Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S40 Digital Camera
- Digital Zoom: 2x
- Camera Type: Standard Point and Shoot
- Weight: 0.3 lb.
- LCD Screen Size: 1.5 in.
- Resolution: 4.1 Megapixel
- Optical Zoom: 3x
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Photographic Adventures of a Real, Live Sony Cybershot DSC-S40 Owner (Wowwww!)
Pros
Good pictures from a small, inexpensive, 4.1 megapixel camera
Cons
Proprietary memory stick, minor usability complaints
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
Sony Cybershot DSC-S40 isn't right for pros or enthusiasts, but for ordinary folks like you and me, IT'S A WINNER!
One of the most attractive deals in digital cameras these days is the Sony Cybershot DSC-S40. It's an enticing package of good features, small size, and known brand, all rolled up with a ribbon of low price tags. I paid $130 for mine at Sears (no fuss, no muss, no nonsense of online merchants).
I'd done a bit of research on these things before I plunked down the cash, so I knew what I wanted and how much (or rather, how little) I wanted to pay. I bought the camera in early December and have taken about 500 photos with it so far. Let me tell you what I think of the shutterbug experience so far, and if you want, you can even take a look at a couple of my real-life photos that are genuinely representative of the kind of quality I've been getting.
Do I Think Like You Do?? What I Want From a Digital Camera...
I'm not a professional photographer, and I'm not a camera enthusiast. I'm a family guy who loves traveling and what I'm looking for is a solidly built camera that will give me decent quality photos of my kids and the places I visit.
I want something small and lightweight that will fit into a shirt pocket or pants pocket, but I also want crisp quality and bright colors when I make prints or share files with friends and family via email or the web. Most of all, I don't want to have to rob the kid's college fund to pay for it.
Here's the factors I identified as key criteria for me:
* Size: Small and light. This is one of my most important factors. Big cameras are out, so too are miniature cameras with their inadequate screens and buttons you need a pin to operate. The camera has to be "right sized". It also can't feel cheap and fragile.
* Resolution: I'd like the ability to take pictures at a resolution fine enough to blow up to 5x6 or 8x10. That means anything less than 3 megapixels is out. But, I do want very low resolutions for everyday point-n-shoot shots. On the high side, I see no sense in paying for capability I'll never use, which means anything beyond 5 megapixels is a waste of my money.
* Zoom: I want the best optical zoom I can afford. I know not to get sidetracked by noise about "digital zoom" --- that's a red herring for idiots and marketing bozos. Optical, and only optical, zoom counts. I'd like 3x optical zoom minimum, more if it's available and affordable. Any camera with a fixed focal length lens is out. Any camera with "digital zoom only" is out.
* Memory: I know that the higher resolution you buy and use, the more memory you need. I know these cameras eat memory. I know that Compact Flash (CF) is best and everything else is either second best, introduces incompatability issues, or is overpriced.
* Connectivity: Must be USB, must act like a storage device (no drivers or software required, please).
* Ease of use: It's a pipe dream with most overly complicated electronics these days, but I still want the camera's operation to be as simple and foolproof as possible. After all, I'm just an average Joe taking snapshots. I'm not a pro, I don't want to have to take night classes just to be able to read the manual.
* Cost: Save me $$$
There's a lot more aspects to a camera that someone could take into account, and there's a gazillion other features that someone or other offers, but they're mostly technical mumbo jumbo that's irrelevant to me, and I think they'll be irrelevant to any other general consumer. If you're a camera geek with a chronic case of featuritis, go read one of the myriad reviews by geeks who write their reviews based on magazine articles and web sites they read followed up by 10 minutes looking at the camera in a store. That's not what I'm all about...I'm about buying the camera and actually using it like a real life human being and telling you like it is.
So, how is the Sony Cybershot?
Geek Speak: The Technical Aspects
So, the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S40 isn't my ideal dream camera. It's a tradeoff. Life's about tradeoffs. I couldn't find a perfect camera at a perfect price, so I had to give and take here and there and pick the one that I felt maximized bang for the buck.
In most respects, the Sony met my criteria admirably. I could easily have gotten more features or more megapixels, but not at the $130 level. There were other cameras at this price level, but they either lacked features the Sony had, or they felt cheesy and cheap, or they were too bulky or too dinky.
Memory is my biggest complaint with this camera. In my opinion. Sony's MemorySticks SUCK. They're non-standard and they're ridiculously overpriced compared to the more capable, smaller, lighter, easier to use, more portable Compact Flash memory. I love the Cybershot, but I have to drop at least one full star from my rating because of Sony's consumer-hostile approach to digital memory. It's not a total deal-breaker, but it's a definite sour taste in an otherwise sweet relationship.
