New Feature: Public Poll

#1 John

About the current poll:
It's unfortunate that Nikon doesn't have a new d-SLR (or ZLR, like Minolta's A1) on the horizon like all those other companies. The 5400 is a great camera and all, but it can't be compared to those other cameras. My vote, btw, goes to the Pentax *istD. Smallest, lightest, best compatible-lens range EVER.
About the current poll results: Canon in first place, with Sony a (relatively) close second? Doesn't surprise me, but I think it's unfortunate anyway. First, people don't seem to realize how shitty Sony's warranty is. The higher-ups at the camera shop I work at know this, and refuse to carry Sony despite it being a hot brand. Second, I hate Canon with a passion for how they treat salespeople like me and the store I work for. It's near impossible to order things when they're either backordered for months or discontinued, and their spiff program is absolute crap compared to every other major brand. I don't care if they make good cameras, I won't sell them if I can help it.

10:11 am - Friday, August 29, 2003

#2 sean

I think the Sony is the most "exciting" new camera in this class. Mainly because the 8 MegaPixel will attract a lot of attention, and it will be interesting to see how well it compares to the Canon CMOS sensor. Rightly or wrongly, a lot of people equate more pixels to mean better images and in marketing terms, the 8 Megapixel will be a winner.

4:28 pm - Friday, August 29, 2003

#3 Sue

I've got an S85, and the 717, and I don't even shoot at the 4.2 and 5 megapixels these cameras have available.

Although I confess 8 mega pixels sounds cool.

6:50 pm - Friday, August 29, 2003

#4 Loren Roque

I purchased the Sony DSC-F828 in late December, and it has proven to be a fabulous camera. There are some "niggles" regarding CCD "blooming" (CA if you will), and the RAW Image Converter software is typical "first generation" (Canon's first gen RAW converter sucked too). It is also said that images above ISO200 are rather high in the noise department. But I have taken hundreds of excellent pictures with this camera. The noise issue can be remedied with "Neat Image" software which is a free download (for non-commercial use) from [url=http://www.neatimage.com]http://www.neatimage.com,[/url] and noise profiles for the F828 are available for all ISO speeds. The blooming can be fixed easily in Photoshop. The Carl Zeiss 7x lens is amazing, and if 7x optical is not enough, there is always the tele-converter that is available. The image quality is excellent, as I have numerous 12"x18" prints from a Noritsu QSS2901 printer that are razor sharp! When Sony has a "next generation" RAW converter that outputs 16-bit files, it will be much more useful!

5:58 am - Tuesday, March 2, 2004

#5 Mark Goldstein

Do any of the third-party RAW convertors support the DSC-F828? As you say Loren, the Canon RAW convertor is not very user friendly - I bought Capture One DSLR for $99 and use that instead.

10:16 am - Tuesday, March 2, 2004

#6 Loren Roque

From what I understand about the Sony RAW format, it is a proprietary format. Thus far to my knowledge Sony has not provided any third-parties with the "key" or their blessings.
I specifically asked Sony this question in an email, and I recieved a very cryptic reply.......essentially the answer was no. I asked because I am interested in the Adobe Camera RAW plugin, which is better I understand than the "bundled software".

5:08 pm - Tuesday, March 2, 2004

#7 Frank Lemire

Actually you can now use Adobe RAW converter for DSC-F828 RAW files - They recently added support for the camera. It is *much* better than the Sony-included converter and really unlocks the true power of shooting RAW on the F828. The Zeiss lens on it is extremely sharp and can produce stunning images, especially in RAW.

6:38 am - Wednesday, March 3, 2004

#8 Loren Roque

Thank you Frank for the heads-up! I was genuinely hoping that Adobe would be able to work with the F828 RAW format. I truly did not look forward to shooting all the important stuff in TIFF, although I would have in order to sidestep all of the artifacts from DCT compression of JPEG. The biggest "jab" that Sony recieved was that it only output an 8-bit file from RAW conversion, when a 16-bit output file seemed technically feasible. I am sure the Adobe Camera RAW plug-in will be $99.00 well spent!

7:02 am - Wednesday, March 3, 2004