Customer Reviews

Sony DSCF717 5MP Digital Still Camera w/ 5x Optical Zoom

5 star:		(68)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

My wife finally let me upgrade from my 707, so now we have one 717 and one 707 and go out shooting at least once a week. I love this camera, it is almost everything I hoped for as an upgrade from the 707.

It is much faster than the 707, though still weak with action shots. You can nail predictable events like a bird in flight, but when wild dolphins come up to your sailboat, expect to miss two out of three shots. If you do need to shoot action, hit menu and one of the record modes is "burst 3" three rapid shots one after another, you might get lucky that way.

The "A" and "S" and settings to enhance depth of field and shutter speed do not seem to give good results. Likewise, The new scene selections (twilight, landscape and portrait) seem limited, though I have had some fun with portrait when I am dealing with a messy background. However, for best results, I just leave it on the green camera icon, that seems to perform the best. One BIG problem though, the camera is only two months old and all the markings have worn off the mode dial making it hard to set up in a hurry, shame on Sony for that!

The 717 shoots well in intense light situations, the beach at 1 PM is no problem, except that the light is harsh, if you are going to shoot in snow or at the beach, think about getting the lens hood and ND filter accessories.

We dropped $500.00 or so on the Sony wide angle lens, that was a mistake, it weighs so much it appears to hurt the camera and like all wide angles, eats light. On the bright side, there is less distortion than I have ever seen in a WA.

The 717 doesn't handle subtle transparent sky light, a muted sunset, or rainbow can be lost. I still haven't scored a double rainbow with a digital, I can see both, the cameras can only see one of them.

They have moved some of the control buttons from the 707 positions; moving zoom was a mistake, it really is better to have the zoom control as the farthest out control on the lens so you can find it without taking your eyes off your subject. On the plus side the focus switch is in a deeper indent, this keeps you from switching into manual mode accidentally.

The auto popup flash is really noisy and vigorous and it has caused me to miss a few shots as it slams into place. Red eye reduction as usual doesn't work so well, but that is why God invented photoshop.

Moving to some of the really positive features:
The macro mode for closeups is a marvel. I need to do some tripod scientific tests, but it seems like the 707 out performs the 717 in macro. But we are still nailing great closeups of dew on flowers and the like and the 717's speed lets you freeze a bee on a flower or a hummingbird.

The way it handles light on water is just spectacular. It can also handle shooting the sky through trees and similar shots that confound simple cameras.

Like the 707, the combination of movable lens and ability to work with finder or lcd screen really gives you flexability when shooting things taller than you are. I got a "Senators Only" parking sign on Parliament Hill Ottawa that was about 8' up by holding the camera above my head and aiming through the lcd. I was trying to get a shot of a wierd bug face to face the other day so I laid the lens on the floor, and turned the finder screen to face me. Love it!

The range of the zoom is all you can ask of a single lens, yes you do lose a bit of resolution at full digital zoom, but it can still nail a seaplane landing in Vancouver harbor and has enough pixels left to print a nice 8.5 x 11.

It interfaces with both my Mac 10.2 and Windows XP Pro with no problem in either case. The XP software is actually a bit more efficient than iPhoto.

I will close with some final tips:
My wife got me this little nylon Ex Officio bag to tie to the strap. That is a much more efficient in an active shoot than the memory stick wallet.

If the subject moves, as soon as you start framing, teach yourself to push the shutter button half way down, that cuts a lot of the delay out of a shot.

Don't buy a memory stick less than 128M, I think my wife's 707 came with a 16M, now *that* is funny.

If you have never tried one of these web based photo storage and printers like Amazon.com's photo services or Image station, they are great for situations like shooting a family reunion. Just send the URL to everyone and they can order all the prints they want. Remember the days of looking for the negative with picture 5 on roll 9? I love my 717 and I am never going back to film.

I have now used the camera for a whole of 3 months and have shot close to 1000 pictures and have bought 3 books on photography and digital photography. I had previously bought a DSC-F707 and lost it. I did not have any hesitation in picking up the successor to the DSC-F707 again!