The 3X digital zoom is quite good on this camera and I had no problem with its operation in any respect. I figure I'll be working at the 1 to 2 megapixel level for most of my family and trip snapshots, with the occasional shot at 3 or 4 megapixels when I figure a shot is special enough that I might want to blow it up or turn it into Christmas postcards to Grandmas.
Out of the box, the camera has only limited functionality. The on-board 32MB memory is inadequate: if you take pictures at about 3 megapixel resolution, it'll give you around 25 shots or so before it's full (call it "one roll of film"). It also comes with poor quality batteries that will only last you a few shots. It's enough to get you through your first night of playing with it after you get it home from the store, but you'll need to go back the next day when you slam into the limitations.
If you buy just the camera without the necessities, then here's what else you need to buy if you want a usable camera right out of the gate:
* MemoryStick: I'd get 256MB minimum, maybe even 512MB. I want to be able to count on having enough space for at least a couple hundred shots before I need to offload to my computer. MemorySticks run about $40-50 for the 256MB.
* Rechargeable batteries: Any department store or computer store will have rechargeable batteries with a charger. Get one. I paid $15 which includes 4 rechargeable AA batteries (the camera needs two, so one charge gives me a spare set --- I never ran out of juice on one pair per day though, even shooting 200 snaps in a single day).
* Case: I got an el cheapo padded cloth case for it. $5 at Sears...cheap protection for the beast.
Figure on spending a good $70 in extras. Added to the initial $130 camera cost means I'm looking at around $200 total cash outlay to be happily snapping digitally.
User Friendly? Traveling with the Sony Cybershot in My Pocket
I like the Sony Cybershot. It's easy to take good quality pictures, and that's pretty much the holy grail that we're all after.
Zoom is easy --- a simple rocker switch to zoom in or zoom out. Switching modes between still photo and video is easy, and it works as you'd probably guess --- just hold down the button to take video. No fuss, no muss.
The viewing screen is good if you're standing in the shade, but it washes out easily in bright light. Using the viewfinder seems awkward because the image I see there doesn't always jibe with what I see through the viewing screen (which does seem to match up better with how the pictures turn out). Weird.
I like the ability to take short MPEG videos. A film clip here or there in addition to my usual snapshots. I'm gonna have to get into the movie business! Best thing about it is that the files are generally small enough to be able to put up on a web site.
I find the camera fairly easy to use for most general purposes. It took me a little while to figure out how to view the photos (this isn't super intuitive), but I got there eventually. I also needed to flip to the manual to figure out how to delete old pictures, so things aren't quite "foolproof".
I thought switching off the flash (for places like museums or old churches that restrict flash) was EASY! And I love that simply plugging a USB cable between the camera and my computer lets me copy everything over as if the camera were just another drive on my computer. If you can figure out a plug-n-play flash drive, you can figure out how to connect the Cybershot. Easy!
Although I do generally like the Sony Cybershot, and I generally like the quality of the pictures I get, there are some situations when it has difficulty taking the picture.
* Motion: Blurry pictures is what you should expect if you try to take a snap of anything that's moving (vehicles, sports, animals, children, etc.) Ditto with taking photos from a moving car, bus, etc. Forget it!
* Night: Most of the night shots I tried to take were either washed out or badly blurred. I did get a couple good night shots to come out well, but only by holding the camera super still against a fixed hard object and focusing on targets with bright lights (like a street scene full of bright neon).
Say "Cheese"! Real Photos Really Taken By Me with a Real Cyber-Shot DSC S40
Talk is all good and fine, but if you want to download a couple snapshots and see how they look to you or how they work with your photo software, have at 'em. The camera saves its photos as JPEG, and both of these are the raw files directly downloaded from the camera (no enhancement, no retouching, no Photoshop touches whatsoever):
Photo 1: http://www.tiogringo.com/sjo/irazu/ir_cratprinc07.JPG
Photo of Irazu Volcano in Costa Rica, taken December 2005 in bright morning daylight. Camera set to lowest resolution ("email"). File size: 153K
Photo 2: http://www.tiogringo.com/sjo/braulio/canopy5.JPG
Photo of Rainforest Canopy near San Jose Costa Rica, taken December 2005 in afternoon daylight with partly cloudy conditions. Camera set to 1 megapixel resolution. File size: 585K
Bottom Line
After 2 months and a few hundred photos, I'm really getting to like this Sony Cybershot. It's giving me good quality photos, it's small and light enough to slip into a pocket, yet big enough that I can actually feel a button under my finger and see the display. It's affordable and packs just the right blend of features for a typical consumer kind of guy, like me.
