I'm going backpacking in Southeast Asia, sometime around Xmas 2003. Currently I don't have a digital camera, but I want one and would like to have it by the trip. Right now I'm leaning towards the Sony Cybershot DSC-F717. This is really the top of my price range. Would anyone suggest a different camera? Does anyone already own a Cybershot? Do you like it?

I've got the DSC-505V and I love it. I wish it had the optical viewfinder tha became available when the DSC-707V came out. Other than the bulkiness of this line of cameras, I have no complaints. I found a great carry case made by Sony for it as well that you can wear on a belt or carry with a shoulder strap, but it was tough to find. Not widely available in the US apparently.

It really is a shame to spend that much and not end up with a canon D30/D60(i've been lusting after them for months now...). I wonder how comfortable the Sony will be to hold with the point&shoot body and the relatively massive lense. I'd make sure to pick one up in person and see if it feels right in your hands. That being said, buy what you like, it's your camera. I've had my Olympus D500-L (the first digital SLR under a grand) for over four years here and I'm still using it because it fits my needs.

Matthew

There are trade-offs all around with digital cameras.

Sony has fantastic electronics, and the F717 has a nifty laser-illuminated focus assist gizmo. However, they force you to use their dorky MemoryStick cards and they don't have any sort of RAW mode (which matters if you want to do serious Photoshop'ing afterward to fix the color balance and adjust highlight/shadow detail. You don't want the camera throwing all that away when it JPEG's the image.)

Nikon has some of the best macro lenses available on this class of camera. You can take a full-frame shot of a small coin, up close. Stellar. However, they don't have any kind of focus-assist lamp, so their low light performance is abyssmal. If you don't care about that, the Nikon 5000 or 5700 are hard to beat. (Nikon just released a major firmware upgrade for the 5000, getting it all the features of the 5700, save the larger lens...) These Nikons take CompactFlash type II, so you can use IBM Microdrives (1GB) or other large solid state cards. When you're saving huge raw files, this makes a big difference.

Canon is my current favorite. I gave my old Canon G1 to my sister, and I'll be getting a new Canon G3 when they're available. You get a reasonable RAW mode, CompactFlash II, and all kinds of other random features. You get a focus-assist lamp. You get better macro than you could get on the older G1, and the G3 has oodles of flash features that nobody else has (e.g., leading or trailing sync flash).

Pretty much the only way to avoid making compromises is to get a higher-end digital SLR, but that's a whole different price range. (And, for hiking, a whole different level of crap that you're hauling around with you.)

Also, specifically for hiking, where weight matters, you might choose to go for smaller and lighter, versus having every feature known to man. The Canon S230 might be attractive to you because it's got a tough steel case and it's tiny enough to fit into a pocket. At the teeny-tiny end, you get the Casio Exilim. It's a cruddy fixed-focus lens, but it's so insanely tiny (half the weight of the Canon S230) that you might find that worth the trade-off.

The D60 is running 2000 bucks on Ebay so its quite out of my range. The D30 is no longer listed on the Canon website. One of the features I think I'll like(tell me if I'm wrong) is the sony memory stick. I already own a Vaio R505 Laptop which comes with the stick drive standard...so no additional drive, card, or cables would be needed...

I'd suggest it would be a bad idea to buy a digital camera a year ahead of the time you need it. Prices and specifications will move significantly over the next twelve months.

Of course if you want one to use in the mean time then that's different.

Rob

One of the features I think I'll like(tell me if I'm wrong) is the sony memory stick. I already own a Vaio R505 Laptop which comes with the stick drive standard...so no additional drive, card, or cables would be needed...

The fact that the camera uses memory sticks is not a good reason to buy it. Memory sticks are generally lower capacity and more expensive that compact flash.

If you have a laptop with a free PC card slot then all you need is a PC card adapter for the CF card. If you don't have a free slot then there are plenty of tiny USB card readers, so don't let that put you off.

