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Review Date
March 9, 2009
Overall Rating
 5 of 5
Value Rating
 5 of 5
Used product for
Less than 1 month
Visitors rate this review
3.00 of 5, 1 votes
Battery Finder >>
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Reviewed by
davoonroe
, Expert
Price Paid
$169.00
at Amazon
Photography Experience
21+ years
, People
Summary
I was lucky to find one of these in near mint condition. The seller even had the box and software. The software only goes up to Windows XP, though.
This camera is as solid as a compact camera can be and not be shockproof. It is not a pocket camera, unless we're talking about a jacket. The specs hold up well even 5 years later. The focus is amazingly fast, and the night shot/framing is the best low light focusing method around. If Sony were to update the LCD screen, the sensor, and widen the lens, a new version of this camera would be a real challenger to the G10.
Strengths
low light focusing
solid construction
Dual media
hotshoe for external flash
fast focusing
Weaknesses
no rear curtain flash
lens could be wider (by today's standards)
Similar Products Used
Olympus SP-350
Customer Service
none yet
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Review Date
July 30, 2007
Overall Rating
 4 of 5
Value Rating
5 of 5
Used product for
More than 1 year
Visitors rate this review
3.00 of 5, 1 votes
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Reviewed by
cgarrard
, Professional
Price Paid
$65900.00
at Amazon.com
Photography Experience
2-5 years
, Other
Summary
The Sony V-3 is an almost forgotten, range finder style niche digicam. With the market booming in photography the last 3 years, this little guy somehow got buried from all the hooplah that has transpired. What a pity. If you are fortunate enough to be able to buy one new, or almost new, and it fits your criteria for a compact full featured digicam by all means, please purchase it. This camera still has an awesome feature set 3 years after it's introduction, and thats a major feat in the fast growing digicam market. For professionals needing to save weight on long excursions, and still take excellent images, the V-3 can (if used to its limits) still produce excellent results up to 11x14 prints, and very good up to 13x19 prints. For beginners and intermediates, this camera is a steal for the price you can get it for now, and leaves you with plenty of room to grow. I still use mine to this day (I purchased mine in early late 05'). This camera covers a broad range of needs, from very decent macro (close up) performance, to medium telephoto and decent wide angle shots. It has excellent to very good noise performance to ISO 400, but starts to drop considerably after that (typical for cameras with such a small ccd imager). It's night shot, and night framing features are truely unique to Sony, and only this camera and the F-828 (also a Sony product) have it (you can video in Night shot mode too) enabling you to shoot in complete darkness (it also can help you navigate on a dark trail at night). It's laser focus assist grid, is really a sight to be seen, and it works perfectly. Quick and accurate auto focus in complete darkness, yes why not! It has a very good video mode with sound (you can only use pro memory sticks however). It has two memory slots, one Memory Stick, and one Compact Flash slot, enabling you to carry as much memory as you can afford. It is built like a tank, with the body constructed mainly of magnesium alloy. Metal is everywhere on this camera. The buttons and dials being made of it as well. It has a very nice roomy grip that bulges out a bit, and makes it bulky for a pocket, but easily fits in a cargo pocket or jacket pocket. Battery life is very good, up too and over 2hrs of shooting if you manage your battery life well. If you set your lcd brightness at the medium/low setting you can get even more time. Images come in three forms, raw, tiff and jpeg, also 2 types of jpegs and a raw+jpeg combo capture. Perfect!. Has sepia, b/w, and various color modes that should satisfy almost any user. The flash works excellent, and is higher powered than you might think. It also has a hot shoe port, in case you want to go bigger and brighter. Shot to shot time is very fast, even by today's standards, with many different burst modes to choose from. Raw/Tiff images of course taking much longer, about 4 seconds per shot. Power up/down is a tad slow, but that can be countered by it's excellent battery life and power down mode (just keep it on if you need a quick draw time). About all the buttons you will need and some extras, are located in key positions on the backside within easy reach of your thumb. It has a decent albeit large 2.5" lcd, an optical viewfinder (for basic compositions in a pinch), and a very nice lcd viewfinder. Accessory lenses are also available in wide angle and telephoto (but be warned the camera's lens then becomes fixed focal length lens). All in all a camera that you will bond with, it truly has a personality all it's own. It can mold itself into many roles, from a beginning artist to a workhorse camera in commercial applications. If you are lucky enough to get one now, hang on to it. It may be the last of it's kind from Sony. And that is truly a pity.
Visit my gallery at www.carlgarrardphotography.com
Strengths
Features for price, a real leader.
A collectors dream?
It will steal your heart, it has a great personality
Weaknesses
Wide angle could be wider
LCD could have a better field of view, and more pixels but hey, it's an older technology! And it works fine for most applications (just keep it out of the bright light).
Similar Products Used
Sony F-828
Sony R-1 (similar, well sort of)
Customer Service
They might as well be a ghost, i've never had one Sony digicam ever break down on me.
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Review Date
March 11, 2007
Overall Rating
5 of 5
Value Rating
5 of 5
Used product for
1 to 3 months
Visitors rate this review
3.50 of 5, 2 votes
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Reviewed by
wawafoto
, Professional
Price Paid
$275.00
at Ebay
Photography Experience
11-20 years
, Other
Summary
By far my favorite of all the compacts -- a wealth of programs, many of them not found on any other brand. Yet very easy to use. I bought this after trying many others, and am completely satisfied.
