2000 Sony Cybershot DSC-S50 camera review & comparison

[@vwestlife]

*Correction:* 1600 (3:2) mode has a resolution of 1600x1072. And BBISHOPPCM's Sony Mavica is a CD-R/RW camera (the MVC-CD200), not a floppy disk camera. The photos are presented in sequence with the Kodak first, then the Sony second for each shot. The Sony looked smoother on its LCD while recording video, but the Kodak looks smoother in the actual video. The camera I used to record this video was the Philips CAM110.

[@thedebug3866]

For 2000, those are pretty high resolutions.

[@MR_FIAT]

its interesting how insanely fast this stuff has improved over the years.

[@vwestlife]

@Daniel Holt Please change your Google+ settings so people can reply to your comments. I recorded this video using a Philips CAM110 pocket-size HD camcorder.

[@louisoft01]

***** you now use + to tag users not @

[@vwestlife]

louisoft01 Both work.

[@JohnAudioTech]

In 2000 I bought an Olympus D360-L. I think it was around $400 and shot 1.3MP images and needed 4 AA batteries but had no video. I guess you had to lay out some cash if you wanted higher res and a video mode in those days. A couple months ago I bought a new Canon PowerShot ELPH 115 IS for only $40. How the times have changed!

[@lee541982]

Man, finally you have HD quality video. I am happy

[@vwestlife]

I have been uploading HD videos since 2008... just not often.

[@Fender178]

I remember those floppy disk based digital cameras. Back when I was in highschool we used them. and I remember with those things you could record I think 10-15 second videos I think at 320X240..

[@CoolDudeClem]

I like the Sony's quality better, the colours look more natural to me, on the Kodak it looks a little saturated in both colour and contrast.

[@TheNimaid]

Fun fact: This was the exact model of camera used to take the Backrooms image! The original photographer was Bill, a friend of Bob Mazza, owner of HobbyTown USA of Oshkosh!

[@Matrix77776]

certified lover girl certified pedophiles

[@delmonti]

I bought that camera in 2000. Cost an arm & a leg (in the UK). Took great digital images for the time.

[@technicalzahidi7795]

I too bought this camera

[@Erdie5]

The picture of the sky really leaned in the Sony's favor.

[@OnTheRocks71]

My parents had an S85 from 2001. It was about 800 bucks new but by 2004 they were okay with letting me take it off to school. 4.1MP, but it took magnificent photos. It was especially good at portraits and a nice bokeh could be had. Something you still don't see too much with point-and-shoots these days without artificial means. Also it had a wicked strong magnesium case and full manual controls which were sweet. I took a lot of really nice pictures with that thing.

[@barthonhoff5547]

OnTheRocks I brought an S75 a few years ago for 10€ and because it did not have a loader, I brought a S85 with loader. As proud owner of a Leica Digilux 1, I did not see any noticeable differences between the S75, S85 and the Digilux. The Sony’s however could not use memory sticks over 128Mb as the Digilux could use up to 2Gb SD cards. BTW. Lenses on all three camera’s were the same... Color rendering was more film like than the current reality pictures

[@AlexCheerNZ]

my dad has that camera, he paid around $1000 for it. he also bought a couple of years ago one of those 128mb memory sticks from a electronics store over here in new Zealand.

[@jaykay18]

The original Memory Stick format like this Sony camera uses is indeed limited to a maximum of 128MB (the largest made). There was, however, another product made by both Sony and also Lexar, called the Memory Stick Select, which was 256MB. As the name implies, you could select which bank of 128MB you'd like to use. Cumbersome, inconvenient, call it what you will, but that's what was available at the time. I also seem to remember those Memory Stick Selects were something like $120 when new. A number of old camera card formats were limited to 128MB, like SmartMedia. It usually handled a good number of photos back then anyway. Nowadays, it's all form over function. A bright, shiny, new bar-of-soap camera may have higher megapixels, but the image quality likely suffers. Like BBISHOPPCM's video, a lot of times the older cameras had better lenses and image sensors. I once took a photo in Manhattan of the tree at Rockefeller Center using an Olympus 2MP point-and-shoot and printed an 11x17 from it. *Nobody* believed it was only 2MP--it looked _that_ good.

[@Evaldas65]

Wow! I didn't think that those cameras could snap such good pictures! They look better than any of my photos taken with my Nokia Lumia 520!

[@80sTechKid]

If you set it to 160x112, and 5 seconds, and hold the shutter button down, you can record up to 60 seconds with it held down.

