Sony DCS F828 Review vs 10D

[msnow]

Take a look at Michael Reichmann's review of the new Sony 828 Digicam. He's comparing it to "our" 10D (and Drebel), I think he's nuts. Decide for yourself. The shots speak for themselves.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/sony828.shtml

[PGR70]

Yep, agree. He's nuts... Must get a bonus from Sony... :-)

The noise at ISO 64 of the Sony is just amazing! And he says the bad news is the noise above ISO 100... LOL!

Just look at the pics at 'Fig. 17' - the Sony pic is bad... really bad...

Conclusion: the Sony F828 is NOT comparable to other high quality DSLR's like the Canon 300D, Canon 10D and all Nikons etc...

But let's be real, that's also completely to be expected while the Sony is much cheaper.

I can only say that the Sony is the next step in the megapixel race and again proves that this race has nothing to do with image quality...

[defordphoto]

There seems to be alot of bad crack going around these days. Obviously, he's been dipping into that batch. :)

The comparison is apples/tuna. But, he really had nothing else to compare to. Personally I think those cameras are goofy looking, but that's just my opinion.

The funny part is that it takes two million more pixels for the Sony to even come close to the 10D. And the noise is totally unacceptable. And they create some proprietary RAW file. That's just plain stupid, but that's Sony for ya. This was obviously rushed to market.

I love their TV's and TV/video-related equipment, but that's as far as it goes with me. I'd never buy a still camera, errr... digi-cam (as they want to call it) from them

[cowman345]

utter delusion. any fool can see canon's photos win hands down.

-dave-

[chris.bailey]

Cant see how he could not tell the difference betwen the Sony and 10D with L optics as to me they were very obvious. Fine as the Sony might be, its no 10D.

[Canuck]

>
I smell something burning. I know what it is, the Canon 10D smoked the Sony F828!

Ok, really, Lets look at them side by side in capabilities. I think most will agree that once you stick a Canon L lens or Sigma EX lens the 10D leaves the Sony in the dust. Another point is the Sony has a very limited focal range and the 10D is almost limitless. You want more zoom? Go for a telescope and really start cooking in astrophotograhy!

On the Sony side, I give them props for an decent product, and if you don't plan on using it outside the zoom range it has, it seems like a decent product. However this noisy ISO isn't going to cut the mustard. This might be a problem that the lightreceptive bits are too small and jam packed together. This has a long way to go yet and what I noticed was how small the sensor was. Sony, good try, but needs some more work. That said if you're not too fussy about the pic quality, it might work. All I had to do was look at the pic on the bookshelf and where there was blue writing smearing onto the white book cover. The 10D/L glass didn't to that.

Conclusion, I think this dude was smoking something called wacky tobaccy. I would like some! Edge, definitely goes to the 10D, hands down.

[boBquincy]

I respect Michael Reichmann's knowledge and his test criteria, it was primarily on his test results that I decided to jump in and buy a DSLR, my Canon D30.

About 2 years later, after reading Michael's (and others) reviews I bought a Canon 10D. I have not been dissapointed either time, and believe that what Michael wrote was quite correct.

Now he tests a Sony, of all things, and says it is good, perhaps as good (for certain photos, and under certain conditions) as our Canon DSLRs. And after reading his review, I (mostly) agree.

Before y'all flame the crap out of me, consider this:
if you are going on a trip and can only carry a small amount of equipment (like one lens) what would you take? Suppose you are hiking to Macchu Piccu (crossing 11,000' passes) and wish to carry the minimum amount of weight but still want great flexibility from your equipment?

In a case like this I would probably choose the Sony and deal with the extra noise, rather than miss shots because I didn't have a 200mm. Michael says the noise is not an issue in prints up to 11x17 and until I see otherwise I will again believe him, he has not steered me wrong yet!