There's some places where usability could be improved, and there's some situations where this camera just will not take the picture you want, and I really do resent the proprietary memory scheme, but for my purposes today, the Sony Cybershot is a good camera and I'm happy with what I got for the money.
Hope the real-life perspective helps.....Now...SMILE!
I'd done a bit of research on these things before I plunked down the cash, so I knew what I wanted and how much (or rather, how little) I wanted to pay. I bought the camera in early December and have taken about 500 photos with it so far. Let me tell you what I think of the shutterbug experience so far, and if you want, you can even take a look at a couple of my real-life photos that are genuinely representative of the kind of quality I've been getting.
Do I Think Like You Do?? What I Want From a Digital Camera...
I'm not a professional photographer, and I'm not a camera enthusiast. I'm a family guy who loves traveling and what I'm looking for is a solidly built camera that will give me decent quality photos of my kids and the places I visit.
I want something small and lightweight that will fit into a shirt pocket or pants pocket, but I also want crisp quality and bright colors when I make prints or share files with friends and family via email or the web. Most of all, I don't want to have to rob the kid's college fund to pay for it.
Here's the factors I identified as key criteria for me:
* Size: Small and light. This is one of my most important factors. Big cameras are out, so too are miniature cameras with their inadequate screens and buttons you need a pin to operate. The camera has to be "right sized". It also can't feel cheap and fragile.
* Resolution: I'd like the ability to take pictures at a resolution fine enough to blow up to 5x6 or 8x10. That means anything less than 3 megapixels is out. But, I do want very low resolutions for everyday point-n-shoot shots. On the high side, I see no sense in paying for capability I'll never use, which means anything beyond 5 megapixels is a waste of my money.
* Zoom: I want the best optical zoom I can afford. I know not to get sidetracked by noise about "digital zoom" --- that's a red herring for idiots and marketing bozos. Optical, and only optical, zoom counts. I'd like 3x optical zoom minimum, more if it's available and affordable. Any camera with a fixed focal length lens is out. Any camera with "digital zoom only" is out.
* Memory: I know that the higher resolution you buy and use, the more memory you need. I know these cameras eat memory. I know that Compact Flash (CF) is best and everything else is either second best, introduces incompatability issues, or is overpriced.
* Connectivity: Must be USB, must act like a storage device (no drivers or software required, please).
* Ease of use: It's a pipe dream with most overly complicated electronics these days, but I still want the camera's operation to be as simple and foolproof as possible. After all, I'm just an average Joe taking snapshots. I'm not a pro, I don't want to have to take night classes just to be able to read the manual.
* Cost: Save me $$$
There's a lot more aspects to a camera that someone could take into account, and there's a gazillion other features that someone or other offers, but they're mostly technical mumbo jumbo that's irrelevant to me, and I think they'll be irrelevant to any other general consumer. If you're a camera geek with a chronic case of featuritis, go read one of the myriad reviews by geeks who write their reviews based on magazine articles and web sites they read followed up by 10 minutes looking at the camera in a store. That's not what I'm all about...I'm about buying the camera and actually using it like a real life human being and telling you like it is.
So, how is the Sony Cybershot?
Geek Speak: The Technical Aspects
So, the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-S40 isn't my ideal dream camera. It's a tradeoff. Life's about tradeoffs. I couldn't find a perfect camera at a perfect price, so I had to give and take here and there and pick the one that I felt maximized bang for the buck.
In most respects, the Sony met my criteria admirably. I could easily have gotten more features or more megapixels, but not at the $130 level. There were other cameras at this price level, but they either lacked features the Sony had, or they felt cheesy and cheap, or they were too bulky or too dinky.
Memory is my biggest complaint with this camera. In my opinion. Sony's MemorySticks SUCK. They're non-standard and they're ridiculously overpriced compared to the more capable, smaller, lighter, easier to use, more portable Compact Flash memory. I love the Cybershot, but I have to drop at least one full star from my rating because of Sony's consumer-hostile approach to digital memory. It's not a total deal-breaker, but it's a definite sour taste in an otherwise sweet relationship.
The 3X digital zoom is quite good on this camera and I had no problem with its operation in any respect. I figure I'll be working at the 1 to 2 megapixel level for most of my family and trip snapshots, with the occasional shot at 3 or 4 megapixels when I figure a shot is special enough that I might want to blow it up or turn it into Christmas postcards to Grandmas.