[@Pro1er]

Just by coincidence I found my Cyber-shot S30 (1.3MP) yesterday, but there's no battery or memory card in it. I'm going to hunt some down and have a play. As a retired photographer I can tell you that 3-4MP is usually enough for most people. In fact, almost all of my photography nowadays is with low megapixel, vintage digital cameras. The one thing that I didn't like about my Kodak P&S cameras is that they use too much JPEG compression which adversely affects image quality.

[@WaybackTECH]

Pretty high end for 2000 with an MSRP of $700. Amazing how tech changes! Googling around, looks like people really liked this camera back in the day. Hey for $10, if nothing else the battery is worth that!

[@vwestlife]

The battery even still holds a good charge. I've noticed that genuine Sony InfoLithium batteries usually have a very long life span.

[@wonderpierrot]

Highest resolution and most modern digital camera I found at a thrift store was a 12MP Kodak EasyShare C134. The best part that it fully works, takes great photos and only cost $5!

[@moviebod]

You can always pump the colours (you say colors) up for the Sony in post anyway. I already have three Mavicas and I am now looking for one of these.

[@UNIX1LINUX2BSD3]

MAN I love these old Sony camers. I WAS SO CLOSE MINDED back then and always buyed them. As well as they haf many problems such as the inconsistansy of hardware; refering to the mic video u made a while back.

[@UNIX1LINUX2BSD3]

Btw I just wanna say u have amazing videos.

[@CameraNostalgiaClub]

Absolute beauty

[@sopeachygaming2822]

I have the DSC-F707 which does use Carl Zeiss’s vario sonnar lens

[@michaelwiliams4970]

My first DSLR was the Sony, paid $750.00 for it at the time and fell in love with the new age of digital photos. I am 70 now and a Nikon man and still loving it. A fine retirement hobby.

[@segaprophet]

Up to 1690x1200? That would make that a pretty high end camera back in the day - it must have cost a good chunk of change when it was new.

[@francistheodorecatte]

I love how those cameras take infinitely better photos than my Nokia despite being much older.

[@juliadaule4519]

How can i send me the pictures that i took to my laptop ?? Please help me!!!

[@RigoZalli]

where do you see that the kodak photos have more colors than the sony ones it looks the other way around to me

[@iLife64]

This camera has the heart of a Sony Mavica, but with the Disc Drive removed

[@MarkShannonroad_videos]

There's no shame in using older equipment. I tend to use my equipment until it breaks or gets so flaky that it can't be relied upon. The nice thing about older things like a camcorder or a still camera is that you can take more risks with them, and if they die, then no big loss.

[@Jallge]

I really like the Sony, and the first photo of the cats! I suppose I prefer the Sony because I've always preferred Sony for stuff like this. The colours aren't as good, and the photos aren't as bright, but practically everything else is better than the Kodak. I like the fact that it uses the same batteries and power supply as a Handycam, and I like how it has the fold-out LCD screen, that is also adjustable to compensate for glare on the field. I also like its general "Sony-ness". I'm pretty sure that they made adapters to use a Memory Stick Duo or Pro Duo or whatever with stuff like this. I wonder how big of a memory card this will accept.That 15 second video limit kinda sucks. One thing that surprised me is the video quality. For the time period, and for a digital still camera, it's very impressive.

[@Sage_Noko]

I wanted to see the og pics.

[@jukpulfer]

I experienced that you could just wrap a bit of paper around newer Memory Sticks and use it with older devices.

[@digitalmediafan]

Good job you have steady hands, one accidental moment and it would have gone over the edge !

[@lineartechbd1600]

I have the 1.6mpix version of this camera and it takes the most amazing close up pictures. You can set it so that the flower icon is showing and take such great pictures of coins that you will see every single scratch on it. It takes way better than my 5mpix camera.

[@wilkes85]

What, no selfie? :-P The Kodak takes nicer indoor pictures, but the Sony has a better overall image quality. You mentioned in the comments that you've reduced the Sony's flash though, so I guess that takes care of that! If I'm going on a trip or something, I still use my 35mm camera hehe... but I generally use my Canon for everyday pictures. I really like the warm, natural look of film, but if you just need a quick photo to post online, digital cameras are much more practical. Also, good thing you mentioned that there were annotations. I turned them on (and raised the video quality) before I read the description, but I have them turned off by default just because there's a lot of sleazeballs with useless annotations on their videos, like "SUBSCRIBE PLEASE! I'M BEGGING YOU!!! WAAAH!!!" and videos/advertisements suggested by the uploader.

[@Jallge]

Oh man, I hate it when people abuse the annotations feature like that.

[@discusobscurum2194]

I usually use Kelvin on digital to give a warmer or cooler appearence. Film's days are over, sadly.

