Customer Reviews

Sony Cybershot DSCW130/B 8.1MP Digital Camera with 4x Optical Zoom with Super Steady Shot (Black)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My wife and I recently upgraded from our Sony DSC-P8 to a Sony DSC-W130. So far we are extremely happy. We shopped around quite a bit before settling on the new cybershot, and spent a good deal of time trying out other brands. In the end, the Smile Shutter brought us back to Sony. It sounds like there is no way it would work, but it really does. We have two young children that are remarkably hard to catch smiling. With the new Sony, all we have to do is turn on the smile shutter and the camera does the rest. So far, we haven't missed a smile with the 3 year (with teeth) and have caught a few of the 4 month old (no teeth). It makes a difference.

The other feature that has been great so far is the burst mode. With my old camera, the missing time between shot resulted in a lot of blurring. The new camera manages to focus each shot much better. We played around with some moving targets, and the pictures came out great. One major drawback of burst mode, however, is that you can't use flash. I took a bunch of pictures indoors and the quality was ok, but not great. The flash just turns off when you switch to burst mode.

The video recording is great on this camera. Obviously not camcorder quality or anything, but very good for what you'd expect from a point and shoot. The sound quality still isn't that great, but much much better from my older camera. It seems like it balances the audio in the first few seconds. If the first few seconds are loud, the whole video will be softer. If you start out soft, however, you bury the needle when it gets lounder leading to some distortion. You also can't zoom while in video mode - something they don't tell you.

The flash recharges after about 1-2 seconds, which is great. It also is pretty effective for long distances.

I like the menu configurations, especially now that I've had some time to play with them.

Picture quality is great, but I'm upgrading from a 2MP camera, so it probably wouldn't take too much to wow me. We took a ton of shots and were impressed at the level of detail when we zoomed in on our computer.

Overall, we are very happy with this camera. It has some limitations and problems, but for the money (and for being a point and shoot) it is great.

I love the point an shoot cameras made by Sony mainly because of the Professional Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens, that makes a huge difference when you compare this camera to a similar price camera from another manufacturer, in my opinion the picture quality of this camera is far superior then HP, Canon, Olympus, or Nikon.

Sony include the new ultra fast BIONZ processor in all their new cameras, this is a big deal when you take high resolution pictures and want your camera to be ready to shoot the next in no time at all.

There's a lot of things I love about this camera like: the animated graphical menus, cool metal exterior finish, big display, slide show with or without music, extended battery life, high sensitivity of ISO 3200, Super SteadyShot, and Convenient Photo Modes among others.

The Smile Shutter Mode does work but its a bit tricky when you try to use it on several subjects since you have to detect everyone faces for the Smile Shutter to work properly and this is not as easy as it sounds.

Overall I recommend this camera to everyone who likes a small size point an shoot, easy to use, that can take great quality pictures without spending too much money.

PD: I will add some customer images if you want to check out the picture quality

The smile detection feature is what sealed the deal. Its a great camera. The only warning is it holds 4 pictures without a memory card. I DID find an 8G memory stick duo for like $22 online so that should make it hold about 2k pics.
I didn't find the ISO pics to be too blurry... but I'm not a professional photog, just a mom :)
Anyhow, great camera, great pics. I recommend it based on the value.

I bought the DSCW130 to replace an older model Cybershot which suddenly stopped working. So far I love it. It's very small, but once I got used to the size, I found it very easy to use. The photos are crystal clear and there's practically no shutter release delay. Highly recommend!

This Sony Cybershot out performs similar cameras and is a great value. The photos are clear and crisp. The camera software and menus are easy to use and very helpful. I highly recommend this product!

this is my 2nd sony 130 in a month...the battery depletes power in 3-4 days even without use.....don't trust if going on an excursion w/o backup....returning again,.....great pictures/features but no power capability on a trip....going back to my old casio exilim

It's interesting reading about this camera, as one of the W series for Sony, how they come in pink, black and silver and its MSRP is $229.

But can it take pix??

I had an old Kodak digital, a 2 mp (megapixel) job and the shutter was slow, the shutter lag was horrendous, and low light, forget it. "I'm sticking with film", I said.

This Sony is impressive: A Carl Zeiss lens (top of the line German lens manufacturer), zoom control, "steady shot" capability for my nervous hands, a "smile shutter" to catch all those bright teeth, a 4X optical zoom, and can hit an ISO of 3200. Pretty impressive.

I use it a lot for short video clips but it's certainly not a substitute for a video-cam. And when you shoot movies, it eats battery juice very quickly. So take that easy.

The menu and home controls are pretty intuitive, though it took me a while to translate how to run through a slide-show or show people the pix I had just taken. The Program mode is pretty fair, though the flash always wants to shoot at the most awkward times.

And recently, I found the Fireworks mode! With a tripod, great for those summertime fireworks shows.

You can also play your slideshow with a musical accompaniment, but I'm not sure if you can upload your own music or not. Not a feature I'm interested in.

So yes, it can take photos and take them well. No substitute for a sharp pro SLR camera, but great convenience for pocket or purse or when you want to go out without a pro camera pulling your shoulder down.

Digital cameras have come a long way since my old Kodak 2mp!

The special features:
* Sony 8.1 Megapixel effective Super HAD CCD image sensor
* Carl Zeiss 4x Zoom (32-128mm equivalent in 35mm photography)
* Super SteadyShot image stabilization system
* Zoom-coupled optical viewfinder
* MPEG Movie: 640x480 VX Fine w/audio at 30fps (Memory Stick Duo Pro required)
* Auto, Program AE, plus 10 Scene modes
* Burst at 2.0fps (up to a max of 100 frames)
* Live histogram display in capture and playback
* 9 Area Multi-point AF; auto or selectable Spot AF point
* Face Detection technology
* "Smile Shutter" mode
* 2.5" TFT color (115,000 pixels) LCD Screen with Auto Brightness
* ISO Sensitivity: Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200
* Noise Reduction: Automatically cleans up long exposure images
* Built-in flash with Auto, Fill, Red Eye Reduction and Slow Synch
* USB 2.0 Auto-Connect to host computer
* Powered by Li-ion rechargeable battery
* 15MB internal memory plus Memory Stick Duo / Duo Pro compatible (up to 16GB)
* DPOF and PictBridge direct-print USB compatible

I purchased one of these for my daughter for Christmas. After checking it out, I decided to upgrade and get one for myself. I had an older Cybershot that I was very happy with.... just wanted a few of the newer gadgets, which are great. I highly recommend this to any one, especially those that just like to point and shoot.

This camera is so powerful and user friendly. I enjoy the fact that it tells you without you having to guess what each feature does by spelling it out on the screen.

I accidentally dropped the camera into a large mud puddle while riding an elephant in SE Asia. Incredibly, after about 5 days of letting it dry and very gently cleaning the exterior with a Q-tip (as I was backpacking I didn't have the tools to actually open the camera) it still worked great. There is a small amount of dirt stuck in the LCD viewing screen but that is nothing considering it was dropped about 12ft. and submerged in jungle muck for about 15 seconds.