Sony DSC Sony 1.5 Megapixel

The DSC D700 was Sony's first true SLR camera. Like every new venture Sony takes, they make the first model a great product. They then spend the next few years making the technology better, but cutting costs in other areas like cheaper lenses.

I bought one of these for 1000 dollars when it was first introduced about 10 years ago. Back then, it was one of the best digital cameras on the market. Since then, I have had many newer, more advanced cameras but never one with a better lens than the D700. The D700 had one feature I never saw on newer cameras, and that is the ability to program it to take a series of photos automatically at an interval you can set yourself. This means you can make time lapse movies with this (using an aftermarket video editing program), or use it as a security camera. That's why I just bought another one on eBay.

In this day of the 12 megapixel world, you may wonder what good is a camera that only has 1.5 megapixels. Most websites including eBay have images that are way less than one megapixel and are very usable. Even with a new camera, you always need to resize the image down to less than one megapixel to upload it, so most new cameras are overkill for use on web sites. The lens on this camera is better than the kit lens that comes with most new Nikons or Canons. It remains very sharp in the corners, and has no visible chromatic aberation (my new Nikon D50 kit lens is not as good as the D700 lens). It also has a very good wide angle setting. And that makes the D700 the perfect camera for real estate, perhaps better suited than most new cameras.

The D700 uses the old PCMCIA size cards, but you can buy PCMCIA adapters for under 10 dollars that allow you to use any standard SD card. In high resolution mode (1344x1024) you can fit thousands of images on a 20 dollar one gig SD card. At 640x480, it's well over 10,000 images.

For internet and web site use, this is still one of the best cameras you can find, even 10 years after it was made. The colors are very natural, not oversaturated like some newer cameras. There are manual over rides for every function, so you really have a lot of control over your shots. The flash is extremely powerful and evenly dispersed across the entire frame, much better than any new point and shoot made today. It is slow to recharge, about three or four seconds between shots. The battery shoots several hundred images on a charge, phenomenal for a camera of this vintage. Reaction time from the trigger to the shot is very fast too, another amazing feature ten years ago. If your goal is to produce prints, this camera is limited to clear prints up to 5x7, and usable prints up to 8x10.

You should be able to find a clean D700 for 100 to 200 dollars, and it's still a bargain at that price. by Rick Bennette. www.fineartvideo.com