Not having been an interested photographer in the past, I think that the above fact speaks volumes for how good the camera is and how cost effective it is over film (this is true for most digital cameras) and how interested it can get you to start photographing. I can vouch for this fact because, a friend who picked up another one of these beauties is doing pretty much the same.

This camera has an effective 5 Meg pixels and knows how to use them. The pictures are absolutely razor sharp. This does not mean that you cannot take soft portrait. With a lot of manual settings at your disposal you can get the picture just the way you want it.

Now, the lens. Oh! What a lens. This is a lens which if various reviews and friends whose hobby is photography are to be believed would cost atleast 2 to 3 grand to get film SLR equivalents. Think about it! You get an aperture of 2.0 at a 5x zoom at full wide angle. That is a really fast lens. To go with it does extremely well in low light conditions as well! The auto focus is not the fastest but for most shots you do not even notice it.

Now the controls, full aperture control (from f/2 to f/8) and full shutter control from 1/1000 (1/2000 in programmed AE mode)sec to 30 secs gives you enough freedom to capture the most unusual shots! White balance options are adequate, you get to choose between 5 auto, sunny, cloudy, incandescent, fluoroscent. If none of these are close enough, you have a one-touch white balance. But this requires that you have a white object exposed to the same light that the object you want to photograph is exposed to. Not always feasible for landscapes in tricky light conditions or for people and portraits outside or in mixed lighting. Even though to be fair, the auto does a pretty good job of calculating white balance. Auto Exposure Lock and a choice of 3 metering modes allow you to adjust exposure to any part of the photo and shoot images with consistent exposure plus the option to choose the focusing segment makes it very versatile. This is very important if you want to stitch landscapes together. Also, you have the option of either manually focussing if need be. Pretty good versatility.

Other good stuff: Flash is really very good, night shot framing is very handy, battery performance, the histogram for live and review of shots, etc.,

Strengths:
1) Carl Ziess lens.
2) 5 meg pixels.
3) Low light photography.
4) Price - Performance ratio.
5) Flash
6) Battery life and info
7) Level of manual controls
8) Great tripod mount positioning
9) Histogram that shows exposure graphically while live or on review.
10) Compatibility with Memory stick pro media. (Upto 1G size).

Weaknesses:
1) Price of the memory sticks in comparison to other digital media.
2) In camera battery charging
3) Bundled software

Having been an owner of the Sony F505V, the upgrade to the F717 was a natural progression.

As one gets more aquainted with digital photography, one will certainly come to appreciate MORE megapixels! I've been eyeing a 14mp camera, but it's [price] ... so, the Sony is far better suited to my preferred "sensible" price:value ratio.

I started life as a true-blue "film" photographer. I tried a first generation digital camera (it was much less than 1 mp), and although it was fun... it just wasn't ready for prime time. Later, I jumped for the Kodak DC 120 (1mp)... this was a far better camera, but not so good for real photography work. Then, came the Sony F505V (3.3MP)... it was true love! However, as my own appreciation for the digital medium grew, I soon found that it was not quite suitable for the photo purist that I had been. Then, came the F717!!!

The F717 is the most film-like of any digital I've ever used. The features are many... but being Sony, the costs tend to be high. One can take complete control over exposure, time, or let the camera maximize things for you automatically. One fun feature is the ability to play back a slide show to a TV/VCR (with the supplied cable)...this is particularly nifty when shooting family gatherings! :-)

The pivot body style makes it far more versatile than comperable competitor cameras (quite suitable for getting MORE angles on a subject).

Battery life is great, picture quality is outstanding, the additional modes for night and special FX make it even better. Rumor has it that if one purchases/locates an appropriate infrared filter and uses the "night shot" during the day, that one can get a slight x-ray effect in the photos. I have yet to try this, but I'm intrigued by the possibilty.

The shape itself can be a burden if one looks to store it in a traditional camera bag (might as well break down and get one of the Sony bags!)

The ONLY real drawback that I've experienced with the camera is that one will want at LEAST 128mb memory sticks to use with this camera (it comes with a 32mb, which is a joke). The Lexar memory sticks tend to be more cost effective, but if you're out and about and decide to do video (yes, it does decent video too...although it is NOT a video camera)... doing video will fill up your precious memory sticks REALLY fast! Sony has since announced a 1gb memory stick, but the current price is close to the cost of the camera... Sorry, I'll just buy more 128mb Lexar's until the price comes down! :)

Although I'm a big fan of Nikon, Olympus and such in the film world, Sony rules the day in the 5mp digital world.

