Which Sony is best?

[silencio]

Hi,

Still looking for that digital camera. I kind of like the Sony N2, but the cheapest I can find it at is around 400$ (excluding tax and shipping). Is there any other Sony camera which has a picture quality and tools (such as good night shots, manual controls) as this one? I saw a DSC S800 advertised. It's cheaper and heavier, but has a nice zoom. Not sure if it has manual controls, which would be nice.

Again, my main concern is good picture quality. I'd be taking many shots in bright sunlight, but also many shots in twilight (deep blue sky, sunset) and night inside the city. Good night shots are important. Movie mode is also important and I would generally like to stick with Sony unless there is a really compelling reason not to (a great quality camera for much less from another maker for example, but it would have to have a good movie mode).

Zoom is nice to have, but not so important. Touch screen menu is okay, not really necessary, I almost prefer the regular one. Big LCD is not important either. As for megapixles, 8 would be just fine, maybe even 7, doesn't have to be ten. Manual controls would be good, not as important if the twilight mode takes a good, well-exposed picture (which my old Sony W1 did).

Looks like the W55, W90, W200 etc are not that good when it comes to low light shots. Which Sony would be best for those? Size of the camera should be small enough to put into my jeans pocket, not much bigger than the W1 I currently have (weighs about 250g with batteries). Would trade small size for better picture quality, though, but it should still be small enough to be carried easily.

As for price, I was originally thinking around 200$, but if I can't get anything decent at that range, I'd go higher, 300$ or maybe even up to 400$.

Which Sony around that price range has the best picture quality, in bright light as well as low light, twilight, night? I like vibrant colors, too. Oh, and flash is not so important, because I would rarely use it, I'd rather take a regular low light shot without it.

Any advice? Please help. If anyone knows a good deal for the N2, that would be appreciated, too.

Thanks a lot!

[silencio]

So, between all Sony point and shoot cameras available at the moment (even older models), which one takes the best quality pictures?

[coldrain]

I can think of a lot of aspects one would look for in a camera. Your one aspect seems to be the "Sony" badge... now I find that strange. Care to explain why you find the Sony name the biggest asset of the new camera to be?

[silencio]

I suppose it wouldn't have to be a Sony if another brand out there was really a lot better.

Reasons I'm mainly thinking about Sony are the following:

The one I have now is a Sony (W1) and I've been generally very happy with it. It has 5.1MP but takes very nice pictures, sharp, vibrant colors, the twilight mode works very well. It also has the movie mode which is important to me because I don't have a separate camcorder (and don't shoot enough video to need one). Having a movie mode which takes good video in a digital camera is a great tool for me and I believe Sony pioneered that method (from what I heard). Anyway, the video works well and I understand some other brands don't have it or it's not as good.

Of course shooting video eats up memory space and that's another reason Sony may be preferred: I already have two 2GB cards that are almost new and could be reused in another Sony, but not any other camera. If I just took pictures, I wouldn't need that much memory, but with the video I do. So, cheapest I've seen the 2GB was 35$. Times 2 equals 70 bucks that I might as well spend on a better quality camera than on memory sticks.

Also, the Sonys (at least the one I've got) seems to take pictures with nice, vibrant colors, also in darker situations (twilight with deep blue sky for example). The color during lower light shooting seeems to go a tad towards red (as opposed to blue or green), which I actually like, because it gives the picture a bit of a warm touch. Blue or green tends to make things look colder (not sure if other cameras have a tendency toward those colors, but they might).

Also, the Sony has been proven to work well with my Mac.

So, anyway, that's my dilemma: I'm not too rich, so I wouldn't want to blow a few hundred dollars on a camera that in the end gives me pictures that are worse than what I have now.

I've only had this one Sony and I suppose I naively figured if I got a newer model, 4 years later, technology would have advanced a good deal since I've bought my old, and any newer Sony I'd buy (espcially from the "W" series of which my old camera is the first) would give me at very least the same quality pictures, or, hopefully, even better ones.

Now I'm realizing it may not be so easy. I kind of wished there'd be a greater variety of sample shots, in different light conditions on this website. Most shots are taken in bright sunlight, probably best conditions for any camera.

