I have norrowed my choices down to these two cameras and am having a difficult time choosing between the two. I will primarily us the camera indoors and with people as subjects. Some close ups of them as well. I like the MPEG capability of the Sony but don't know if it is enough to offset the lack of an optical viewfinder and its bulky size. I will do some outdoor work where this would be more of an issue. I will be sending photos via email and placing them on a website primarily. Some printing of photos will be done as well but this is a lesser concern.

Can someone suggest which way to go?

Thanks, Brad

-- Brad Albaugh (brad.l.albaugh@ac.com), March 14, 2000

Answers

The 505 is an awesome camera, I own one. That said, I really doubt you can find one to buy. It's out of stock everywhere and I doubt sony is making more, unfortunately. Hell of a lens on the 505.

-- benoit (foo@bar.com), March 14, 2000.

I have 4 brand new 505's at our Clearwater, FL CompUSA. Email me if ya need one (or 4) :)

-- Cris Daniels (danfla@gte.net), March 14, 2000.

Glad to be proved wrong! :)

-- benoit (foo@bar.com), March 14, 2000.

I have had great service from my 265, and just ordered a new 290 tonight. I have done 11,000 pictures since last May for the internet (see silvercliff.com and above address) whitewater action photography in an event type set up, and more. It has been whitewater kayaking, snowmobiling at 100 plus, rock climbing, on and on. It has taken an impressive beating and still shoots like new.The 290 at around $700 is a nice piece of equipment.

-- riversportdigital.com (rayb@cybrzn.com), March 24, 2000.

1. I bought a Sony DSC F5050 last weekend directly from a Sony employee. He is a sales person in this country and his statement is clearly that the F505 is still in production, altough the delivery times are very long: I had to wait over 4 weeks. He said that the pictures of the 3 new camaras (s30,s50,s70 ?), where less good/sharp that the F505. 2. I can't compare with the Kodak DC290 as I only have the Sony. Still the image quality of the F505 is absolutely amazing. You can take dual-pictures: e.g. 1600x1200 together with a low res 320x240 or so for email purposes with one click of the button. I have also taken quite a number of low light condition indoor shots with excellent results, thanks mainly to the manual white balance capability. 3. I read that the Kodak is much better for low light conditions and I will not question this. It has much longer exposures. So if you need this go for the Kodak.

Anyway, I'm hooked to my F505 for quite a while.

Cheers, Jan.

-- Jan De Boever (jan.deboever@altavista.net), March 29, 2000.