Would I buy again? In a heart beat!

PS- Don't look for any real "support" from Sony. Do a Google search and find some newsgroups/user groups out there. However, the lack of support is not a Sony exclusive, and it does seem to be the nature of the marketplace (seems everyone has had to make budget cuts..."support" is just another victim).

I just received this camera on friday and I have not been able to stop playing with it. This camera offers great quality at a reasonable price. The 32mb card is a bit of a joke, so I recomend purchasing a 128mb stick when you get the camera.

The pros.
With the 32mb card at the 640 X 480 resolution you can take hundreds of pictures. The camera evens tells you how many more pictures you can take with the current resolution. And it had a metter to show you how much of the memory stick you have left.

Also the hologram focus allows you to get a perfect picture almost every time. What happens is the camera emits this cross hatch pattern on the subject for a split second to allow the camera to focus at 5 different points giving your pictures the utmost clarity.

The night shot and night framing are a wonderful additon. With the night shot you can literally take pictures in complete darkness. The only down side to this is that your pictures have a green hue and it makes a person look like a ghost. But thats not an issue with night framing. With night framing you can still take pictures in a no-light situation, but the picture comes out as if you took it in broad daylight.

The movie mode. The sound quality isn't the best, but hey its a camera not a camcorder. With the 128mb card and the resolution set to the second highest(i can't remember the exact resolution) you can take a 25 min movie. Not to shabby for a mainly still camera.

Ease of use is not even a concern with in 5 minutes of powering the camera on I was able to do more than take simple pictures. I was able to play with the picture effects (sepia, neg. art, solorize) and several of the other features with out having to look at the owners manual(which is very nice and detailed). The only other effect that I wish it had but doesn't is Balck and white that would have completed the picture effects (for me at least).

The software provided is a breeze. Once installed it does all the work for you. I have WIN XP PRO and WIN 2K and the camera had NO problems interfacing with either OS. All you have to do is plug the camera in to the USB port and Image Transfer automatically copies the pictures over for you.
Cons:

I do wish it did have a better zoom, sometimes its hard to get pictures that are far away, but you can get a telephoto lense for this.

Other than the one con the camera is great. Battery time is amazing on a little over 2 hour charge you get 4 solid hours of continuous shooting. Of course no one does that, but on one charge I took over 600 pictures and still had over half the battery. Of course most of the pictures were random since I was playing with the functions.

Any one looking for a wonderful camera to last them a long, long time will definately want to check this one out. I also bought the stamina pack from sony, but I haven't recieved that yet. This comes with a lens filter to prevent too much light from overwhelming the camera, an extra battery, and a soft carrying case.

Over all great camera.

I purchased the F717 as the replacement for my 4meg camera. I had the opportunity to shoot quite a bit with the Sony, a Nikon 5700, and the Minolta 7i, and after comparing the images side by side, I bought the Sony. The images are very even in color balance, the saturation is excellent and the resolution is outstanding for a camera in this price range. The image quality is so clearly better than the others that the choice was simple, even considering the memory stick storage capacity limitation, which is not long a problem, with the recent announcement of higher capacity sticks being available this spring from both Sony and Sandisk. I'm purchasing the Sony wide angle lens this week, it's the only additional necessity I'll need. This is my camera until I can justify the Canon EOS D1s....

