Introduction
My experience with Sony has been limited. I tried to see what Sony was all about early on in the mirrorless journey. I was not a fan of the menu system and honestly was soured when they started deviating away from the Konica Minolta methods of camera layout and design.
Looking into the digicam rabbit hole, a lot had been said about the DSC R1.
The intrigue of it was that in 2005, having this size of a sensor in a fixed lens “compact” was not normal. The sensor size, APS-C and in front of it a lens at 14.3 to 71.5mm which equates to a field of view of 24-140mm and aperture range of f/2.8-4.8.
Another unique feature was the layout of the camera and the LCD screen was on top of the camera instead of at the back. Out of all the current “digicams” that I’m going to review in this series, this one is more of a “bridge” camera and the largest of all of them. The F828 comes closest, and in some dimensions may be larger. That’s not to say that it is disproportionately large.
Without further delay…let’s get into this review, shall we?
Disclaimer – sample images represent was is possible to get from this specific camera. The images are not straight from camera JPG and have most likely been post processed in Lightroom or other software to get them to the vision I wanted.
Tech Stuff
Body
The camera feels well built. There is a little bit of creaking, but you have to really squeeze it with some decent force to hear it.
In all honesty, this camera is bigger than you may think. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. It definitely gives you a good layout and a firm grip on the camera. It handles well.
Layout wise, you can get to what you need. It may not be familiar at first, but it works just fine.
Dials. There are 3 dials on the camera, all on the back. On the back left is a mode dial – PASM, auto and scene modes.
On the rear is a thumb wheel as well as a dial around the focus stick. I’ve got my copy of this camera setup in aperture priority mode to use the rear wheel as aperture adjustment and the circular dial as exposure compensation.
Buttons. ISO is set by a button on the top by the shutter release.
On the back we have a metering button, drive/bracket button, timer, menu and magnifier button.
Just to the right of the EVF is the button to do image review. This is in a neat position as your thumb can swipe over there, with intention to do a review.
There are also 2 switches on the back. Monitor sets how the monitor will react. Framing keeps the view in the LCD/EVF constant, where as preview will change to show the actual exposure of the frame when you actuate the shutter.
To the right of the Monitor switch is the EVF/LCD selection. In 3 positions, you can select to stay on the EVF or the LCD or automatically switch.
On the left side you have one switch for focus mode. You have auto focus, macro and manual. Cool feature for manual focus – there is a button in the middle of the focus selector – press it and it will auto focus.
flash actuator button and white balance buttons are on the left side as well.
Power is turned on by a switch around the shutter release on the top of the camera.
Shutter Release – The shutter release has a positive feel between activating the auto focus and actuating the shutter. It has an almost springy feel down to focus actuation, then a positive stop. You can feel a positive click between when focus is activated and then just a little more pressure gives you an actuation of the shutter. I had no problems adjusting to it and did what I needed when I needed it.
“Rear” LCD – More like the “top” LCD.
Such an interesting feature. The LCD is on top of the camera and is fully articulating. You can turn it to face down to protect it. Spin it the other direction and you can use it like a twin lens reflect or down viewing camera.
It works well for what it is and leaves a lot of real estate on the rear of the camera to have plenty of buttons, dials and switches.
Flash
This camera does have a built in flash. It sits in front of the LCD screen
Viewfinder
The viewfinder very usable on this camera and it matches with the LCD quite well. Out of a lot of the vintage cameras I’ve tested, this one is better for gauging focus and exposure. Still not like the cameras from the 2010’s or newer, but very nice for 2005 when this camera was released.
Weather Sealing
Honestly not sure about the weather sealing on this camera. I did take it out in a light snow and it had no problems. As I always state – make your own decision on how you treat your gear and what you are willing to expose it to.
Lens
You’ve go a 14.3-71.5mm (24-120mm field of view) f/2.8-4.8 lens in front of this APS-C sensor.
It is an excellent lens. Usable wide open, a bit better stopped down. 1/4 twist gets you from 24mm to 120mm and the action is very smooth. Bottom line is that there are some good optics here.
Performance
Overall System Performance
This camera was released in 2005, so there are some slowdowns at times for this camera, but going to menu options and general camera functioning is quick
Most everything works and works fast! Getting into the menus, no problem. Power up, quick and ready to shoot.