Strengths
Terrific and intuitive control. Solid professional-looking presentation. On-screen information is extremely useful, and not too intrusive. All buttons and dials are cleverly placed for quick adjustment, including dedicated control of Exposure-lock and compensation. Very good on-screen readout of focusing areas, (particularly superior to other brands in multi-zone mode), with manual of moveable auto-focus area. Lightning-fast shutter delay and quick recording, with easy one-touch review of last shot. Unique-to-Sony interpolative program allows trimming images to HIGHER resolution than original. This makes printable images out of VGA's! 3 video settings, including LOW-Res, which makes videos that fit in emails, the usual 30fps, and high-res 60fps. Very easy video editing. Flash-shoe -- necessary for most still-life. Optical viewfinder. Holds TWO memory cards at once -- one Flash, the other Sony Memory-stick. These can be selected, one or the other, at will without opening camera by a switch on the camera back-- a BIG plus because you can shoot "snaps" on one and put pro-type work on the other. Excellent white-balance features including "Flash White Balance". Unique (that word again!)"Night-Shot" infrared, which does not require going into menus, is surprisingly useful for artistic work in low-light. Unobtrusive and quick-off night focusing. In-camera battery-charging when A/C power is attached. On-screen readout of remaining battery power in minutes and seconds instead of just the usual ideogram. Bracketing for both exposure and white balance. RAW files simultaneously record JPEGs. Half the cost of a DSLR and better than most of them, both in features and performance. A professional or informed amateurs dream compact camera, as far as I'm concerned!
Weaknesses
Whole package is just a little big: it won't fit into your pocket. I wish the wide-angle was a little wider. There are add-on wide-angle and telephoto attachments, but these are bulky and require an extension tube. Sunshade attachment impedes the on-camera flash, especially for macro. Proprietary battery instead of AA cells, expensive and not found everywhere. Focusing speed is OK, but not ultrafast. Made in 2004, so no anti-shake technology.
Similar Products Used
Olympus SP-350
Casio EX-P600
Fuji E900
Customer Service
Unknown -- but I got a full service/parts warranty from Ebay Square Trade (a good logo to look for on Ebay items) -- for $34.99.
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Review Date
March 10, 2007
Overall Rating
5 of 5
Value Rating
5 of 5
Used product for
1 to 3 months
Visitors rate this review
3.00 of 5, 1 votes
Battery Finder >>
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Reviewed by
wawafoto
, Professional
Price Paid
$275.00
at Ebay
Photography Experience
11-20 years
, Other
Summary
Still my favorite of all the compacts -- a wealth of programs, many of them not found on any other brand. Yet very easy to use. I bought this after trying many others, and am completely satisfied.
Strengths
Terrific and intuitive control. Solid professional-looking presentation. On-screen information is extremely useful, and not too intrusive. All buttons and dials are cleverly placed for quick adjustment, including dedicated control of Exposure-lock and compensation. Very good on-screen readout of focusing areas, (particularly superior to other brands in multi-zone mode), with manual of moveable auto-focus area. Lightning-fast shutter delay and quick recording, with easy one-touch review of last shot. Unique-to-Sony interpolative program allows trimming images to HIGHER resolution than original. This makes printable images out of VGA's! 3 video settings, including LOW-Res, which makes videos that fit in emails, the usual 30fps, and high-res 60fps. Very easy video editing. Flash-shoe -- necessary for most still-life. Optical viewfinder. Holds TWO memory cards at once -- one Flash, the other Sony Memory-stick. These can be selected, one or the other, at will without opening camera by a switch on the camera back-- a BIG plus because you can shoot "snaps" on one and put pro-type work on the other. Excellent white-balance features including "Flash White Balance". Unique (that word again!)"Night-Shot" infrared, which does not require going into menus, is surprisingly useful for artistic work in low-light. Unobtrusive and quick-off night focusing. In-camera battery-charging when A/C power is attached. On-screen readout of remaining battery power in minutes and seconds instead of just the usual ideogram. Bracketing for both exposure and white balance. RAW files simultaneously record JPEGs. Half the cost of a DSLR and better than most of them, both in features and performance. A professional or informed amateurs dream compact camera, as far as I'm concerned.
Weaknesses
Whole package is just a little big: it won't fit into your pocket. I wish the wide-angle was a little wider. There are add-on wide-angle and telephoto attachments, but these are bulky and require an extension tube. Sunshade attachment impedes the on-camera flash, especially for macro. Proprietary battery instead of AA cells, expensive and not found everywhere. Focusing speed is OK, but not ultrafast. Made in 2004, so no anti-shake technology.
Similar Products Used
Olympus SP-350
Casio EX-P600
Fuji E900
Customer Service
Unknown -- but I got a 2-year full parts and service warranty through Ebay Square Trade for $34.99.
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Review Date
October 28, 2006
Overall Rating
5 of 5
Value Rating
5 of 5
Used product for
Less than 1 month
Visitors rate this review
3.67 of 5, 3 votes
Battery Finder >>
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Reviewed by
Jung Oh
, Intermediate
Price Paid
$350.00
at ebay
Photography Experience
2-5 years
, Outdoor
Summary
Reviewed numerous fine point and shoot digital camers.
I am quite struggled between Canon S80 and Nikon 8400, and
Sony DSC-V3. but I choose this and I am very happy about my decision.
I checked many photo images taken from these camera through many
phot sites such as pbase and photosig. I concluded that sony V3 is
over all best among them.
key point is:
Excellent photo quality with great detail
excellent lens quality (optics) CZ lens.
excellent macro photo
Strengths
durability in excellent body
strong gera in dim light and night photo
Weaknesses
Not muxh, except poor performance in red eye reduction
but it can easily overcom free software PICASO.
Similar Products Used
Epson PC3000Z
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