fine 8x10 and excellent 4x6 prints. The ability to trim and enlarge a pic in the camera before downloading into the computer is only one of the many fascinating features of this camera. I also purchased a Sony floppy disc adaptor for the Memory Stick making it easy to use with most any computer. I've been using the S70 for a little over a month and try something different nearly every day. Totally Fascinated !

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Super Fragile
Review: I used the camera twice and found the viewfinder cracked. Sony refused through various channels to resolve the issue. They wanted more than I paid for the camera to repair it. Good luck if you have any troubles.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great camera
Review: Bought this camera over 3 months ago, have no complaints. Takes incredible pictures - no matter what quality pictures you want to take(high or low resolution). The digital movie is a joke and hardly ever used. You should consider buying extra memory sticks. The camera USB interface is a breeze to connect to your PC. Your computer will treat the camera as a computer and see the memory stick as a Harddrive. The camera also have S-video interface to connect to the TV or VCR to entertain your family/friends during the holiday.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great camera for the price
Review: I bought this camera as a treat for myself at Christmas, and I must say I am 100% satisfied with all of its functions. It is wonderful to be able to take pictures of my grandson at any given moment, no worry about films, I am always ready and the quality is just perfect. I highly recommend this camera for its size and quality. I do suggest buying the floppy adaptor and the additional 64 megabyte memory stick.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Sony DSC-S70 is a great camera
Review: I bought this camera in December 2000, and it has continued to impress me. One of the deciding factors in my choice to buy this camera over others was the menu. I was able to understand the options and figure out the camera without reading the manual. For some other cameras I looked at, I couldn't figure out how to change the picture size or file format. The other features that I was looking for were the USB cable, a decent optical zoom, macro mode, and at least 3 megapixels.

Things I like about this camera:

Picture quality - I am only an amateur photographer, but the color, contrast, brightness, and sharpness all seem great to me.

Ease of menu use - as decribed above

Macro mode - Lets me take great close-up pictures of flowers, butterflies, and other random things.

Memory Stick - Granted I bought the 64MB Memory Stick extra, but it holds a lot. I generally take about 1/4 of my pictures in JPEG mode at 2048x1536 and 3/4 at 1600x1200 (which is still way bigger than my monitor); using this scheme I have been able to take more than 60 pictures at one time with room left over for more.

USB cable - I can download a full Memory Stick of pictures (64MB) onto my hard drive in under 3 minutes.

Battery - It comes with a rechargable battery so you don't have to buy one.

Things I don't like:

Focus time - It takes about one second to find the focus before it takes a picture, which can make it hard to time action shots.

Software - I don't use the image editing software that came with the camera because I already had something better.


<< 1 2 3 4 5 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates