Sony DSC-S70 Digital Camera

LCD

Although the Sony DSC-S70 uses a standard 2" (560x220) LCD, the image quality of the LCD is superb. Colors are clear and crisp and the LCD brightness is easily adjusted in the "Setup" menu. The excellent LCD is covered by a piece of hard plastic to prevent damage. The only downside to this is that the plastic is not coated with any anti-reflective material, meaning that use of the LCD in direct sunlight is very difficult. During testing we often found ourselves looking for shade so that we could review the images previously taken.

As nice as the LCD may look, we consistently had a problem with taking pictures with it. The problem is that the S70's rear LCD appears to consistently cut off some of what the camera is seeing. We found ourselves having to adjust for this problem by framing our image in the LCD a bit larger than we actually wanted the picture to be.

A second LCD, a black and white one, is found on top of the camera. Here, camera status seen on the back color LCD is reproduced for times when the LCD is off or the camera status icons are hidden. Below you can see that the top LCD displays a lot of the camera's vital specs, including image size, battery life, and more.

Some features, unfortunately, can not be controlled via the small black and white LCD. For example, when the camera's rear color LCD is turned off, the custom features and picture effects of the camera can not be accessed. And while a top LCD icon for focus mode, white balance adjustment, and image capture type exist, these features can not be enabled unless the rear LCD is on.

In fully automatic mode, the top LCD works fine, as it allows for various flash settings to be toyed with while also displaying the camera's vital signs.