Tag: Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70

Still hanging on to my “ex”

What was your previous camera system, and why did you switch to Fuji? Why did you keep your previous camera?

Online magazine, Fuji X Passion, recently put questions out to its reader.

  • What was your previous camera system, and why did you switch to Fuji?
  • Why did you keep your previous camera?

Below is what I wrote in response. The results were published in one of the issues of the e-Zine.

I don’t have Albert Smith’s 50+ years of experience and high-end cameras or Armando Rafael’s extensive Nikon bodies and lenses collection.

Between 2006 and 2018, I owned two Nikon digital cameras. I had long felt that the Nikons I owned and many of the cameras (Sony, Canon, Olympus, Panasonic) that I had rented/borrowed over those years were more like gadgets than cameras. Fujifilm came around the corner with the Fujifilm X-Pro1, Fujifilm X-E1, and started to develop a new system with apparently excellent lenses; I was very close to switching when they released the Fujifilm X-T1. But I hesitated.

When I finally broke up with Nikon in 2018, it was a clean break, literally. The last Nikon fell off a table, breaking the mirror box. I took that as a sign. I knew what I had to do. I dumped all my Nikon lenses and other gear on MPB, and I bought a used Fuji X-T2 and XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR shortly after the X-T3 was released and just a few months ago, I purchased an XF27mmF2.8 to aid in my new interest in street photography.

The switch was not because of technical specs but because of how the Fujifilm cameras feel when operated. My choice of camera is about how I prefer to interact with my camera. I love that my Fujifilm X-T2 has dedicated single-purpose individually marked dials for ISO, shutter speed, exposure compensation, and the metering mode. I like the layout of the retro-styled controls that allows me to make quick changes without jumping through menus. The Fuji feels “right” in my hand, a "real" camera with tactile knobs and dials just at my fingertips.

But my first camera is a Pentax P3(P30) with an SMC Pentax-A 50mm f/2 lens, which I purchased 33 years ago for a college photography class. I used it until 2000 when I bought my first digital camera, a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 point-n-shoot, my primary camera until 2006. My wife and I were spending too much money on developing film. She shot about a roll a week, documenting our new baby’s daily life.

I still have both of those cameras. Inspired by the community on 35mmc, I recently restarted my use of film cameras, shooting rolls Ilford HP5 Plus 400 and Kodak Ektar 100 using my P3. Last year, while doing some end of summer cleaning, I found my Sony DSC-S70, bettered and some Sony memory cards in a box in the basement. The lens was clear, but the batteries were no good. A quick trip to Amazon.com, and I had two new batteries. The featured image for this post was photographed today using the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70. Not bad for a 30-year-old camera.
I still have these two cameras because they remind me of where I started. Each is a bit of nostalgia.

Submitted for the 100DaysToOffload project.

Five frames with a 20 year old Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70

What is like using a 20 year old digital camera?

My first digital camera was purchased circa 2000, about a year after our first child, Shaan was born. It seemed like almost week Bhavna was handing me a single-use 35mm film camera to get developed at CVS. Sometimes she wanted prints, and sometimes she wanted the negatives scanned to CD. She wanted to capture every special moment of our child's journey and wasn't shy about "pointing and shooting". It was getting quite expensive. If I remember it correctly, I think we had spent almost $1000 on film, film developing and prints but the spring of 2000.

Digital cameras were still an expensive novelty in 2000 but manufacturers such as Sony were making easy to use and fairly capable point-n-shoots. I wanted one but Bhavna though they were too expensive. That year Sony had announced the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 for about $800. The features and price seemed right. I had read somewhere that a 3.3 megapixels sensor captures enough detail to create photo-quality 8 x 10 prints, so I expected this was enough to get the 4x6 and 5x7 prints that Bhavna liked.

I put together a spreadsheet showing how much Bhavana had already spent on purchasing, developing and printing single-use 35mm cameras. If we purchased the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70, it would pay for itself in under a year.

I used my Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 for many years before upgrading to a Nikon D40 in 2006. Last year, I was organising a box of photo gear and found the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 along with some memory cards. I thought it might be cool to try it out after all this time. The battery was shot, but that problem was quickly solved with a few clicks on Amazon.com.

The S70 has a Carl Zeiss 7-21mm (24-102mm FF equivalent) autofocus lens with an aperture range from f/2 to f/8.9. I remember being impressed that the lens was made by Carl Zeiss. Tha hast shutter speed of 1/1000 sec compares well to the film camera that I had at the time, a Pentax P3 with a maximum exposure of 1/1000s. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 produces TIFF and JPEG images, but the TIFF images are 9 times the size of the JPEGs. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70's 1⁄1.8" CCD sensor has an impressive 3.3-megapixel resolution and produces 2,048 x 1,536 images but the low ISO limits it's usefulness for photographing low light subjects. The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 has a Shutter Priority Mode and an Aperture Priority Mode but I didn't use these much. I used the camera in auto-mode most of the time.

