$600 for Sony DSC-F828 OK ?

I have an offer of a *used* Sony Cybershot DSC-F828 + 256MB memory
stick Pro for $600. The owner claims he's had it for 18 months and that
it's in excellent condition. Is this price OK, very good or rather high
? Actually prices tend to be high in my area, so this would be roughly
equivalent to buying it for about $500 in the US.

I believe this camera was put on the market about 2 years ago. I've
only had time to briefly go through a few reviews, mostly done when the
model was relatively new. Like reviews of many products, they are mixed
and even confusingly contradictory. How has it fared in experienced
user circles ? I'll be grateful for any personal experience you've had
with this camera. Thanks in advance for any input.

wrote:
I have an offer of a *used* Sony Cybershot DSC-F828 + 256MB memory
stick Pro for $600. The owner claims he's had it for 18 months and that
it's in excellent condition. Is this price OK, very good or rather high
? Actually prices tend to be high in my area, so this would be roughly
equivalent to buying it for about $500 in the US.

I believe this camera was put on the market about 2 years ago. I've
only had time to briefly go through a few reviews, mostly done when the
model was relatively new. Like reviews of many products, they are mixed
and even confusingly contradictory. How has it fared in experienced
user circles ? I'll be grateful for any personal experience you've had
with this camera. Thanks in advance for any input.

I Have a Sony F828 and love it, but $500 US seems pretty high for a
camera that is
that old. A check on ebay shows a lot of people asking about that for
the F828 but for
just a bit more money you could buy a DSLR.

For $500 I would want a new camera and a warranty, but this is just my
opinion.

Scott

Scott W wrote:

wrote:
I have an offer of a *used* Sony Cybershot DSC-F828 + 256MB memory
stick Pro for $600. ..........., so this would be roughly
equivalent to buying it for about $500 in the US.


I Have a Sony F828 and love it, but $500 US seems pretty high for a
camera that is
that old. A check on ebay shows a lot of people asking about that for
the F828 but for
just a bit more money you could buy a DSLR.

For $500 I would want a new camera and a warranty, but this is just my
opinion.

Scott

Thanks, Scott. What about the purple fringing that a lot osome people
complained about earlier ?

I used to be an avid 'snapshooter' years ago, but have been neglecting
photography for something like two decades, and I'm a novice when it
comes to digital photography. I bought a Fujifilm Finepix S3500 a month
ago to familiarise myself with digicams, and I wouldn't mind hanging on
to it for a few more months except for two things -

1) The S3500 cannot focus in anything but a well-lit scene.
2) I have a buyer for the S3500 right now.

What immediately caught my attention about the F828, along with its
many other good features, is its ability to focus in very poor light.
The S3500 cannot AF even when there's sufficient light for comfortable
reading. Is this problem prevalent among digicams ?

wrote:
Thanks, Scott. What about the purple fringing that a lot osome
people
complained about earlier ?

I used to be an avid 'snapshooter' years ago, but have been neglecting
photography for something like two decades, and I'm a novice when it
comes to digital photography. I bought a Fujifilm Finepix S3500 a month
ago to familiarise myself with digicams, and I wouldn't mind hanging on
to it for a few more months except for two things -

1) The S3500 cannot focus in anything but a well-lit scene.
2) I have a buyer for the S3500 right now.

What immediately caught my attention about the F828, along with its
many other good features, is its ability to focus in very poor light.
The S3500 cannot AF even when there's sufficient light for comfortable
reading. Is this problem prevalent among digicams ?

The F828 ability to focus in low light is one of the really nice things
about it, most other digital cameras seem to have a lot of problem with
this.

The purple fringing is not really that much of a problem. I only get
it rarely and even when I do it does not bother me much at all.

The F828 does not do well above ISO 64, I will shoot at ISO 200 if I
have to but I get a lot of noise when I do. It does have a fast lens
that works very well even when wide open so this is a bit help.

One frustration is that photo from the raw file is often way better
then the jpeg that the camera produces, but the raw file are crazy
large, 16MB and take forever to save.

Overall I have really enjoyed using the F828 and think it is a great
camera.

