Sony DSC-F505 Review, Phil Askey, August 1999
(Updated January 2000 - Production Model)

Sony DSC-F505

The F505 has caused quite a stir over the last couple of weeks, it's announcement clouded in secrecy and cleverly exposed day by day until we were presented with the full specifications. This is a camera which combines elements from many different digicam designs to present us with what is undoubtedly Sony's best digital camera to date.

The camera came into my hands only five days after finding out about it and I've only had a week to review it which is much shorter than I normally take. Update: Having now received a full production unit I've updated this review to reflect any differences between it and the original model I had to write this review.

Gone are the days of no-name lenses, a common gripe against Sony digital cameras was the quality of the lens systems used, often resulting in dull, flat or fuzzy images and lots of chromatic aberrations.

Not on the F505, which utilizes very good quality five times (equiv. 35mm - 190mm) Carl Zeiss lens with an excellent aperture of F2.8 (@35mm) - F3.3 (@ 190mm). And it shows, the lens barrel completely dominates the design of this digicam, it's also the heaviest part of the camera.. But you really won't mind that, after all it's one, if not the most important component in a digicam.

Sony DSC-F505 Carl Zeiss lens (click for larger image)

If you're new to digital photography you may want to read my Digital Photography Glossary before diving into this review (it MAY help you understand some of the terms I use).

Photographs of the camera were taken with Nikon Coolpix 950, images which can be viewed at a larger size have a small magnifying glass icon in the bottom right corner of the image, clicking on the image will display a larger (normally 800 x 600 or smaller if cropped) image in a new window.

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This review is copyright 1999-2000 Phil Askey and the review in part or in whole may NOT be reproduced in any electronic or printed medium without prior permission from the author: Phil Askey. For information on reproducing any part of this review (or any images) please contact: Phil Askey.

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