Incredible camera for the money, not typical of Sony!

While it has long been my opinion that Sony makes electronics of above-average quality, it has also long been my opinion that much of the extra cost of Sony products vs. competitors is paying merely for the Sony brand name. This camera is an extreme exception! The Sony DSC-S40 is an awesome camera, chock full o' features, at a price that beats the heck out of competitors' products in the same price bracket.

The DSC-S40 takes beautiful still photographs in a variety of sizes (1 MP, 3 MP, 4 MP, or 3:2 aspect ratio, which is slightly below 4 MP). Leaving the camera in automatic mode takes care of the great majority of the technical aspects of photography, almost always ensuring a quality snapshot by simply pointing, zooming if desired, and shooting. Moving out of automatic mode, on the other hand, opens up a wide array of extra options for modifying white balance, exposure, shutter speed, etc., etc., etc., much more than I personally need on a typical basis but great to have when the occasion arises. Accessing these options is a bit overwhelming at first, as the menu is purely iconic, but once you learn what all of the icons mean and what all of the settings do, it's not at all painful.

The buttons on the camera are well laid-out, not crammed together, and easy to press, even with my fat fingers. Before the DSC-S40, I was using a Kodak CX4200 point-and-shoot digital camera, which had one button acting as the left, right, up, and down arrows, *and* the OK button, a nightmare for anything but the smallest, most precise fingers; there's nothing like that on the DSC-S40. The LCD on this camera, while smaller than the LCD on my old Kodak, is extremely bright and crisp, and I have little trouble reading the small icons and text on the display. The optical viewfinder isn't the greatest, but the great LCD makes it unnecessary. To preserve battery life, the LCD display can be turned on and off at will with a single key press.

A couple of cool features on the DSC-S40 that really stand out to me are Burst/Multi-Burst mode and MPEG Movie capabilities. When Burst mode is activated, the camera will quickly take several shots in succession when the shutter button is pushed. Multi-Burst mode is similar, except instead of saving every shot in a separate file, all of the successive shots are saved into one. Using the Multi-Burst mode, I took a really awesome shot of a lightning strike from my back porch the very first day I had the camera out of the box. MPEG Movie mode is nothing short of incredible, especially in a camera in this price bracket. In this mode, the DSC-S40 can capture full-motion video, with audio, in three different quality settings (160x120, 640x480 standard, or 640x480 fine); however, without an optional Memory Stick Pro, only the first two modes are available. I purchased a 256 MB Memory Stick Pro along with my DSC-S40, enabling the 640x480 fine mode for me. The 30 fps video captured in this mode is astonishing, even better than the Panasonic DV digital camcorder I once had but returned due to the poor video quality! Of course, MPEG movies recorded in 640x480 fine mode are very large in size, but the quality of the recorded movie shows why. (Makes me want to go out and buy a 4 GB Memory Stick Pro, and I would if Memory Stick Pro wasn't relatively expensive in comparison to similar digital camera media.) 640x480 standard mode is pretty grainy, and 160x120 is really only suitable for casual e-mailing and low-quality website usage, but of course, these lower-quality modes give you more recording time using the same amount of memory. With my 256 MB Memory Stick Pro, I'm able to capture just over 3 minutes of video in 640x480 fine mode and 26-27 minutes of video in 160x120 mode.

If you're looking for an economical digital camera for personal or small business use that packs a lot of oomph for the money, you won't be disappointed with this one! At ~$190, I doubt I could've gotten a finer product for the money, and with the Sony brand name backing it, I know it'll give me years of trouble-free service.