Sony Cyber-shot F828: 21 years later! RETRO review + IR hack! 

Trying out the legendary Sony Cyber-shot F828 from 2003, 21 years after it was launched! Includes magnet hack for infra red photos! Replacement battery for F828 / F717 / F707: amzn.to/4cCxFsY Buy Gordon a coffee: www.paypal.me/cameralabs Gordon's In Camera book: amzn.to/2n61PfI / Amazon uk: amzn.to/2mBqRVZ Cameralabs merchandise: redbubble.com/people/cameralabs/shop Find vintage gear on eBay: rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?icep_ff3=1&pub=5574908462&toolid=10001&campid=5338329149&customid=&ipn=psmain&icep_vectorid=229466&kwid=902099&mtid=824&kw=lg Sell your used gear to MPB at: bit.ly/3ULU9yL Buy used gear from MPB at: prf.hn/l/YLqwRAP Lost photos? I recover mine with: www.dpbolvw.net/click-100568658-13808570?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stellarinfo.com%2Fphoto-recovery-software.php Equipment used for producing my videos DJI Osmo Pocket 3: click.dji.com/AIOhqT-LWUFDq-bGk8hD4Q?pm=link Panasonic Lumix S5 II: amzn.to/3Hf5IcI Sony A6400: prf.hn/l/pRO0wp5 Sony e 24mm f1.8: amzn.to/2TqWNzk Rode NT USB mic: amzn.to/3AdHcUp Rode Wireless Go II mic: amzn.to/3xkCvGo Rode Lavalier Go mic: amzn.to/3ygzzKY Godox UL150 light: amzn.to/2VpVbXE Godox QR-P70 softbox: amzn.to/3yQfGdF MacBook Pro 14in (16GB / 1TB): bhpho.to/3HiafJL 00:00 - Sony F828 06:38 - Sony F828 battery FM50 08:43 - Sony F828 RGBE sensor filter array 10:35 - Sony F828 RAW mode 11:16 - Sony F828 Real color mode 13:12 - Sony F828 nightshot mode 14:13 - Sony F828 infra-red magnet hack 06:57 - Sony F828 sample images Music: www.davidcuttermusic.com / @dcuttermusic As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases

This camera was the future in 2003

Great overview in detail. I love my F828. I sell most of the cameras I try (just to save space, not because I don't like them) but the F828 I've held onto. Great to use normally, IR hack is a sweet bonus. The other thing I like is the pointy starbursts with the lens stopped down! That whole era of 8mp bridge cameras has some great keepers today. I think I've owned all of them at this point!

Wow, I remebered 640x480 videos looking much nicer! Although I watched them on very different screens :) Photos look pretty despite somewhat lacking dynamic range - guitars shot blew me away!

Can't wait to see the video about the R1!

Loving these retro reviews Gordon! I was there for all of it but only recently have begun to appreciate these cameras that I sold every six months to buy the new model that solved one of the many issues that every camera had a the time, mostly due to technological limitations. Now I am happy with my Canon 5Ds, Sony A7r II, and Olympus E-M1 (plus my film cameras of course ; ) These old cameras are just a nostalgic hobby. PS That full spectrum beach shot reminds me of my families faded 70s prints and hits me in the heart. The B&W IR conversion is fantastic.

Love these video Gordon! So many good cameras forgotten. Pentax MX4 is one of those I wish the design had stayed cameras. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks Gordon. Very thorough review.

Awesome! These shots look so much better than most current mirrorless cameras IMO. The colors are great and the images have character to them unlike the over-sharpened and sterile looking photos most newer mirrorless digital cameras produce these days. Love the "real color" mode. This would make a nice addition to my bridge camera collection.

I remember wanting the 717, but then got the Rebel when it came out. I also recall Nikon trying something with the sensor CFA as well. They used an CYGM array on the CoolPix 5000, perhaps others as well.

Interesting! I love these looks back.

Great in-depth video. I just got mine for 60 Euro, including the HVL-F32X flash. It definitely is my most special looking camera and I love the swivel action. APS-C camera's give better quality pictures, but this one is just more fun to use.

I remember lusting after this one, only couldn't justify the price. Settled for a 300€ cheaper Fujifilm S7000 instead.

Nice! Odd solutions and ir hacks created a innovative cameras, but the aps-c sensor dslr came with more advantages including better image quality and more lens options. Sony deserves a thanks for experimenting with their digital bridge cameras.

I still have mine, it still works, and I miss using it. I sold my loved and first digital camera, Fujifilm S5000 (which I used to beat-out a bunct of Nikon and Canon DSLRs back in 2004 for a calendar contest.)

This is great content dude.

Amazing video as always! Ive always wanted this model but after two years of searching with no results I've switched to the H series and found a H9 for really cheap on Facebook marketplace. It has a bunch of features similar to the F828 including the nightshot mode and the HAD CCD plus a tilting screen, sadly the full spectrum on this one requires a somewhat permanent modification, as you need to disassemble the whole body to remove a single flat going to the switch on the body XD but I love it nonetheless and would love to see you make a review on the H series. Thanks you as always for this amazing review and please continue with this series, I love it.