I will accept any and all flames but only from those who have actually tested the Sony. ;)


boB

[msnow]

bobquincy

Before y'all flame the crap out of me, consider this:
if you are going on a trip and can only carry a small amount of equipment (like one lens) what would you take? Suppose you are hiking to Macchu Piccu (crossing 11,000' passes) and wish to carry the minimum amount of weight but still want great flexibility from your equipment?


Well you asked for it...

I think I might take my wifes P&S or better yet one of those cute little cell phone cameras...the noise is about the same as the Sony and I could make some calls from Macchu Piccu to order some pizza (a little exageration but you get my point). He not only made a bad comparison between the digicam/voice recorder/movie camera/camera and the 10D but he also said the built in lens is about as good as my/our 70-200 f2.8L IS. Well I looked at those shots and there's no way it's even a contest.

[msnow]

bobquincy

Before y'all flame the crap out of me, consider this:
if you are going on a trip and can only carry a small amount of equipment (like one lens) what would you take? Suppose you are hiking to Macchu Piccu (crossing 11,000' passes) and wish to carry the minimum amount of weight but still want great flexibility from your equipment?


Well you asked for it...

I think I might take my wifes P&S or better yet one of those cute little cell phone cameras...the noise is about the same as the Sony and I could make some calls from Macchu Piccu to order some pizza (a little exageration but you get my point). He not only made a bad comparison between the digicam/voice recorder/movie camera/camera and the 10D but he also said the built in lens is about as good as my/our 70-200 f2.8L IS. Well I looked at those shots and there's no way it's even a contest.

[defordphoto]

I have seen enough samples out of that Sony to convince me NOT to buy one. They need 8 million pixels to (attempt) to match the 10D's 6.3 million pixels.

Personally, I like what I see out of the Canon G5 over that Sony by a long shot. Now I am not saying that the Sony is a bad camera, but it's not in the same league as a dSLR and Michael made a mistake, again IMO, in testing it against the 10D.

Like I said previously, I think this product was rushed to market. And that sensor is waaaaaay too small for 8 million sensors, IMO.

[boBquincy]

C'mon now guys...

I am not ready to trade in my 10D and D30 for the Sony either but still, I have not seen any prints from the Sony that I can compare to ones from my Canons.

Remember, I (and others on this forum) trusted Michael Reichmann when he wrote that the D30 was as good as (or better than) film, when I *knew* that he must be smoking something good. I mean, how *could* a 3MP image begin to compare with one I had shot on 100 film and scanned in at 2800 dpi? Why, just the file sizes alone told the story, 1.5MB compared to something about 10 times that size.
But he was right.

Again, I'm not ready to trade, the Sony has some *serious* flaws as far as I'm concerned. I really like the depth of field control we have and I can't seem to visualize squat through those electronic viewfinders.

I just want to see some prints before we all say Michael is smoking something. Then, if he is, then he should share! ;)


boB

[CyberDyneSystems]

I am not at all sure why this particular Sony deserves a class by itself. The truth of the matter is that there have allways been highend SLR-"like" fixed lens Digitals that are heads and tails above the point and shoot digicams..

The first that comes to mind is the Olympus C2500. It was a TRUE SLR,. pentaprism and all,. it just did not have a lens mount.

And lets not forget the E10 and E20,.. Nothing even remotely close to the first E-10 was available for some time.. and it was 4 megapixles when there were NO other 4 MP digicams available... (at the Time Nikon's BEST PRO camera was only 2.7MP!!!)

And Olympus even made the first dedicated high speed high buffer digital. before the D1H and 1D,. there was the E-100RS with its mere 1.5 MP sensor, but a burst rate of about 8 frames per second!

Now we have the Minolta A1, Nikon 5700,.. etc..

What seperates these througbred fixed lens cameras from the Sony other than the new 8MP sensor? Not a lot.

Someone always has to be the first with the next jump in MP size,. and this time it is Sony. But it's true competitiors are made by Minolta,. Fuji, Nikon, even Olympus (although they are no longer updating the E20) etc...

