Customer Reviews

Sony DSC-S30 Cyber-shot 1.2MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just purchased this one for a trip to Greece, Egypt, and Israel. I was very pleased with the battery life. I'd plug it in every night and it would last all day with no problem. The picture quality is excellent during the day and night. If you make the purchase, you'll need another memory stick. I got the 64 meg stick (Ken Tracey) and could take 112 shots at the highest resolution. I blew up a few of my pictures to 8x10 and the quality was quite good. If your planning on doing that though, I'd recommend the 2.1 meg Sony. All in all, I'm a happy camper

i have been shopping for a digital camera for about 9 months and the dsc30 is the best value. it produces great quality pics. the battery life is awesome--watch out for anyother camera with regular AA's you'll be luck to get 15 flash photos on it. with this camera i got over 100 photos on a rechargeable battery!

This camera is great for the beginner digital camera enthusiast. I got this camera as a present last Spring and enjoyed it thoroughly, taking it on a trip to Italy. If you want to see samples, please email me and I'll send you links to these pictures. The pictures it takes are wonderful, bright, vibrant colors, great contrast, etc. That should be the main thing to be concerned about when starting out. One of the best things other than the image itself was the flexible lcd viewfinder. You can twist it around in every which way, making it ideal for taking candid shots. Another great feature is the infolithium battery which lasts forever (the person who said he had problems with his must have had a defective one) and constantly tells you how much time you have left before it needs to be recharged. The menu system is a snap. The camera is compact enough to fit in a coat pocket. Obviously for a lower-resolution, lower-end camera, you're not going to find high-end features like manual modes, etc., but you do at least have some flexibility in terms of flash and exposure modes. Another downside, though easily fixed with some extra money is the included 4mb memory stick. You really need more if you want to take more than a few shots. Obviously you can decrease the resolution which increases the number of shots you can take, and although these lesser-resolution pics are clear, they may not be suitable for printing. At the highest resolution, 4x6 prints come out nicely, but lower resolutions produce prints that are not very good. The other side of this is that memory sticks are proprietary to Sony products. So in order to take full advantage of the medium, your MP3 player and PDA would have to be Sony products as well, so that you could use the sticks interchangably. Sony still hasn't learned their lesson from Betamax or Minidiscs, but that's another issue. Yes, speed is also an issue. It takes quite a while to take a picture after hitting the shutter release, and even longer to take another one after the shot. As long as you don't primarily take pictures of kids (or other fast moving objects ;-) this camera is great!

I just purchased the DSC-S30. I had seriously considered the Olympus 460Z, which costs about the same price. While both cameras have 3x Optical zoom and TV out, the similarities end there. First, a national consumer magazine rated the S30 one of the best 1.3 mega pixel cameras. Second, you have to consider the accessories that come bundled with this camera. You get a rechargeable lithium ion battery, an AC Adaptor, and a USB cable that when connected to your computer, makes your camera act like a hard drive. You can even upload images to the camera so you can take them with you. We love hooking up the camera to the TV!! The features are nearly endless, and the picture quality is very impressive. I can't say enough about this camera. Sony even has a rebate program where you can essentially get an extra 16MB memory stick for free. Sony's new Cybershot line is something everyone should seriously consider.

I am a crime scene investigator. The S30 is the greatest camera I have ever worked with. I use the macro function and I can take photos of a latent print on the spot, go back to the office print my photo on a video printer, take it to our latent expert and if the print is on file, can have an identification on the suspect in less than an hour. The macro function on this camera is awesome. The memory sticks are so cool because I can put five in my pocket without having them bulk up my pockets. The night time photo shoot functions are superior to any 35mm I have ever used and my photos print with such detail, there is no way I will give up this camera to a 35mm.