N.B. I'm not saying that you shouldn't buy a camera that takes memory sticks, just that I wouldn't see taking memory sticks as an advantage over CF.

A colleague bought the Sony 707 and *really* liked it - he reckoned it was a fantastic bit of kit, "the best gadget I have ever owned" or something. Unfortunately, he had a few "lemons" and went through about four cameras with problems ranging from bad pixels in the CCD to a strangely curly hair in the viewfinder (!)

He eventually went without after the last one as he had money problems, but he is looking at getting the 717 now - so am I actually.

I currently have a Nikon CP990 and very much like it, the Nikon 5700 is on my list of cameras to look at, I would love the D1X though £2,500 is a bit out of my range :-(

Gareth

I own the Canon Powershot G2. For a long while, it was the top rated camera in any category at Cnet, and dpreview thought pretty highly of it. It's less expensive than the one you're looking at, but I can't compare anymore because I haven't been looking in months now.

I will say that dollar for dollar, memory sticks seem to be more expensive than CF. I never liked how Sony tried to force their own media on the market, because I do like many of their products, but I wouldn't buy them because of the proprietary format. I can use my CF card in far more places than memory sticks, and the devices that use them almost all accept much larger sizes. For example, whereas memory sticks I believe only go up to 128MB, you can buy 1GB microdrives for most CF card devices.

I just don't see the logic in memory sticks. and realize that you will have to buy more memory. A 5MP camera will take very large pictures, and the camera only comes with a 32MB stick. I'd estimate about 10 shots at most on its highest quality setting.

Here's an idea of what it's like for me. My G2 is a 4MP camera. I have a 256MB CF card for it. At the camera's highest quality setting, I can fit about 140-150 shots on it at once. I'm telling you now, you'll never fit that many on a Sony device at once, and unless you're bringing a laptop on your trip, you'll want to.

Everyone seems to be giving you some good technical advice....but your intentions are probably more important;

You say that you're going backpacking without elaborating on what you mean. Backpacking a hiking tour in mountainous areas is vastly different to backpacking around Europe by train...are you likely to be carrying gear 2 miles or 20 miles a day? If the latter, then a bulky and heavy camera would need to be justified. Are you going to be in relatively safe areas where you'd be comfortable enough to use an obviously expensive bit of kit without worrying about someone mugging for it later, or are you likely to need something a bit more discrete?

And what are your intentions wrt to the pictures that you take? Are they purely for personal use for the family web album? Or are you intending to blow some of them up to A3 size to use in a presentation.
1.4 Megapixels will print up to 8x11 with quality acceptable enough for home use, 5x7 is great. But larger than 8x11, or for professional printing, then you really need more pixels (and a raw mode is useful for professional stuff too).
If it's for a web album, then consider that very few people have screen resolutions larger than 1280x1024, and most people probably use 1024x768 or 800x600. So 1.4MP would suffice for web use - and you'd still have to downsample the images so they could be displayed anyway. Although, having the 'display' images hyperlinked to the original image is useful if someone is going to want to print an image.
But my point is that if the main display media is going to be electronic, then 4MP isn't needed.

Just don't buy a Sony camera. Every piece of Sony equipment I have ever owned has promptly broken just outside of the warranty. Compaq too. With so many other choices out there, there's no reason to buy a Sony camera anyway.

Stu

1.4 Megapixels will print up to 8x11 with quality acceptable enough for home use, 5x7 is great

Hmmmm, I really have to disagree with that. I had a 1.4MP camera, and it produced pretty bad 5x7's. I can't imagine how bad it would have looked on an 8x11. But maybe the quality has just advanced since then...

How long are you going to be gone? If you're going to take a lot of pictures (especially at higher resolutions) then your are either going to have to carry multiple memory cards (lots of $) or take a way to download them (lots of weight).

I would stay away from the proprietary Memory Stick. CF is cheaper and has greater capacities. SanDisk has a 1GB card (but high $).

I have an 8x11 of my son that was taken with a Sony S30 that looks ok to me.. maybe I need new glasses.