Out of the box, the camera has only limited functionality. The on-board 32MB memory is inadequate: if you take pictures at about 3 megapixel resolution, it'll give you around 25 shots or so before it's full (call it "one roll of film"). It also comes with poor quality batteries that will only last you a few shots. It's enough to get you through your first night of playing with it after you get it home from the store, but you'll need to go back the next day when you slam into the limitations.
If you buy just the camera without the necessities, then here's what else you need to buy if you want a usable camera right out of the gate:
* MemoryStick: I'd get 256MB minimum, maybe even 512MB. I want to be able to count on having enough space for at least a couple hundred shots before I need to offload to my computer. MemorySticks run about $40-50 for the 256MB.
* Rechargeable batteries: Any department store or computer store will have rechargeable batteries with a charger. Get one. I paid $15 which includes 4 rechargeable AA batteries (the camera needs two, so one charge gives me a spare set --- I never ran out of juice on one pair per day though, even shooting 200 snaps in a single day).
* Case: I got an el cheapo padded cloth case for it. $5 at Sears...cheap protection for the beast.
Figure on spending a good $70 in extras. Added to the initial $130 camera cost means I'm looking at around $200 total cash outlay to be happily snapping digitally.
User Friendly? Traveling with the Sony Cybershot in My Pocket
I like the Sony Cybershot. It's easy to take good quality pictures, and that's pretty much the holy grail that we're all after.
Zoom is easy --- a simple rocker switch to zoom in or zoom out. Switching modes between still photo and video is easy, and it works as you'd probably guess --- just hold down the button to take video. No fuss, no muss.
The viewing screen is good if you're standing in the shade, but it washes out easily in bright light. Using the viewfinder seems awkward because the image I see there doesn't always jibe with what I see through the viewing screen (which does seem to match up better with how the pictures turn out). Weird.
I like the ability to take short MPEG videos. A film clip here or there in addition to my usual snapshots. I'm gonna have to get into the movie business! Best thing about it is that the files are generally small enough to be able to put up on a web site.
I find the camera fairly easy to use for most general purposes. It took me a little while to figure out how to view the photos (this isn't super intuitive), but I got there eventually. I also needed to flip to the manual to figure out how to delete old pictures, so things aren't quite "foolproof".
I thought switching off the flash (for places like museums or old churches that restrict flash) was EASY! And I love that simply plugging a USB cable between the camera and my computer lets me copy everything over as if the camera were just another drive on my computer. If you can figure out a plug-n-play flash drive, you can figure out how to connect the Cybershot. Easy!
Although I do generally like the Sony Cybershot, and I generally like the quality of the pictures I get, there are some situations when it has difficulty taking the picture.
* Motion: Blurry pictures is what you should expect if you try to take a snap of anything that's moving (vehicles, sports, animals, children, etc.) Ditto with taking photos from a moving car, bus, etc. Forget it!
* Night: Most of the night shots I tried to take were either washed out or badly blurred. I did get a couple good night shots to come out well, but only by holding the camera super still against a fixed hard object and focusing on targets with bright lights (like a street scene full of bright neon).
Say "Cheese"! Real Photos Really Taken By Me with a Real Cyber-Shot DSC S40
Talk is all good and fine, but if you want to download a couple snapshots and see how they look to you or how they work with your photo software, have at 'em. The camera saves its photos as JPEG, and both of these are the raw files directly downloaded from the camera (no enhancement, no retouching, no Photoshop touches whatsoever):
Photo 1: http://www.tiogringo.com/sjo/irazu/ir_cratprinc07.JPG
Photo of Irazu Volcano in Costa Rica, taken December 2005 in bright morning daylight. Camera set to lowest resolution ("email"). File size: 153K
Photo 2: http://www.tiogringo.com/sjo/braulio/canopy5.JPG
Photo of Rainforest Canopy near San Jose Costa Rica, taken December 2005 in afternoon daylight with partly cloudy conditions. Camera set to 1 megapixel resolution. File size: 585K
Bottom Line
After 2 months and a few hundred photos, I'm really getting to like this Sony Cybershot. It's giving me good quality photos, it's small and light enough to slip into a pocket, yet big enough that I can actually feel a button under my finger and see the display. It's affordable and packs just the right blend of features for a typical consumer kind of guy, like me.
There's some places where usability could be improved, and there's some situations where this camera just will not take the picture you want, and I really do resent the proprietary memory scheme, but for my purposes today, the Sony Cybershot is a good camera and I'm happy with what I got for the money.
Hope the real-life perspective helps.....Now...SMILE!