[@albear972]

My first new good digital camera. I got this one in August of 2000 it cost close to 500 bucks then at Best Buy.

[@bobjingle3244]

I would have continued using the Kodak camera since the indoor quality was a lot better than Sony. Can't believe that thing only had 8mb of storage, can't remember how I lived with only a floppy disc until 2003.

[@vwestlife]

The Sony has a manually set flash level while the Kodak automatically adjusts its flash level based on lighting and distance. That's why the Sony looked washed out on the indoor photos. If I set it to low flash level it does a much better job.

[@jusb1066]

my 'backup system' till about 2003 was a system of 80 floppy discs, containing scanned pictures, and pics from my 1mp kodak camera, that was sure fun to sit there all day swapping them over!, when i got a cd writer a while later it was amazing and i wondered how i would ever fill that 650mb up!

[@janchristianursuaaguilar7434]

the instax cameras have a small mirror for selfie shots which is even more advanced than that.

[@Fuzy2K]

8:02 -- That music sounds to me like a cross between Peter Gabriel's music and the Chrono Trigger soundtrack...

[@vincentforonda7381]

selfie cam in the year 2000 is so rare

[@punishedexistence]

I had...well still have a Sony Cybershot U, the little James Bond camera, and though it only takes 1.3 megapixel pictures, the picture quality was amazing, plus it had the option to use regular AAA batteries. I got it back in 2002 and it still works great, though I gave it to my dad cause my phone takes much better pics. But the 15 second video thing always bugged me...that there was no option to lengthen the time. For the time though, it was an amazing digital camera for its size. Excellent review though, always very informative! And too, I wish I had the thrift stores you have, ours suck. Though the flea market yields some pretty interesting items.

[@awaamadun8013]

Hi i have one but the LCD is broken can it be repaired?

[@Hotelkin]

Yay, 1080p! :)

[@ilcool90]

It's clearly visible that Kodak has much sharper pictures.

[@jusb1066]

camera limitations certainly explain why early youtubers used webcams and were stuck to their pc's. The sony for sure , on the tree shot , shows an absence of 'blue fringing' and didnt blow out the white's on the cat, a much nicer camera, but of course was probably twice the price of the kodak

[@ra4e3]

Hey how do I recharge the battery?

[@Evansmustard]

Why only 15 second movies? Was it a memory or processing limitation?

[@jusb1066]

some internal limitation, not the card, my early canon had a limit of 30 seconds, and that was 4 years later, they didnt really give much of a care toward movie mode then, no camera at the time was decent at it, i guess they didnt want to affect sales of camcorders , camcorders at the time introduced megapixel stills onto a card, but were much worse than the still cameras! both sony and canon did these shenanigans , notice the Kodak had no length limitations, as they didnt make camcorders!

[@CanIHasThisName]

I could be wrong but I believe there is something about taxes regarding camcorders. And if a camera is capable of taking movies for X amount of time, it is considered a camcorder. Which is why pretty much all cameras limit the length of videos. That said, there's also physical limitations - optics good for taking pictures are usually not good for taking video for a number of reasons, speed and noise being just some of them.

[@vintagestuffguy1998]

It's almost exactly the the same as the Sony mavica FD200, just without the floppy drive. Go for the mavica if I were you (no flip out LCD, though)

[@KingHenryVR4]

Seems about the same specs as my Mavica MVC-FD200 just in a different case, TEXT mode on my Mavica turns the screen black/white an takes low quality kinda washed out GIF files which take a while to record to card which is odd when they are only around 22kb an a jpeg at around 900kb is instant, maybe it needs to be stationary for TEXT files since my manual says its used for "Recording text documents" an in .gif for a clear image. The ones I took just now look like bad copier printouts even while on the camera

[@Raveheart]

Hmmm... Technically, the Sony seems to save the video file in 25fps but... I dunno... If I look close, I kinda think that's a lie and it actually takes around 8 frames per second and just triples them. The Kodak seems to use the full 15fps. I'm not sure if it's just me, but the Kodak Video looks like it has more effective fps than the Sony. Although, the Sony's Image looks better overall, especially the colors.

[@TheDanielHolt]

Was this video recorded with some kind of smartphone? It looks pretty good, the sound is similar to most smartphone mics...

[@giammyzanna]

The sony has better dynamic range. I think it is better because you can always add some contrast and saturation in post even if it's a jpeg. The kodak has some heavy processing resulting in over-sharpened and over-contrasted photos.

[@shelliecarlson7015]

So many Mavica carry overs.

[@ericaspencer9920]

How does it charge? Can’t seem to find much information about the camera.

