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| Released twenty-three years ago today, the Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-F707 showed just how quickly digital cameras were evolving. |
As part of our twenty-fifth anniversary, we look back at the most significant cameras from that period. Today marks twenty-three years since Sony launched one of its more interesting compacts: the 5MP Cyber-Shot DSC-F707.
The early days of digital photography saw a lot of experimentation with form factor, as camera makers explored what digital technology, the absence of a roll of film and the ability to preview the scene without an optical path from the lens to the photographer, would allow.
Sony’s DSC F707 was just one such example. Like Nikon’s early Coolpix 900 series cameras and Casio’s QV models, it recognized that you might not always want the screen and the lens to be pointing the same direction. But instead of making the screen adjustable, they put a hinge between the lens and the body.
Our original review concluded that the result was “a surprisingly usable and ergonomic design.”
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Read our Throwback Thursday article, showing some of the F707’s unusual features |
It’s an idea Sony had been playing with for a while, but the F707 was a major step forward. It looked a lot like its predecessor, the DSC 505V. These were the days before software correction made wide-angle lenses feasible in compact cameras, so both cameras offered a 38-190mm equivalent zoom range: great for the time but somewhat limiting, in hindsight.
But Sony made two very significant changes compared with the previous model: it moved to using a larger sensor and paired it with a much brighter lens, all for the same $1000 price tag ($1770 in today’s money).
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| Freed from the need to pull an expanse of film across the back of the lens or to have an optical path to the viewfinder, the Sony DSC-F707 is an example of some of the fun early camera makers had. So, for that matter, is the “10x” marking on the side of the lens, with “Digital Zoom” in much smaller letters. |
You don’t need to know much about photography to recognize that this is a big deal. Rather than using a 6.4 x 4.8mm crop of a Type 1/1.8 sensor it jumped up to a Type 2/3 chip (8.8 x 6.6mm). This was an 88% increase in area, giving almost a one stop improvement. The lens was also upgraded from an F2.8-3.3 to an F2.0-2.4 maximum aperture, giving up to another stop’s headstart over its predecessor. Add to this the jump from 2.6MP to 4.9MP and it should start to become apparent just how quickly cameras were developing, back then, and how much of a leap forward the F707 must have seemed.
Our review recognized this, saying “its resolution chart (and real life) results are nothing short of stunning,” before awarding it our Highly Recommended status.
Click here to read our original Sony DSC-F707 review
The series would eventually reach its pinnacle with 2005’s DSC-R1, which moved across to an (approximately) APS-C sensor, making it Sony’s first truly large sensor camera. It had a built-in 24-120mm equiv F2.8-4.8 lens, making it more flexible than the models that preceded it. Its CMOS sensor also allowed live view from a large sensor for the first time.
But by that stage, Canon had released the EOS 300D / Digital Rebel, and the same $1000 that the R1 cost could buy you an interchangeable lens camera, with all the upgrade ‘opportunities’ that implied. The Rebel not only brought the DSLR to a wider audience but also the need to preview the scene through an optical path, arguably both restricting and cementing the public’s idea of what a ‘proper’ camera looked like. Along with its move to a larger sensor, the R1 lost the hinge between the body and the lens, heading towards the predictable DSLR-alike look that ‘bridge’ cameras settled into.