It's possible that the printing software caused aliasing errors, especially if the aspect ratio changed....

One advantage of more pixels that I meant to mention earlier wrt to home use - it allows you to take sloppier photos, crop them digitally later and still maintain printability.

I may be going on the same trip...let's see if I can help a bit:

Backpacking a hiking tour in mountainous areas is vastly different to backpacking around Europe by train...are you likely to be carrying gear 2 miles or 20 miles a day?

I'm thinking he said 15 to 20 and the terrain is mountainous and remote.

Are you going to be in relatively safe areas where you'd be comfortable enough to use an obviously expensive bit of kit without worrying about someone mugging for it later, or are you likely to need something a bit more discrete?

Between the small villages in the mountains of China, there aren't too many people...I don't imagine theft prevention is an issue.

Are they purely for personal use for the family web album? Or are you intending to blow some of them up to A3 size to use in a presentation.

Being a missions oriented trip, I'm sure there will be presentions requiring enlarged photographs at decent quality as well as slide shows on digital projector. These photos will need to be retouched in Photoshop. Definitely will also be used for personal albums as well.

Given digital cameras' voracious power needs I don't see how taking them on a multi day hiking trip could be a good option as opposed to a 35mm point & shoot with a good digital photo delivery service when they're developed. Either the camera will have a proprietary rechargable battery, necessitating AC power or it'll take AA's in which case you'll have to carry & dispose of them. Take film & have the photo developer scan them to a Kodak picture CD (or the like). Resolution will beat any digital camera priced less than $2,000 (at least with Kodak PhotoCD's) and there won't be any need to worry. Film is not heavy. I have a Canon S30, two Canon P&S cameras and a Cannon A2e. I'd take the P&S cameras for multiday trips & the digital for 1-2 day trips or at most a long weekend. With a decent P&S (weatherproof) and several speeds of film you'd have a pretty good setup for a lot less coin & a lot less hassle.

-Zeke

I've got a Sony DSC-P3, and I love it. 2.8 Mega-pixels is honestly "good enough" for me, as was mentioned it's more than enough for posting on a web page, e-mailiing, or even playback through the TV.

I can recommend a few things that I think would apply to any camera - 1) go for small size - My P3, and also the P5 and P9 are just tiny. Easily goes into a pants or jacket pocket. 2) Get a good battery - double AA's are horrid. I'd get a camera that comes with a good rechargeable battery that can last. 3) Get another battery - because shooting pictures, with flash, while using the LCD screen, is a real battery hog. 4) Get a giant memory stick, such as a Lexar 128MB. It'll hold a LOT of pictures. 5) Get optical zoom - digital zoom is a joke, and amounts to little more than simply cropping the picture afterwards. 6) You also need a mini tripod, something like this: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000065BO6//qid=1036461414/br=2-8/ref=br_ts_full_p//104-9444506-7940737?v=glance&n=502394 . Look for one that folds up as small as possible. Use that with a built in self timer and you can get yourself in any shot, and also be a lot more stable for the ones you might consider printing and blowing up someday.

HTH

...there's lateral thinking for you, and some valid points.

BTW, since you're going to be in an area that probably has some wonderufl views, make sure that whatever camera you choose has a wide angle capability similar to a 28mm lense. Even if it's a screw on lens adapter (these tend to run at $50+). There's nothing worse than having a wonderful view, and only being able to get 1/2 of it in the frame.

Make certain you take a polarizing filter. Or better yet get the Moose filter if you get a camera with a lens that will fit one of his standard sizes.

Have you tried some of the photo stitching software? If you're careful about how the shots are lined up & exposed you can get some good results. It definitely takes forethought.

-Zeke

These days, the power needs of digital cameras are astonishingly low, especially if you utilise all the power save features available on most cameras.

My Sony DSC-P71 (bought for use as a cheap camera to take to parties and pubs) will fill a 128Mb card, using flash with the LCD screen on twice over before the batteries die. And carrying a spare set of rechargeable AA's is easy.