When shooting auto ISO, it wants to stay at base ISO…which generally isn’t a bad thing, until it is…like in aperture priority mode, it will allow the shutter speeds to drop down to unreasonably slow levels and there is no way that I have found to set a shutter speed limit. Would also not be as big a deal if it had some kind of stabilization – but it doesn’t.
Oddly, auto ISO seems to work as you’d expect when shooting in Program (P) mode – but from my limited testing P mode seems to function like I would have expected aperture priority mode to work. In P, rear thumb dial adjusts the aperture and the back rotating dial around the thumb stick controls the exposure comp. Shutter speeds stay reasonable and the ISO jumps up as needed. I’m only a few hours in, so still trying to figure this thing out. Just seems like definitely different behavior at this point. I tried the same thing with the F828 and in P mode, it does the program shift as you’d expect.
Strangely, Sony opted for forcing a JPG image file when shooting RAW. You cannot shoot RAW alone. You can shoot JPG only, though. Forcing the JPG during RAW shooting takes up card space as well as contributing to the slow shot to shot times. Not sure what the rationale was for that, but just something to keep in mind when running RAW – and this is generally the best mode to shoot with. JPG are not bad, but you can eek out just that much more with modern post processing software.
Autofocus
AF Point Selector
Pleasantly surprised that there is an AF point selector joystick on the back of this camera. It works well to move the point around where you want it.
Single
Seemed pretty accurate in even medium light. It is slow by modern standards, but it does the job well.
Continuous
More testing here is needed, but I was not really interested in using it.
Manual Focus
I will use manual focus on occasion, but usually only with adapted manual focus lenses or at times when the subject may be obscured by a foreground element. I doubt I would use it here for this camera as I can’t really trust the LCD to be able to judge the accuracy.
Battery and Battery Life
Powered by the NP-50FM InfoLithium battery. I was out for 2 days of shooting, probably 2-3 hours and didn’t need an extra battery. Not sure what the CIPA rating is, but I think this is probably going to be pretty good.
Stabilization (IBIS/AS)
This camera has no stabilization. Probably a lot to ask for back in 2005 – I mean Minolta Maxxum 7D and 5D had it…but those were DSLRs…and at this time Sony did not have their own version of IBIS. Would have been nice, but the camera at the time had an MSRP of $1000 USD and the inclusion of stabilization may have increased the cost beyond what Sony was looking to hit and what the public would have been willing to pay.
Ergonomics
For me, the size of a camera is important. There is a point of diminishing returns on size. You can only go so small before the controls are hard to reach and the camera is difficult to hold.
Feel in The Hand
I already mentioned that the camera feels solid. If a camera is too small it is hard to get to the buttons that are on the camera body. This camera feels very good. 100% comfortable just walking about with it by the grip with no strap if I wanted.
I can get to the buttons and dials pretty easily, Everything is easy to get to and you can do 99% of what you want from the buttons on the body.
The image review button is next to the EVF and is easy to tap with the thumb on your right hand without moving your grip.
Image Quality
Given its release date, the APS-C sensor here is not bad. Don’t expect the modern equivalent in dynamic range out of it – protect those highlights, but the image quality you can get is rather nice. Given that the camera by its nature wants to stay at base ISO as long as it can, you rarely push into higher ISO.
Even so, there is some base ISO noise, but is easily handled in post processing. The files take to sharpening as well from Lightroom or my favorite plug in Topaz Photo AI.
All in all, I found the contrast and colors to be great.
One of my biggest issues with Sony processing is the way they handle noise. It always seemed to be present and if not sharpened properly can be seen and is not my favorite.
Final Thoughts
Once you use this camera for a bit and put into perspective when it was released, you can see how special it must have been. Back in 2005, not a lot of non-photographers were going to spend $1000+ on a non system camera with a fixed lens and one of this size.
Most photographer types would have opted for a DSLR.
Even so, this is a fun, ergonomically well thought out but different approach to the bridge camera of the time. I can see myself grabbing for this one on a bright, sunny day as a walk about camera even today. I’d think it would still be very good for walk about, street and landscape type images – stuff where you don’t need tracking / AF-C – again, I didn’t test that extensively, so it could be better than I have seen. Still, I have other cameras that are better suited for those tasks and would opt for them instead in that scenario
Final Verdict = Recommended!
As an early 2000 digicam – this is a fun little device, still available out there and with some judicious shopping, can be found rather cheaply. Recommended as a fun experiment but definitely no longer as a sole camera in 2024. For a more capable, modern camera, look elsewhere.
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