So, I guess I'm looking for Sony because so far I really liked the one I had and for the other reasons just given. I need a new one, because the old one is starting to break down. It drains the battery faster and faster (especially during movie mode) and some plastic part broke on the door of the battery compartment, so it doesn't close anymore and I have to use rubber bands to keep it in place, not very ideal, but it still takes pictures.

I'm still open to other cameras, but so far I'm not sure I've seen one that really excites me enough to make the switch. Again, all I really care about is picture quality, in bright sunlight, but also other situations such as low light inside the city, restaurant outside in the dark; twilight (deep blue sky), sunset etc (think Vegas Boulevard at night or evening). And interior shots at night (inside a house or apartment without a flash). I'd rarely ever use the flash and I don't mind having to hold the camera still for a second or two (or more) to get that well-exposed shot, as long as exposure time is right and picture quality good.

[coldrain]

The Sony software package SUCKS compared to the Canon one on the Mac. HUGE difference.
My Canon cameras always have worked like a charm on the Mac.

I guess Sony's proprietary road is again paying off, they have locked you in with their silly memory stick format.

But... do check up on prices of SD memory. You will notice that prices have gone down so much, that you can actually contemplate escaping the Sony lock-in.

While some Sony cameras are quite good, I would personally very much prefer a Canon from the SD series. Better software, better interface, bit better image quality.

[swpars]

If you want to shoot lowlight without a flash, your best bet in digital compact cameras is going to be a Fuji with the SuperCCD.

[David Metsky]

You can buy 150x 2G SD cards for $11 right now on newegg.com. I wouldn't let two Sony Memory Sticks prevent you from widening your search to all cameras on the market.

[silencio]

Do the Fuji or Canon have good movie modes? Is the overall image quality much better than Sony, or only slightly different?

I have I-photo, so as long as I'm able to load the images on my computer, it's not so bad if the rest of the software doesn't work as well.

As I've said, I'd consider other cameras as well, I'll google the Canon and Fuji, see what they've got, but one thing that would be nice to have is that movie mode.

One thing about Fuji, they used to say that their regular film stock had a greenish touch to it, is that the same with their digital cameras?

I've just seen a Sony W200 advertised for 250$ (100$ price drop) at Best Buy and Circuit City. Any good?

[AndyfromVA]

I've just seen a Sony W200 advertised for 250$ (100$ price drop) at Best Buy and Circuit City. Any good?

http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Sony_Cyber-shot_DSC_W200/ (77 out of 100)
http://www.megapixel.net/reviews/sony-w200/w200-gen.php (7.2 functionality and 8 for photographic qualities)
http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/W200/W200A.HTM (a Dave's pick)
http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-cameras/sony-cyber-shot-dsc/4505-6501_7-32329617.html?subj=fdba%E2%88%82=rss&tag=MR_Search+Results (6.4 out of 10)

[griptape]

As I've said, I'd consider other cameras as well, I'll google the Canon and Fuji, see what they've got, but one thing that would be nice to have is that movie mode.

One thing about Fuji, they used to say that their regular film stock had a greenish touch to it, is that the same with their digital cameras?

I've just seen a Sony W200 advertised for 250$ (100$ price drop) at Best Buy and Circuit City. Any good?

I can't think of a single current camera (one you could find without going used on ebay, and SLR's of course) that doesn't have a video mode. And as someone who has processed many hundreds of rolls of fuji film in the last year, I've never thought it had a greenish tint. The W200 is a fine camera, it's just a little overpriced, and still can't beat fuji's low light performance.

[silencio]

So, which Fuji has the SuperCCD that swpars mentioned and may be best suited? Is the W200 overpriced at 250$ as well, or just at the 350$ it originally cost? For pictures taken in regular sunlight, does the Fuji have vibrant colors? It's movie mode is exactly the same quality-wise as the Sony?

The greenish thing is not to say that the picture looks bad. It's hardly noticeable, but it can give pictures a tad more of a colder look, whereas stocks such as Agfa had a tendency toward red more than green, making things look a bit warmer. But it would be something slight and subtle, so you might not see it unless you're looking for it. And it may be different for digital cameras. But as I've mentioned with the low light shots I took with my old Sony (in the twilight mode), those shots would also have a tiny bit of a reddish hue, which actually looked quite nice (a bit warmer). The ones taken in regular mode looked "normal".