"Image quality" depends on the end goal of the user. If you are
looking for something which will give you great images to share
with your friends and family, document family events, vacations,
travels, garden flowers, pets, then the Sony is an absolutely
fantastic camera. Its ease of use with regard to correct oxposures
every time and low light capabilities - even indoor photos (in good
light) without flash! - is just fantastic. (In fact, it's so
fantastic I'm thinking about owning two digital cameras, which is
not like me at all, considering the last camera I bought was a
Nikkormat in 1968!). I really miss this capability of the S75, and
the S85 will be equal in this respect. I live in the redwoods, in
the fog! and low light is the only thing that's here! The Nikon
can't go into the woods without a flash.
Related to that is tonal range. other posters are right: the Nikon
does tend to "blow out" brighter colors. I'm finding this now, as
I'm learning my new 995. The Sony has way more tonal range - low
and high values both. No doubt about it. But you pay for it with
lots of noise. You have to decide how important that price is to
you.
My end use is a little different, although I want to do all those
snapshot things too. I am a professional craftsperson who
fabricates jewelry and small glass objects. Digital images are a
way of promoting my work, and it's absolutely essential that the
images be of high enough quality to appear "professional". I want
to be able to crop and enlarge areas without significant loss of
detail, or digital artifacts. As an example, in June I took many
macro photos of my work for a presentation; I needed 6 X 9's of
cropped areas. I took the images both with the S75 and the 990. I
was not able to achieve the quality I wanted with the S75; the 990
images were beautiful. I had a difficulty focusing the S75 (the
ultimate #1 reason for my returning it). Macro focus with this
camera is iffy at best. The camera has a mind of its own about what
it considers sufficient "contrast". The Nikon is a champ with close
focus.
As I mentioned, another issue is noise. The current crop of
Cybershots are VERY noisy cameras. This was the #2 reason I
returned the camera. The images were so noisy that no way were they
"professional" looking, even at 4 X 6. Even light areas were full
of noise. This is one of the reasons they looked "digital". The
Nikon gives you very smooth images by comparison. If noise bothers
you, you will not be able to use Photoshop to get rid of the stuff
in the Sony images, without making the images look overly soft. Nor
can you "sharpen" an image which is out of focus.
BUT.....I'm very fussy. You are the only one who can decide what
your end use of the camera will be, and which camera will serve you
best. Some folks DO want to blow their images up to 20 X 27, and
with Genuine Fractals, the Nikon could probably do this. This sort
of bugs me about this Sony Forum - there are lots of folks here who
say it's "wrong" to be fussy. Well, some of ARE perfectionistic
about our images and want the best of what we want. For one person
it's natural skin tones. For another it's lack of noise. You are
the only one who can decide what's most important to you, and
please don't let anyone tell you what the "right" camera is for
you. Having used both, each camera has its strengths and weaknesses.
René
Lorna: Last year at this time, I was torn between the S75 and 990.
I ended up going with the 990. At the time, I had never used a camera
with a swivel and wasn't planning on doing much Macro. Now when I
pick up a S75, I realize how important the swivel is to me. Also,
having
the Macro of the 990 is something else I wouldn't want to part with.
If it weren't for these 2 things, I would get an S85 now! That's why
I'm eagerly awaiting an anouncement regarding the 505v replacement!
Just my 2 cents...
GaryM
some of us didn't "advise" Lorna to buy a Nikon, but there was mention of the great difficulty the Sony has in obtaining precise focus in macro mode, as well as excessive sharpening (even with sharpening turned off) and digital artifacts. (This won't ever bother you if you don't need to enlarge anything, or aren't especially fussy.) The Sony's spot meter and low light capabilities are fantastic. But beware of all that noise. I'd download some images and check them out carefully.