Scott

I have the 828.
I think very highly of this camera. It is an early landmark of EVF/digital
camera design. However the inexperience of Sony's designers and engineers in
creating high end cameras are evident in the 828.
Because of its size and weight I doubt that any future cameras of its ilk
will have a lens of this high quality.
When I use the 828 to make images under identical circumstances compared
with my D70 (in raw mode but the 828 in jpeg mode) the images from the 828
are never inferior and often superior in terms of color fidelity and detail.
This is not an overstatement, and I am very finicky about these issues.
Purple fringing is a real issue under some circumstances but no more than
artifacts inherent to the D70 which, believe it or not, also yields fringing
if you photograph linear dark objects against a white background.
Other than as a studio camera the 828 raw mode is kind of useless and does
not consistently yield images that benefit from the kind of processing that
makes dSLRs worth using.
The 828 is overall slow to handle compared to a dSLR and the EVF can be
difficult to use in bright light.
The noise issue is exaggerated but real and images from the 828 are best
quality at the relatively low native ISO equivalent of 64 (dSLRs are usually
ISO 200). That being said D70 images at much above ISO400 are not all that
beautiful either.
IMHO unless you have a burning desire for this now discontinued camera I
would not pay that much for a used model under the circumstances you
describe--throw in a 1gb memory card and the deal looks alot better!
For a bit more $ a dSLR is more versatile if this will be your only high end
digital camera.
But I assure you I have no plans to ever sell or trade my 828 and I use it
often.

On 30 Dec 2005 07:02:44 -0800, wrote:

The S3500 cannot AF even when there's sufficient light for comfortable
reading. Is this problem prevalent among digicams ?

It's fairly common but not universal. Does the S3500 have an AF
assist lamp? My S5100 has one and it does help, although in very
low light I'll occasionally have to refocus. The AF lamp can be
disabled in the menu, so if the S3500 has one, make sure that it's
actually being used. I imagine that the new S5200 does much better,
due to having a better low-light sensor. AF works better focusing
on some objects than others (the manual should explain this). When
low light makes it work harder, you might be able to help it out by
prefocusing on a different object at the same distance and reframing
the shot to take the picture.

ASAAR wrote:

On 30 Dec 2005 07:02:44 -0800, wrote:

The S3500 cannot AF even when there's sufficient light for comfortable
reading. Is this problem prevalent among digicams ?

It's fairly common but not universal. Does the S3500 have an AF
assist lamp? My S5100 has one and it does help, although in very
low light I'll occasionally have to refocus. The AF lamp can be
disabled in the menu, so if the S3500 has one, make sure that it's
actually being used. I imagine that the new S5200 does much better,
due to having a better low-light sensor. AF works better focusing
on some objects than others (the manual should explain this). When
low light makes it work harder, you might be able to help it out by
prefocusing on a different object at the same distance and reframing
the shot to take the picture.

No, the S3500 has no AF assist lamp. It's an older 4MP model. I believe
the S5200 is the same as what's marketed as an S5600 here. I sometimes
use the prefocusing trick but it's not always convenient. The low-light
focusing problem with many digitals is something I was not aware of
before, and is one feature I'll certainly watch out for in future.

bmoag wrote:

I have the 828.
I think very highly of this camera. It is an early landmark of EVF/digital
camera design. However the inexperience of Sony's designers and engineers in
creating high end cameras are evident in the 828.
Because of its size and weight I doubt that any future cameras of its ilk
will have a lens of this high quality.
When I use the 828 to make images under identical circumstances compared
with my D70 (in raw mode but the 828 in jpeg mode) the images from the 828
are never inferior and often superior in terms of color fidelity and detail.
This is not an overstatement, and I am very finicky about these issues.
Purple fringing is a real issue under some circumstances but no more than
artifacts inherent to the D70 which, believe it or not, also yields fringing
if you photograph linear dark objects against a white background.
Other than as a studio camera the 828 raw mode is kind of useless and does
not consistently yield images that benefit from the kind of processing that
makes dSLRs worth using.
The 828 is overall slow to handle compared to a dSLR and the EVF can be
difficult to use in bright light.
The noise issue is exaggerated but real and images from the 828 are best
quality at the relatively low native ISO equivalent of 64 (dSLRs are usually
ISO 200). That being said D70 images at much above ISO400 are not all that
beautiful either.
IMHO unless you have a burning desire for this now discontinued camera I
would not pay that much for a used model under the circumstances you
describe--throw in a 1gb memory card and the deal looks alot better!
For a bit more $ a dSLR is more versatile if this will be your only high end
digital camera.
But I assure you I have no plans to ever sell or trade my 828 and I use it
often.

Thanks for all the friendly informative replies. I've almost decided
not to buy this camera, but not because of the price. This model is
still available new from Sony in my country for the equivalent of about
$1100 US. The owner has reduced it to about $500 (again I'd estimate
this to be roughly equivalent to a price tag of $400 in the US).

I live in a corner of India that's not only physically isolated, but
also has almost nothing in common with the rest of the country -
language, religion (100% Christian), culture, basic nature, even
physical appearance.

What really puts me off is that the seller who put this up on
eBay-India lives 2000+ km away, and insists on pick-up only (no
shipping), cash only and won't give return option against any existing
defects. I have friends in his city to do the pick-up, but they are
even less knowledgeable than me about cameras. So it looks as if I'll
have to pass up this chance to own what seems to be a really good
camera.

However, the time spent here in this thread, yours and mine, has not
been wasted. I've learned a lot in the past few days.