Two catches, actually:
First, it wasn't me, it was my wife (it's so great to have a frugal spouse)
Second, the camera was top-of-the-line... in 2001.
Our toddler smashed our trusty point-and-shoot that we've had for about 5 years; we weren't sure what to do because we are busy saving and didn't want to shell out a few hundred dollars for a new one; then my wife spotted a used camera for sale on a local mom's group. Turns out someone (probably a dad) just HAD to upgrade his ancient digital camera that barely did anything anymore and is totally out-of-date.
We looked it up and DP review (
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydscf707/ ) Back in August, 2001, they gave it a "Highly Recommended" rating, stating (my emphasis):
The F707 is a superbly capable digital camera. It produces high resolution, well metered and vividly coloured images. Its resolution chart (and real life) results are nothing short of stunning, with about as much resolution as we could possibly expect from a consumer level 5 megapixel digital camera. I just wish Sony had taken a more cautious approach to their image processing algorithms in regards to sharpening and colour saturation.
Sony are out to show some of the traditional photo manufacturers that they mean business, and the F707 is without doubt their strongest product to date. What I've not talked about yet is price, with a street price under $1,000 the F707 is priced very aggressively.
For our purposes, this camera works really well - the battery isn't shot; it's got decent (if limited) memory storage; it's got a nice lens so it takes better photos than our last newer camera; and it cost $35. The 'issues' I've found so far are that it takes longer to show you the photo in good resolution - you see a blurry picture first, then it gets clear (we're talking a few seconds here; but even though we grew up in an age where you had to wait days to get your photos developed, the delay took some getting used to since we're already so accustomed to instant preview). I'm sure there are other 'defects' to this ancient, outdated technology, but since I'm not aware of them, I'm happy.
Anyway, thought I'd share this as it's an example of how easy it is to get caught up in upgrading things these days, and how high quality objects become "junk" in such a short period of time.