[@vwestlife]

You can download the manual for it from Sony's eSupport web site.

[@icallhimgerald6463]

Those memory sticks went up to a gigabyte. I saw an ad for them and they cost close to 500 dollars if memory serves correct

[@vwestlife]

Not for the original Memory Stick. You're probably thinking of the Memory Stick Pro.

[@icallhimgerald6463]

VWestlife oh, I didn’t realize they were different. Sorry

[@fungo6631]

No way the Sony one is really 25 FPS. That is more likely 12.5 FPS but with each frame repeated.

[@vwestlife]

Yes, it's definitely skipping frames.

[@vintagecameras9623]

cool camera

[@kbhasi]

vwestlife at 1:57 you could have said *"self portrait"*

[@yogurtboi445]

the memory stick pro went up to 256mb

[@valentinahernandez4218]

Hello how do you charge it.

[@ukfmcbradioservicingTango21]

He did show the socket for the charger/power supply & said "The power supply plugs in here; I didn't get one with the camera, but it's the same as my xxxxxxx & I have two of those" The charger/power supply used is the Sony AC-L10 used for many of Sony's camcorders & stills cameras. I downloaded the user manual from Sony to find that info for you. Richard, UK

[@assacarnes.]

really looks like a mavica

[@TroyFoxxin]

I had that very Sony cam for the longest time. but it had a bad image sensor on it. Tiny black pixels would show up in my shoot it was hard to adjust the cam settings to reduce them. I ended up just getting rid of it and getting a Nikon Coolpix L320. but for quick and dirty photos I just use my phone. Takes better photos then the Sony did even if the sensor wasn't showing black pixels. But to get my photo shooting on, I take my Nikon with me. :D I will admit however i do miss being able to move the screen around and close it when not being used. that is a nice option to have.

[@Blacklight8001]

They may have been a reproduction model or something in that sort of line.

[@fibersilkington]

What camera did you use to record?

[@vwestlife]

A Philips CAM110.

[@fibersilkington]

vwestlife Okay, thanks.

[@oocobolGaming]

I have a 12 megabyte memory stick

[@Blacklight8001]

Those old type memory sticks I have a 32 GB and a 64 GB one

[@vwestlife]

You probably mean MB, not GB.

[@SudosFTW]

vwestlife the MS Pro Duos and a Pro adapter will do you well. the Pro Duo's go up to 4GB? but I've used a 2GB card in my P32/72/73 and also in my V1 just fine with the adapter.

[@vwestlife]

***** This model does not support MS Pro... just regular MS.

[@SudosFTW]

vwestlife I don't know, I've used the same duo adapter in my FD Mavica in its MS slot just fine as well... but that was with a 1GB card. it'd still be worth a shot to try, no harm done.

[@vwestlife]

***** Well, since I already have a few MS Pro Duo cards on hand, I figured it was worth a shot -- so I just bought a MS Pro adapter on eBay for $2, and I'll see if it works.

[@irtbmtind89]

Eight whole megabytes!

[@sonyimage.8217]

I am a sony user, nice video.i have just discover that sony has a variaty of excellent cameras,i am fun of vintage also, its produce wordeful photos with accurate wonderful color depth and resolution.i have just done a test between canon and sony, such as sony dsc-p71 and canon A 590,sony beat the canon in color and resolution, as well with other new models,the sony dsc-p71, has a 1/1.8 sensor size bigger than most new point an shoot models.

[@vintagecameras9623]

cool

[@oocobolGaming]

I got one for 4 dollars at a thrift store and its 2.1 megapixels

[@technicalzahidi7795]

I buy this camera

[@matmroy]

Kodak wins in my option. Far better clarity and color saturation.

[@onlogica]

In picture de kodak seems better in video the sony.

[@segaprophet]

1600x1200 I mean, rather

[@Rustbelt_Research]

The Sony was definitely better, Although the colors weren't quite as vibrant, The images were (As you mentioned) Much crisper than the Kodak. You can always boost the color temperature in something like iPhoto.

[@sbrazenor2]

Darn it... I don't have either of these nifty cameras. All I have is a lame Nikon D750. j/k LOL :)

[@sombongkualat]

2018

[@TheCRTProductions]

Very cool cameras, I like them both! I've just started my own channel about "old relics" and will probably have some videos in the future about some older cameras I have such as these. You can check it out if you like :)

[@HVCPfilmproducties]

9,99 ... man!

[@EastAngliaUK]

8mb LOL now even 8GB is small

[@Tuhueleamierda1991]

I don’t think the Sony is 25 frames a second, it looks way too choppy. I think it’s actually like 8 frames a second or something like that, based on what I’ve heard