Suggestion on Sony DSC F707

[VGVS]

How is this camera? You may ask me why F707 and not F828? I recently bought a Sony F828 (latest 8 megapixel camera) but found the night landscape pictures with lot of noice and pronounced chromatic abberation. However the lense was very good with excellent resolution and clarity.

I found the above same issues in the various reviews that I read about this camera (infact I read the reviews after I bought it). I then read about the reviews about Sony DSC F707 which is a 5 megapixel camera and the pundits rated its performance very high.

I own an SLR and looking at the digital cameras with following requirements:

1) High quality pictures
2) Good manual features (so that I do not worry about the replacement / upgradation for a reasonable period)
3) Reasonable point and Shoot features (so that I do not waste too much time lookinh into the manuals / controls etc.)
4) Good macro shots
5) Possible additional lens attachements (may not be a issue if the built-in zoom is good)

Do you suggest this camera (Sony DSC F707) or do you recommend anything better?

Look forward to your views.

VG

[Photo-John]

What exacty do you mean by "night landscape pictures?" Are you talking about actually making long exposures at night? I doubt you'll get better night image quality with the 707. That kind of photography is a lot to ask of a compact digital like the 707 or the 828. For real night photography you'd be better off with a digital SLR or even a 35m camera.

How were you evaluating the image quality of the 828? If you view your images at 100% on a computer monitor, you're always going to find lots of problems. But I would argue that what you see at 100% on your computer isn't that important. It's only when noise and chromatic aberation are bad enough to affect your images in print or at actual viewing size that they matter. And since the resolution of the 828 is so much larger than that of the 707, the problems you see at 100% aren't going to matter as much as they would if they were coming from a 5 megapixel camera. There are some issues with the Sony 8 megapixel sensor, but after using it myself, I didn't find that they were really a problem. To be fair, I didn't try to use the camera for slow, night photography. But I still think you should maybe re-evaluate.