Canon has never made one of these super Digicams... (my apologies to "G" owners.. they are wonderfull cameras but not marketed to be in the same class as the others I mention)

And we all know the reason why Canon has stayed out of this market, with the intro of the Drebel/300D.

Why make truly high end fixed lens Digicam which would cut into your serious lens sales!

[MarkH]

I can clearly see the noise in the ISO64 images from the Sony, but I doubt that most users would notice it in a 8 x 10 print.

for me the main reason that I would not consider buy the 828 is the complete crap way it handles the buffer. As soon as you release the shutter, the camera writes the data to the memory card and wont respond to anything until it finishes. Screw that!

With RAW you take 1 shot and wait 14 seconds before you can take another. WTF!

If you are walking around with the camera and see something you want a photo of, it wont take it. It has turned off after 3 minutes and will take 3 seconds to wake up. This 3 minutes before sleep mode cannot be changed. And no I am not making this up, it is in the review. Unbe-freaking-leavable!


On the positive side, it does make me feel good about owning a 10D.

[timmyquest]

I didnt really read the review but uhh

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/images-14/shiny-tower-thumb.jpg

My dad works for the company that owns this crane :D

[Belmondo]

timmyquest wrote:My dad works for the company that owns this crane :D

Nice crane! Did you take the picture with the Sony?

[timmyquest]

i didnt actually...take that picture

[Jesper]

In Michael Reichmann's review, the 10D photos clearly look cleaner and better to me than the F828 photos, even though he writes that the difference is only very small. I see the noise in the blue sky of the ISO 64 image easily; with the 10D you'd absolutely see no noise at all at ISO 100.

What's really disappointing is that Sony crippled the RAW mode of the F828 so badly that it's practically useless! The RAW data is encrypted to make it hard for third party software vendors to make RAW converters. How could Sony be so stupid?!

[defordphoto]

That's what Sony does. Encrypt, make their own special proprietary memory cards. They make you buy their accessories. I'll buy their TV's, monitors, Playstations, but I won't go any further than that.

[sdommin]

Relax, guys. Sounds like some of you feel threatened by this Sony interloper! While I also disagree with some of his statements about the 828, you must give MR credit for having the guts to write what he did. He must have known he would take some flack from the 10D crowd as well as from the Sony crowd. Check out the Sony forum on dpreview.com if you don't believe me.

[nosquare2003]

Thanks, just read some threads of the dpreview.com and there are "some" interesting and reasonable talks there.

There are also many F828 shots in the Sony forum for reference. Sorry, I think that the comparison of F828 to 10D is a wrong move.

[J.A.F. Doorhof]

Oh my GOD !!!
What did he smoke ?

Look at that noise from EVERY picture, that's something I expect from ISO 1600 not ISO 200.

I shoot sports sometimes on ISO 400 and after neatimage the images are very clear, I think neat image will deïnstall itself when seeing the Sony pictures :D.

Also the chromatic abberation is VERY bad on the bookcovers, and the detail don't even go there, a 6.5MP camera with a good lens will beat the Sony senseless.

Greetings,
Frank

[msnow]

It would have taken MR "guts" to NOT give Sony a positive review not to praise it. Integrity is the key word here because we call view output ourselves and make our own decision. I thought it was interesting in the dpreview forum how many users that own the F828 actually said it shouldn't be compared to 10D either.

[defordphoto]

sdommin wrote:
Relax, guys. Sounds like some of you feel threatened by this Sony interloper! While I also disagree with some of his statements about the 828, you must give MR credit for having the guts to write what he did. He must have known he would take some flack from the 10D crowd as well as from the Sony crowd. Check out the Sony forum on dpreview.com if you don't believe me.

Threatened? By what? This is photography we're talking here not terrorism. Give him credit for writing a review that makes no sense? No. I'll not give him credit on this review. It's just senseless and should have never been written in this way. He has lost alot of credence with me, and evidently quite a few other people.