Here are some of the specs:

  • Image Sensor - 3.3 megapixel CCD sensor
  • ISO Sensitivity - Auto or selectable from 100 - 300
  • Lens - Optical: Carl Zeiss 3x (35mm equivalent : 34-102mm). Digital Zoom: 6x
  • Aperture - F/2.0 (Wide), F/2.5 (Telephoto)
  • Shutter Speed - 8 seconds to 1/1000th of a second
  • Exposure Modes - Centre-weighted, Spot
  • Shooting Modes - Aperture, Shutter, Panfocus, Landscape, Twilight, Twilight Plus, Spot Metering
  • Movie Mode - Quicktime with audio
  • Viewfinder - Optical: Real-image viewfinder
  • File Formats - TIFF,GIF,JPEG,Movie (Quicktime Motion JPEG)
  • Storage Media - Memory Stick
  • Weight - 420g

But enough of that; time to show some photographs. A 128 MB Sony Memory Stick, the largest Sony made in 2000, holds about 34 images, two frames less than a 36 exposure roll of film. I shot a "roll" of 34 in varying lighting situations, indoor and outdoor, and picked the best images. Most of the images were out of focus or too dark, but I did get some keepers. I shot these images in programmed mode; auto ISO, auto aperture and auto exposure. The maximum ISO is 300 so the best images are the ones I shot outside.

The images from the S70 have vivid bright colours; maybe a bit too bright. I included the SOOC JPEGs and images with minor Lightroom edits.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 | Carl Zeiss 7-21mm f/2-2.5 @ 9.3 mm @ f/2.0, ISO 100
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 | Carl Zeiss 7-21mm f/2-2.5 @ 9.3 mm @ f/2.0, ISO 100
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 | Carl Zeiss 7-21mm f/2-2.5 @ 9.3 mm @ f/2.0, ISO 100
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 | Carl Zeiss 7-21mm f/2-2.5 @ 10.6 mm @ f/2.0, ISO 100
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 | Carl Zeiss 7-21mm f/2-2.5 @ 9.3 mm @ f/2.0, ISO 100

After some minor edits in Adobe Lightroom

Saturday 7 September, 2019 | Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 | Carl Zeiss 7-21mm f/2-2.5 | f/2.0 | ISO 100
Saturday 7 September, 2019 | Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 | Carl Zeiss 7-21mm f/2-2.5 | f/2.0 | ISO 100
Saturday 7 September, 2019 | Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 | Carl Zeiss 7-21mm f/2-2.5 | f/2.0 | ISO 100
Saturday 7 September, 2019 | Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 | Carl Zeiss 7-21mm f/2-2.5 | f/2.0 | ISO 100
Saturday 7 September, 2019 | Sony Cyber-shot DSC-S70 | Carl Zeiss 7-21mm f/2-2.5 | f/2.0 | ISO 100

Tired of Chasing Perfection

Tired of Perfection by David duChemin (David duChemin - World & Humanitarian Photographer, Nomad, Author.)

This is a little bit all over the place, and it’s raw. But that’s the point of this whole thing. I could do with a little more raw right now. I’m tired of perfection.

I want each image I create to have an emotional impact.

Tired of Perfection by David duChemin (David duChemin - World & Humanitarian Photographer, Nomad, Author.)

This is a little bit all over the place, and it’s raw. But that’s the point of this whole thing. I could do with a little more raw right now. I’m tired of perfection.

[exif id="33986"]

Perhaps it’s time to sit and reflect on why I picked up the camera so many years ago in college. Or why I stopped and then started again later in life.

In search of this perfection, we’re losing the poetic. The grit. The nuance. I see fewer and less story. Less humanity. I’m all in on beauty, but that’s not even what I’m seeing. It’s all just so damn saccharine. My god, all the shiny, happy – perfect – people. It must be exhausting trying to be all that all the time.

I worry that the desire for perfection is killing the spontaneity and the life in our photographs, never mind the honesty in them. ~ David duChemin.

I went searching through the Lightroom catalogue and found these two images from 2001. They were taken on my first digital camera—a Sony DSC-S70. I didn't know much about light and composition and framing etc. But I look at these two images, and they hold more emotional impact for me than any recent image I’ve captured. The quality of the image isn't what draws me in. It's not the contrast or the sharpness of the focus. What makes this photo precious to me is the feelings that come up each time I view them.

I want to reconnect with that feeling. I want each image I create to have an emotional impact.

To me!

child on train platform
Shaan. Waiting for the New Hope-Ivyland Train. New Hope, Pennsylvania | Tuesday 2 October, 2001 | Sony CYBERSHOT | 21 mm | 1⁄470 sec at f/4.8 | ISO 100

Maybe chasing perfection isn't the perfect thing to do.

We want connection. We want hope. We won't wonder. We want to look at something and feel something deeper than whatever it is that moves my finger to click the Like button. ~ David duChemin