Wow great review! Thanks, I am gonna buy one now

Highly looking forward to your R1 review! Still remember the one you did with Chris Niccolls back in 2017.

Sony should definitely release something on that nature, is already old enough to market as a vintage design. And give us the infrared option as a feature instead of a hack. Photographers are an easily bored public, I think it would have enough interest to justify the product.

I've been after one of these cameras for a while but they seem to be popular on ebay and command a good price. You did well to find one for £40 even if it was a risk. Then you go and mention the R1, another camera I'd have liked to add to the collection. Looking forward to that video.

I once bought this camera on Amazon for 750 dollars. And it was a very big achievement.

Yes the F828 is a very interesting camera. Bought my first one new when it came out, and later SH ones for as little as around £35. The IR capability is good when used with a powerful magnet as it does remove limitations that Sony put into it. I would like to see a new version based on the design but with interchangeable lens. The ability to swivel the display for waist level use is very useful and its 28-200mm lens is very good for the time. It was the best of the 8meg cameras around at the time.

I use a 5Gb microdrive in mine. I have a few and tried to sell them on eBay, but no one seemed interested. It works perfectly.

Bought one when they were first available un the UK and kept it until the R1 came out. I liked the build and features but not the noise at high ISO and its inability to cope with specular highlights which gave odd colour effects. The R1 overcame these problems and I still have it. One thing you missed was the laser assisted focusing which was brilliant and I wish cameras today had it.

Gosh how exciting and brilliantly creative digital photography was when the whole thing started. Now we live in times when actual innovation or courage to forge anything new ahead has been replaced by nothing but endless boredom and lack of any sort of emotion or exhilaration. 20 years ago was fun, now is apathic lethargy and 20 years on there is not even photography as we know it any longer. This is a dying industry along with all other sorts of media creation helplessly on it's last sprint.. and it will be a wipeout. Either way the memories stay along with the images taken. And.. 20 years I said? Not even 5.

Can't wait for your take on Fuji s100Fs or s200EXR

I just happened to acquire one last month, excited to use it in IR mode

I did admire these but, as you say, by then I was eagerly waiting for the affordable DSLRs. Still a few years though before the tonality and dynamic range of any digital camera was actually comparable to film. I don't miss those muddy, flat colours and bone-white highlights. At the time even cheap Superia 200 looked so much better.

Exciting times ! All cameras today are boringly competent (some people are still arguing which is better) but I guess these days we can focus more on taking pictures, which is good, but definitely less fun from a technical point of view.

Great video. I absolutely love the F828. I've been acquiring a lot of vintage digital cameras recently and this is my favorite of the bunch. It's one I often grab as I'm going out the door. I like it so much that I grabbed a couple of spares when a good deal popped up and another for my brother-in-law. Other old cameras I've gotten include: Sony DSC-D770 (I'd love to hear your thoughts on this if you have one) / DSC-R1 (looking forward to this video) / F707 (my first digital camera), Nikon 990/995/8700/D200, Canon PowerShot Pro 1. I've also been collecting a lot of the accessories for these cameras, such as the conversion lenses. The Nikon 9XX cameras have a neat fisheye lens. The Sony R1 has a crazy system with huge telephoto & wide angle converters that require a mount to the tripod socket. It's not very practical but fun anyway.

Nice retro-review as usual! I would love to get my hands on one of these older F-series, but usually the prices here in my country are ways to high. I remember a classmate having this device. It was spectacular back then. Well, the pictures still look ok today if taken right. I wish Sony would make such cameras again. Ok, we have the RX10 series, but it seems they are a lot bulkier with their motorised lenses and so on... I wouldn´t mind manual zoom. BTW: Now with all these nightshot-able devices I´m eagerly waiting for your "Paranormal Activities: Brighton" movie 🤣

Laser AF Light! This camera was the "it" camera back then. I remember not being able to sleep because of excitement of getting this camera on my door next morning! After this they released an APS-C sensored fixed lens camera but I can't remember the name.

I had one of these, loved the design although prefered the earlier 717, I now exclusively use old Kodaks with EVFs, they have not attracted the intrest of retro camera users and are still very inexpensive, there were some really good ones (and a few with no merit also), loving the Kodak P880 and P712, oh and the Z990 from 2011 with a 12mp cmos sensor and 30X zoom starting at 28mm was good too (although had some quirks), bought one for £35!!

I was between this one and the konica Minolta a2... I got the A2... both were amazing

Now I want a video about that 300D and how it compares to prosumer bridge cameras at the time

I just snagged one on eBay. Do you have any recommendations on sourcing compatible CF cards or Sony memory sticks?

I had it once. Nowadays couldn't found the proper worked one. The same could be said to the R1.

As far as charging the battery, the Sony BC-VM50 is a stand-alone charger that will work! 100-240V, 50/60Hz input.