I just recently got the Sony DSC-S30 and I can't put the thing down. I think the reviewers that had problems with the battery life and the amount of pictures that can be taken possibly did not take time to read the instruction manual. This camera has many settings that you can choose from to manipulate how many pictures you can store at a time. Of course if you go with the highest quality you will undoubtedly get less pictures. This can be solved by getting an extra memory stick, or going for lower grade pictures, which are still crystal clear. This camera has many options that will make a novice photographer look like a pro. There are many picture effects to choose from. You can take black & white photos, sepia colored (to look old fashioned), redirect light sources and shadows, and much much more. The movable LCD display is great, you can even turn it backwards and take a picture of yourself. Antoher great feature that my family has used, is hooking it up to the TV. Using this we took a self portrait with the timer and we could reposition ourselves and preview the picture by looking at the television. Technology is so cool. I'm glad we didn't take our salesman's advise and go with a "starter" camera -because we are young-, I would not have been happy. Nobody gives you more cool options and buttons than Sony. Great Camera- but now I wish I had gotten the DSC-S50, for the movie feature. One thing I know for sure...I'll never go back to using film, and having strangers develop my pictures.

This is the first digital camera that I have owned, and I love it. It takes spectacular daytime shots, including landscape and action shots. Low light situations leave much to be desired. This is one of the few reasons I didn't give four stars. The aperature settings are so small that it is difficult to get low-light shots that aren't blurry. The moonlight settings are nice, but keep the shutter open for almost a second; if you don't have a tripod, it is tough to hold still long enough. Also, forget about the 4meg card that comes with the camera, invest in at least a 32 meg card. I bought a 64 meg memory stick and I can take about 95 pictures at 1280X760, which is great. I find that the space runs out at about the same time as the batteries do under normal use, which is perfect. I also love the free-moving LCD screen. It comes in handy all the time. It also helps to protect the screen from scratches. Although i've only had the camera for about 3 months, I am very pleased so far. I highly recommend this camera.

This is my first digital camera and for folks who are like me, too lazy to organize photos and sometimes even getting films developed, I think digital is the way to go. The best part is being able to delete unwanted on-the-fly and edit the pictures at home afterwards. The camera is easy to use for a non-techie. The battery has an incredibly long life. I bought an additional battery for my trip to Thailand and never really had to use the backup (of course, I recharged every night). Another good feature, the charger is also universal (can be used or both 110 and 220 volts). In the case of Thailand, no outlet adapter was needed. The zoom is great. Deleting photos using is a little difficult for me, I had removed the wrong photos a couple of times. My biggest complaint is that the memory stick is still quite pricey. I would like to get the 64 MB one but I am going to wait for the price to come down a little more.

Also if you don't know this already, the USB port is not compatible with Windows NT. I had to get a diskette adapter for my NT laptop which requires a driver installation from the CD but the USB worked really well for my Windows 98 PC at home. Being able to show the pictures on TV using the sony-provided TV adapter was also a nice feature although I don't use it too often.

This camera is an excellent mid-range product that is option-packed. Even the low rez pics are high quality; I've got an HP 952c printer, and unless you look close, you can't tell that you're looking at a digital picture. Editing pictures on the fly is a snap. The only complaints I would have is the low 4MB Memory stick it comes with, and it's a little slow when taking action shots (for an extreme amateur photographer like me, I need every advantage I can get!). Sony continues to have my vote for high quality electronics.

I recently purchased this camera after doing three months of research on digital camera technology. I must say that for the price of this camera it is very, very, very hard to beat. I took this camera with me on a ski trip just this last week and I couldn't believe the quality of the pictures. This camera is totally awesome and the pictures even look better than my friends Mavica FD-85 that he paid almost 200 dollars more for. The television out capability is awesome. Me and my wife snapped up a bunch of photos at the ski resort and came right back to the room and looked at them. The camera could use a viewfinder but I will tell you this. For the image quality, battery performance, plus the offered storage capcity through Sony's memory stick; I wouldn't have another camera. The camera is simply terrific and compact enough to be fesable to carry but not to small to be a problem to hold on to. By all means purchase at least a 32MB memory stick. For the average shot shooter, this will be plenty for you to work with. The USB feature is also a great added benefit to this camera. 900 kb/s transfer speeds blow away slower serial connections. If you are in the market as a first time digital camera buyer. Look no further, you won't find a better, more powerful and feature rich camera than this one for the price. Way to go Sony!