And I shall not be going over the dpreview to read anything on their forums. Way too many land mines over there.

I just would like to see what Sony could do with a real still camera, yes as SLR if they used a sensor that was bigger than a gnat's ass. It would probably shake up the Canon and Nikon kingdoms for sure!

[Andy_T]

Folks,

there's another review comparing the F828 to the DRebel with the 28-135 IS lens: http://www.outbackphoto.com/reviews/equipment/sony_f828/sony_f828.html

Now - I may not be reading all these rave reviews correctly - but everybody who takes a look at the sample photos will take his own conclusions as to whether the f828 is 'useful to pro photographers'. Useful it may be - but not as the primary tool of the trade.

Of course - it's possible to make great photos with the F828, but everything else (e.g. fixed lens, electronic viewfinder) spells 'limitation' to me...

I also wouldn't buy a Canon G8 over the 10D or Digital Rebel if it were available....

On the other hand, I don't think that many pro photographers are now going to throw away their 10D's and get the latest Sony digicam because they read too many of these reviews. So all these reviews leave me pretty cold. Some guy saying that the F828 is 'nearly as good as the 10D' - well, that's HIS opinion. Just leave it at that. Who cares what they are discussing at the Sony forums ???

Regards,
Andy

[defordphoto]

And again, it takes Sony 8 million freaking pixels to COME CLOSE to the quality of the 10D.

Enough said.

[Belmondo]

Boy, you talk about a tempest in a teapot--------

Articles like this are interesting, not because they are harbingers of anything bad for Canon generally, or the 10D specifically. They simply show how the technology is continuing to improve in the field, and how an 8mp P&S can today approach a 6.3mp DSLR in image quality. It is still not an SLR, and it can never have the versatility of one. It really only serves to whet my appetite for whatever is coming down the pike next.

Foks, it’s only going to get better and better.

Tom

[defordphoto]

RFMSports wrote:
I just would like to see what Sony could do with a real still camera, yes as SLR if they used a sensor that was bigger than a gnat's ass. It would probably shake up the Canon and Nikon kingdoms for sure!

:)

[msnow]

MR has published his rebuttal to the comments made here and other forums in case you are interested.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/sony828.shtml

[defordphoto]

msnow wrote:
MR has published his rebuttal to the comments made here and other forums in case you are interested.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/sony828.shtml


The sky in his galaxy is a much different color than the rest of ours. Not to mention his neener-neener attitude and speaking down to his readers.

I fart in his general direction. :)

[Belmondo]

RFMSports wrote:I fart in his general direction. :)

Is that what we might call an air of defiance?

[msnow]

This thread is starting to stink, I shall vacate immediately.

[oops]

I have the D30 and love it.

I missed the BetaMax vcr and associated nightmare investment in doomed format. Many of my friends did not.

I will never trust Sony regardless of their reviews for any product because of their arrogant proprietary attitudes.

Chris.

[defordphoto]

HAHA! That's one way to clear a room. :)

I think this one has been beat to death and what's the freaking point anyway? None of us are going to buy that camera and we'd have not need fo it. It's not like it's some kind of compact, easy to stow camera either. I'd get a Drebel over that Sony any day.

[sjprg]

Well he could have compared it to the Minolta 7i, A1 which it is more in line with. I would have been interested in that comparesom. For that level of camera I find that my 7i which has the same lens system was a fantastic piece of equiptment for the time frame it was produced in. Its still my hiking, walkaround camera. And for a vast majority of consumers the F828 and the A1 are more camera then they will ever need. Just yesterday I offered my 7i to a couple at 1/2 price and they liked to croak. "My god, who would ever pay that much for a camera". Those of us involved in photography tend to forget that the vast majority of "picture takers are still in the "Brownie" stage and something like the F828 is like rocket science to them, and the marketing is aimed at them, not at serious amatures or pros.