Still want to mention that CCD images are really special. My first digital camera was in fact the Canon Ixus 330 which in 2003 was able to shoot VGA videos up to 30min(?) Wow! 😂 and later a Fujifilm superzoom with a 10mp sensor before the foray into digital SLR, Canon 300D

I had an F828. Design was great, although heavy, but picture quality not so much. TIFF files took too long to write. I actually liked the F717 better as a package. That internal zoom magic and slighter faster lens. The F717 looked very futuristic. Never tried the DSC-R1, but I think I could have loved that one because of the APS-C sensor.

Any idea if any other cameras than this F series can shoot photos in IR night vision mode? I find that very uncommon. btw I just got f707 and its so strange and amazing!

I was still using my Minolta Dimage A2 several years ago, with 7x optical zoom and 8mpix 2/3" sensor. But I forgot the base ISO was 64. So I'm now stuck with hundreds of noisy 100 ISO RAWs from my epic trips. Fortunately new AI algorhythms for denoising help these days

I still have mine, and the battery still holds up. I still do infrared shooting on it. I love it and won't let it go.

Hello. Great content, I’m an owner of this amazing camera since I was a child, but now the sensor is a little bit finicky, every time I put the zoom, the colors aren’t real, and now I’m worried to loose it, do you have any ideas to fix it ??? Thanks for reading

Perfectly serviceable

I had to fight lust for this camera with soul crushing reality check of my financials, back then.

Exciting times, back then Sony always come up with something new that paved the way for others, now everything looks same.

this was my dad's dream camera before he settled for a canon powershot g6

Einfach eine GENIALES Fotoaparat!

I use mine with the adapter you have, but inside the first memory stick adapter I place another adapter that allows me to use up to a 32Gb micro SD card! I also notice that these jpeg images retain a lot more detail when cropping in on the computer, even compared with a similar photo taken with a 20.4Mp sensor. I don't know if that has anything to do with the RGBE sensor, or the way the software handled converting it to jpeg. I would think jpeg is jpeg, once in the computer, but here we are!

Hi Gordon - Finally an F828 video! Nice job. I recently ran across some photos I took out in the desert with the F828 back in 2008. They were much better than I would have thought - sharp, clear, detailed, with nice colors. I remember really having fun with that camera, taking it on many expeditions. The beast was built around that 8MP sensor and giant Zeiss lens. It inspired me to buy another one off eBay recently and play around with it. I also used to do quite a bit of IR photography with the F828 back then, but didn't know about the magnet trick. The photos are still very striking and beautiful today. I also used to modify other Sony cameras to do IR by removing the internal blocking filter and replacing it with flat optical glass, so it could still focus. These included the F707, F717, and P8. I got a couple of evocative B & W IR photos in national juried shows as well as in a photography book from that effort. I seem to remember someone saying the 4-color sensor helped with the naturalness of certain colors such as green? But yeah, it's a subtle difference.

Twisting body is a much better option to just a moving LCD in my opinion.

I went from the F717 (because I loved it) to the F828 but didn't feel like it was much of a leap or warrant the change. Touched the R1 and it's literally the one!

2 for the number of minutes I laughed at "memory stick lane" when it finally clicked

Nice find for that money!

I really wonder if the AV our in live view of the camera is better quality than recording video.

I think it would be cool to photograph birds with the infrared mode sense most birds have more colors and we can see.

I would prefer anybody to use the memory stick slot. Using several adapters to use a micro SD card is the best method for larger storage and fast read and write speeds. The CF card slot from my testing was slower on average and not to mention the biggest issue, the CF card door. The CF card door can become extremely sensitive to any push on it and will cause an error on the screen to pop up, instructing the user to open and close the door. I have no idea why Sony put a sensor on the door since the the follow up to this model, the R1, does not.

I still use F828 for IR 😊

That "twisty back" thing was ultimately neither here nor there and just a novelty which never caught on and ultimately rang the death knell for this quirky camera. Was probably quite good technically but just looked and felt horrible....hence the rise of the interchangable lens DSLR...which was the future right up until this mirrorless day.

If only Denis Villeneuve had known about the hack, he could have saved a pretty penny. Could you stretch that resolution over an imax screen?

Nobody called them mirrorless back then. I bought a 6Mp HP in 2002 then a 9Mp Fujifilm in 2006 with a giant manual zoom.

I remember that camera very well. It had the worst chromatic aberration (aka purple fringing) ever. From what I remember, the F828 it was quickly discontinued and replaced by the R1, which was a far better camera.

Nikon Coolpix 8400, 8700 or 8800 next!

Damm~~~ i recently took it from my dad's house.

So adventurous Sony. Now their cameras are not odd but top range high performers. So fun seeing these anyway. I love my 2 A7III cameras and the 6400 and NEX 5 I had and the the RX10 and A7II also. So Gordon fun to see how Sony did it in the day.

The camera landscape nowadays is so much more advanced, but also kind of boring. I love these older times when companies would try different stuff to get attention.

I have a DSC-V1 I would like to donate to you.

That video quality is Blair Witch level

I honestly feel those were the days when cameras were exciting. 🤣

damnn gordon you disappeared for 2 months

Lol Good buy.

★★★★★

share RAW pls

Lack of creativity in designs did make compact cameras boring and unexciting.

Everyone knows that Solarize and Sepia are the only real filters for true artists. Sorry Fuji.