I like this camera very well, but in the several months I've owned it I did uncover a few minor weaknesses that detract from my original perception of it as a dream camera. Here's my list of pros & cons. POSITIVES: (1) Upload of photos is incredibly easy, compared to Sony's TRV-140 camcorder, which the saleslady never should have sold me. Do not use Pixela. It's garbage, and with this camera you don't need it at all. (2) Colors are beautiful. I couldn't believe the colors in my first photos of iridescent seashells! That's why I still bought Sony instead of Nikon, despite my earlier troubles with a Sony camcorder. This Carl Zeiss lens is supposed to be better than a Nikon lens. (3) Portrait mode creates the narrow depth of field effect that I like. (4) An entire memory stick of photos can be quickly deleted at once, instead of one at a time. (5) Macro mode allows very close-up (2 cm distant) pictures using the same lens. (6) Viewfinder-to-LCD display switch is quite useful. (7) Lens cap included. (8) The hot shoe allows an external flash, which is supposed to be the only sure way to get rid of red-eye. (9) This 5 megapixel resolution will produce quality 8"x10" prints with an unpixelated appearance--any camera with a lower resolution will not do this. (10) The ability of the camera body to tilt almost 90 degrees upward from the lens is outstanding for catching candid people pictures from your lap. (11) The white balance features are extremely useful for indoor photos. If you haven't played with those yet, do so! NEGATIVES: (1) Another lousy Sony manual. The manual doesn't mention that the exposure button must be reenabled after each photo before the jog dial will function. It doesn't say why the macro icon disappears when the camera is switched to manual focus. The troubleshooting guide never caught my first real problem: everything was blurred at all times, and only after much experimentation did I discover that the finder adjustment dial had accidentally gotten rotated. The 3-pronged icon that keeps popping up automatically is not explained anywhere that I can find. Many terms are not listed in the rear index. (2) Auto exposure often gives an ugly, grayish tint to the pictures. I use manual exposure almost exclusively now because of that. (3) Macro mode is tricky and counterintuitive. One must zoom *out* before being able to get macro shots, and then there are problems when focusing around the 0.9 meter range, which unfortunately is the distance of most museum exhibits and flowers. (4) The flanges on the hot shoe constantly snag on the interior netted pocket on my Sony carrying case. They should have been rounded off. (5) Too many automatic features that are annoying, like the flash unit that scared the hell out of me the first time it automatically popped out of the side of the lens, the pretty music that plays upon powering up the camera that alerts animals and people that you're about to snap their photo, and the added complexity of unnecessary video capability and special effects. (6) Similarly, all this complexity and having to traverse electronic menus discourages me from changing settings often, with the result that I often end up using an inappropriate mode for some shots. (7) Red laser beams that shoot out of the lens when taking photos in dim lighting, which alert people that their photo is about to be taken. RECOMMENDATIONS: (1) Get an ultraviolet lens immediately to protect this expensive lens. UV lenses are only about $10-15, have no discernable visual effect, and screw on easily. (2) Use 128 MB memory sticks or higher. With the resolution I use, I can get 90 pictures per memory stick, which is quite good. SUMMARY: So far I haven't found any flaws serious enough to make me want a different camera, and I'm quite pleased with all the positive aspects. This camera is used by some pros selling photos on the Internet and it's certainly the best camera I've owned so far. You can buy a 6 megapixel camera, but if so you're going to double the price for that extra 1 mp, and unless you're making unusually large prints, that extra resolution will be useless. And all the attention and comments I get with this camera are fun: "Now *there's* a camera!" "That's quite a lens you got on that camera." "That lens is bigger than the camera!" "How do you like your camera?" "Excuse me, can I ask you about your camera?"

Ok, maybe that's an exagerration... it's on the nightstand. Actually this is a great camera. It's not a top of the line professional, but it's not supposed to be either. This means you can't swap out the lens but you can add to it. The Carl Zeiss lens is, however, an amazing part of this camera. I took a quick snapshot of a crescent moon, and on my computer was able to see craters, so the zoom isn't that bad...

This thing also connected instantly to my Mac (OS X - Jaguar), so I love that. I edit with PhotoShop, so I didn't bother to see what software came with the package.

let's see... pros - great lens, fairly lightweight, easy to use.

cons - took a little time to figure out some of the features, wasn't impressed with the manual. other than that, it's the best camera I own.

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Ok, it's been six months since I first wrote a review of the Sony F717... And it's still an awesome camera. my only gripe was the size of the memory stick that comes with it, but I've since gotten a few 128 sticks.

I've really become quite fond of the manual settings, allows for some really fantastic shots while playing with depth of field.

The Macro settings also have come in handy with some spectacular results, very sharp images of tiny things close up to the lens.

Still happy with the zoom, got me close enough to an alligator without having to offer myself up as lunch!