The quality is very good (3.2 megapixels is excellent for most uses) but I guess if you really do want it to be as close to film quality as possible then you will need to go for one of the 14 megapixel cameras.

In general though, I would recommend a cheaper camera, but with a decent lens - a 35mm capable will do more for the average user than higher resolution.

"the power needs of digital cameras are astonishingly low, especially if you utilise all the power save features available on most cameras"

Low enough to last a week without recharging? Maybe with the LCD full off and not using raw mode (longer flash access time). I'd be _really_ suprised if a week were possible with any digital.

-Zeke

The LCD on my Nikon is a *serious* power drain, I use the LCD a lot so usually sling the NiMh's back in the charger straight away.

What is the weather like there? You could rig up a solar charger on the top of your backpack - not sure how well they work in practice but could be worth a shot.

Gareth

The geek value of a solar plate on the top of my backpack makes me giddy.... (scurries off to check on the possibilites)

Low enough to last a week without recharging?

That's the same question as "how long is a length of string?"...

It depends how many shots you are taking with in and how long you take over each shot. Thankfully the newer batteries have minimal self discharge times, meaning that you only have to worry about power used when actually using the camera nowadays.

If you take a look at one of the recent reviews at www.dpreview.com , for example this one:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikoncp5700/page12.asp

You will see that the best cameras can last a sustained four and a half hours of the punishing battery life test. The test is:

- Take 4 shots without flash
- Wait 2 minutes (50% of the time powering the camera off, when on LCD is also on)
- Take 1 shot with flash
- Wait 1 minute
- Repeat

After four and a half hours they have taken 450+ shots. So, I think for the sort of usage we are probably talking about in this case you probably would last a week on one or maybe two batteries.

N.B. in these tests the cameras are set to the factory settings, so most of them are likely to last longer with a little tweaking of the settings.

I also say it depends on how much memory he gets for his camera. If he gets that Sony, and he takes the highest quality shots he can with the largest memory stick he can, at most he's going to get 50-60 shots. I think any digital camera will be able to last 60 shots before it's drained.

I think I filled up my CF card 1.5 times on one charge, and that's with the LCD on, showing people what they looked like. That came to about 220 pictures on a 256MB card.

http://www.realgoods.com/renew/shop/product.cfm?dp=4100&sd=4102&ts=1051068
http://www.realgoods.com/renew/shop/product.cfm?dp=4100&sd=4102&ts=1051069
http://www.realgoods.com/renew/shop/product.cfm?dp=1000&sd=1006&ts=1050212

none of the three listed seem to do the job very quickly, but they should be enough to top up one set of batteries while you are using the other
plus it is pretty light weight

How about some real world info?

I took my G2 with me on my road trip. I was shooting pictures all day, averaging around 100 a day. I tried to turn the camera off between shots, but I occasionally would leave it on for minutes at a time.

The camera had absolutely no problems with running out of juice on the battery that came with it. I'd try to recharge it every night, though. A few times I forgot. When I did, I was able to get about another 1/2-full day of shots out of it before I needed to recharge it. I only killed the battery once, but just plugged it in at the pub I stopped at for lunch. Was ready to go for the rest of the day with just one hour of charging.

Overall, I was very impressed.

If you're interested in seeing some of the pics, check here:
http://www.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=67b0de21b3098becc4ad&notag=1

Pardon the Shutterfly link, but it's the only place I have the pics online right now.

I took my Canon S30 to Acadia over Labor Day weekend and it ran out of juice on Sunday night. I'd taken about 50 photos on the highest quality jpeg setting and about 4 minutes of video. I'd also spent some time reviewing photos and showing them to other people on the trip. This is why I'm skeptical of a week's worth of service. If I were going to China on a week long trip, I'd want to be _certain_ I would not run out of juice or memory before the end of the trip. Hence, film & a good quality Kodak PhotoCD (not the el-cheapo scans & lo-rez images from a 1 hour service).

-Zeke