2023 Weekly Challenge Week 36: Sony f828

Back in the early 2000's the Digital Camera market was a Wild West of different features and designs.  You had your traditional pocket sized cameras (which all fit in many different sizes of pockets), cameras that wrote to Floppy Disks, CDs and a number of different dead memory card formats which didn't last past this era (such as Smart Media and XD).

And then you had a lot of different cameras that had unique designs to make them stand out from the crowd, and one of the companies leading this "let's make our camera different to stand out" charge was Sony.

Since I don't own either a floppy or cd based Sony Mavica that camera is not likely to be on this review unless I find one in working condition and decide I want to go through the pain of writing and transferring files off of one by the end of the year. 

So the current strangest and most unique camera in my collection from a design point of view is this one; the Sony f828

Released in 2003 the Sony f828 was the last camera in the fXXX line (though the R1 would be a spiritual successor of sorts) that started with the Sony f505 in 1999.  By design these cameras were pretty much like a camcorder and digital camera melded together into one unit with a unique dual body design where the back half of the camera aka the "screen section" pivoted on the front half or lens portion of the camera.

Ergonomically this camera handles really nice as a result, even if you get a lot of strange looks while out shooting it.  But that isn't the only thing that makes this camera unique...

This camera has a 2/3" 8MP RGBE CCD sensor; which adds a 4th color to the RGB array of a traditional CCD sensor (Emerald).  Sony claimed that this made this sensor more vibrant; but when compared to other CCD sensors of the era the look is still very simmilar.  

The Sony f828 does indeed have that wonderful high-contrast vibrant look; but so does any other camera with any other CCD or Non-Bayer pattern sensor such as the previously reviewed Canon Powershot Pro 1 and Minolta DiMage A2 which were both direct competitors to this camera.

The fact that it is a unique sensor does add to its cool factor along with its funky design. This camera is a great piece to have just as a conversation starter on how whacky digital photography used to be.

One unique feature that this camera has is the Nightshot mode which can be "tricked" using a magnet to record full spectrum Infrared Photos in daylight.  There are a few reviews about this feature out there; and sadly I just didn't have the time nor desire to try this feature out.

I haven't done any IR or Full Spectrum photography this year; and as such I'm not reviewing that convertible aspect of this camera nor the Sigma SD15 (which I still have yet to review) nor am I reviewing the two full IR converted cameras I own either for this project.

Compared to the Minolta and Canon equivalent cameras I enjoyed shooting the f828 the most overall.  It has a much brighter LCD screen which meant I could shoot it easier even with the screen in outdoor lighting.  

The lens on the Sony f828 also has the least amount of distortion of these three early 2000's bridge cameras when it managed to get focus (as I will get into a little later) and the mechanical zoom meant I didn't have to sit and wait for a slow electronic zoom motor to engage and zoom in or out to frame my shot.  Not to mention if you turned the camera off the zoom would stay at the same focal length as where you set it; something people who shoot Interchangeable lens cameras often take for granted.

Perhaps this combined unique ergonomics with a power switch that was located in an appropriate place and was not easy to accidently hit added to my overall positive experience with this camera.

That said, it's not all sunshine and rainbows as this camera runs into many of the same issues that most Digicams from before 2010 run into: Slow write speeds (especially in RAW), Shutter lag or delay, startup and/or shutdown delays, a noticeable lag when navigating menus the whole nine yards.   

Additionally the one thing I noticed about the Sony f828 over the Canon Powershot Pro 1 or the Minolta DiMage A2 was its Autofocus failed a lot more often and took photos before the camera had locked on focus, giving me a decent amount of unusable shots from this camera.  Good thing that pixels are free...  

In the end all three of the early 2000 bridge cameras I reviewed this year all fall short of what I'd consider acceptable for daily use without being frustrating to use one way or another; whether it be unusable RAW recording, slow autofocus, shutter delay, lack of a real burst mode, or chromatic aberration there are many things that would make me pull my hair out if this was a camera I had to rely on.

But overall this camera is still a lot of fun to shoot inspite of its limitations perhaps in part of just how strange it is.  Just like most classic CCD sensors: you really don't want to shoot this in lighting that will push the ISO past 400. 

So while the Sony f828 has good lighting and if you can be patient and take photos of things you can take your time with, you can still get some pretty impressive images with it two decades later.