Despite the bulkiness of the shape, your hands can easily get accustomed to it, and soon you'll be shooting without worry. The plus side of this design is that in forcing you to use both hands (for most shots) you'll end up with steadier shots.

Another plus is the threading on the lens, which let's you add filters (first one you should get is a UV filter - around [$$$] at most camera shops). My favorite is my polarizer, it has saved many a shot.

I've since bought a pocket tripod (Ultrapod II), and combined, I am quite happy. Overall, I have to say this is still the best camera I've owned.

We've had the Sony DSC-F707 for over a year and love it. I had a chance recently to test drive the newer F717 and was suitably impressed. The features and use are nearly identical to the 707, as is the performance. One difference is price - the 717 reatils for $100 less than our 707 did. And, if you shop around, you can easily get a free 128 MB memory stick thrown in, maybe a case too.

On the test stand, the two cameras measured virtually identically. That's a tribute to the dependability and quality, considering the thousands of images I've acquired with the 707, in a wide variety of demanding conditions, such as high altitude winter mountain photography and hot, dusty shoots in the desert. This camera makes the A list for consumer digital cameras and if you can afford it, you'll be a happy camper. One of the major challenges in consumer digital is the optics and the 5x optical zoom Zeiss optics are excellent. The electronics of the 717 seem a tiny bit faster than on our 707, but both have less lag than most 5 MB models I've compared (over 30 onto the test bench in the last 3 months). This baby is a keeper.

You can't go wrong with bying this camera from Amazon. If you have ever moved to advanced photography and used 35 mm SLRs such as Minolta Maxxum 5000 or 7000 then you will love this Cybershot Cameras. Both models 707 and 717 are almost the same. They both future all advanced settings of SLRs and an excellent Zeiss zoom lens with focal length 9.7mm to 48.5mm. Keep in mind that because formed digital image size is different than a frame size 24mm x 36mm of regular film corresponding Lens 35mm is equivalent to 38-190mm. Camera is very easy to operate and all controls are intuitive and logically placed. You will find shutter priority, aperture priority, auto, and of course full manual mode including manual focusing. As soon as I bought this camera I took it for a "test drive" to the racing dogs track...If you own a Sony camcorder you will be pleasantly surprised that menu navigation and setup functions are very similar. In addition, you will find that your Sony's camcorder and Cybershot power supplies for battery charging are the same so you don't have to carry two of them when you are taking a trip. Finally, Cybershot lets you record mpeg movies limited in time only to the capacity of the memory stick. Some other cameras limit your movie clips to 30 or 60 sec.

I'll keep this short since there are already several reviews on this product.

The good side: plenty of options and bottom line: nice picture quality. I am totally in love with the manual zoom ring. Matter of fact, at times, I forget that the "T/W" button existed at all(LOL) since I use the manual zoom ring so often. The manual zoom ring provides more delicate and linear zoom capability, whereas, the "T/W" button can be "choppy" as you are trying to adjust the zoom. I also love the new MPEG HQX movie option. It lasts longer than the 707's and the resolution quality is pretty decent to my surprise. Sound isn't the best, but hey, it's a DSC. The improvements over the 707 are definitely worth the extra $200.

The bad (minor): Manual focus. It's hard to judge if the picture is "in focus" because the view in the LCD is a bit too grainy. So I thought the view finder would be a better option to use. But, it too, is a bit too grainy to make a good judgement. Therefore, I avoid manual focus altogether. I find that it takes quite a bit of trial and error to get the right focus-I just don't have the patience for that. There were times where I thought I had the picture in focus, but to my dismay, after seeing it in my computer, it is not. However, I think in the user's manual, it did state that the manual focus should generally be used in low light conditions or when autofocus is having difficulty finding the correct focus. I just wish the picture quality in both the LCD and view finder could be improved somehow-at least so that a better judgement in focus can be made. It seems the LCS/View finder needs to be more WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get-for those who didn't know the acronym). Yeah, I agree that the lens housing is a bit too long, making the entire camera kinda bulky. I also find because of its shape and size, there are very few non-Sony cases that fit it just right. Would be nice of Sony to have the "official" leather case come with the camera package-oh well.

The fact that this is all the negatives I can dish out on this camera should speak for itself.