Customer Reviews

Sony Cybershot DSCW300 13.6MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom with Super Steady Shot

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

To start things off, please. Do not listen to the reviewers who said that the lens is poor. The lens on this camera, when compared to the lens on the Canon Sd790IS, Sd1100IS, and SD770IS, simply trumps them in every way - from middle to the extreme corners of the image. The canon, however, becomes very blury toward the edges giving a kind of "motion" feeling - not the sony.

Some say the canon shots look for colorful and eye-popping. To achieve shots like this, simply go into program mode, adjust the image sharpness to "+" and the color mode to "vivid" and the pictures are the same, if not better. The sony outdoes canon here by adding in a Dynamic range optimization in three steps: off, normal, or extra. With this, the camera can achieve a great range of colors in both the highlights and shadows of a shot.

Where as the sony doesn't have the "color-swap" wiz-bang functions, it does have more usefull settings like the Extra High Speed Burst setting, which can take 5 Frames per second! I tested this with my dog rolling around in the yard, and at each frame the camera had shot at such a high shutter speed my dog was stopped in time with out any blur. These pictures are only at 3MP, but are still very respectable for a camera that can fit in your shirt pocket. Also, the camera has program settings to bring out different colors in an image to achieve a certain look. Either Blue, Red, Green, or your can change the image to warmer or color depending on the shot you want to take. The green mode is very usefull for macro nature shots.

Also - 13.6 megapixels may be to big for some people (roughly 5-5.5 MB's per image), however when you turn the notch down to 8M, Bayer Interpolation goes away on the sensor, and the picture quality, in good light, starts to approach starter level SLR's, when the noise reduction is set right. Simple do a search on Flickr for "W300" to see what i mean.

One small gripe though - you cannot zoom while recording video. You CAN zoom before starting the video, but once the camera starts recording you cannot zoom in or out any further.

I also purchased Soft Carrying Case (Genuine Leather) LCS-TWB for DSC-T100,T75 T70,T25,T20, W90,W85,W80,W55,W35 black with this camera, and although the case doesn't even mention this camera in the compatibility list (I believe this camera came out AFTER this case) the case works wonderfully with the camera, and makes the already exuding quality of this product feel even more classy.

P.S. -> Nikon Is going to use the Sony developed sensor in this camera on their upcoming "P6000" flagship advanced P&S, adding to the credibility of this camera.

To those that are blaming the lack of sharpness on lens quality... I think the lens is phenomenal considering the size of the sensor.

I myself personally own a canon 700 IS, and this camera as well. I have spent ample time framing the same shot with both cameras and changing settings on both cameras.

In my opinion the sony IS capable of creating very sharp pictures superior in both color saturation and exposure then the canon series. It just isn't as obvious to do it as the canon as the canons don't offer near the amount of manual options that the sony offers. They pretty much lock the consumer into making good pictures and the consumers think they're the greatest.

That said, even a digital SLR can take very poor/soft pictures if you don't focus correctly. Spot, scene, average focusing can cause lots of problems with sharpness.

To make the sony perform as a Canon series camera would, place the camera into the auto mode, enable the iSCN option (not iSCN+). No muss no fuss sharp pictures just like Canons with in my opinion more vivid pictures and realistic colors. At least compared to my canon 700IS.

Either way, both cameras are great, both cameras have their shortcomings as they are compact cameras, but every digital camera is capable of taking great pictures. Just have to spend more time learning about it and trying to get the best performance out of them.

I must start by saying that this camera (DSC-W300) is the first digital camera I have purchased. I have some experience with 35mm SLRs, but I wanted a versatile piece of kit that would enable me to upload pictures to the internet, print directly from the camera, and add images to my PlayStation 3 console.

The first thing I should note, and as indicated by the above comments, is that I think compact cameras are fundamentally utility devices. There are many people on the internet who criticise this model's unsuitability for longer-distance and wide-angle photography, and the lack of many video modes. On the first point, I would say this: compact cameras are designed for high quality close-up images (family and friends groups, primarily) and are not designed for vary-focal images (e.g., someone standing 300 yards in front of Mount Fuji and expecting both to be in focus perfectly). On the second point: movie modes on a still camera are a lovely bonus for a camera but are an add-on that should not be counted towards any final evaluation of the product. Sorry to sound snotty, but those are the basics.

So, does the W300 add up for the basics? Clearly, the Carl Zeiss lens is going to deliver on the bread and butter family snaps that is always going to be the brief for compacts. The 13.9 megapixel rating is useful, although the 8MP setting offers fantastic quality images that can be converted to 16:9 1080p for viewing on televisions. It is true that the .9 of a MP seems to have been lost in the implementation of actually taking photos, as the highest setting is the flat 13MP!

There are the usual ISO presets, automatic and night settings, as well as smile detection technology. Again, the brief of a compact camera has been observed well by Sony, weighing easy-of-use against range of use. This is again apparent in the neat Movie Mode: the 640 "fine" and "standard" image settings are perfectly acceptable for on-the-fly movies showing the drunken antics and practical jokes that are the stock-in-trade of the light-hearted situations that the W300 predominantly deals with. The MPEG-1 video format is also compatible with Windows Media Player and the PS3, among others.
The software that comes with the W300 enables the user to add their photos to a calendar on their PC, and even add location details for each picture via internet maps. The standard easy-to-use image manipulation features are there, again underlining the pick-up-and-play nature of compacts. Videos can be converted to WMV, too.

On the downside, the zoom is only x3, meaning for the occasions when it is needed it is not as versatile as, say, some of the Panasonic models. Secondly, the battery life is not quite what I expected (quoted in the manual at 150 minutes -with LCD panel switched on- for taking pictures alone), and the charge time for a full battery is a whopping 330 minutes. These are the only significant drawbacks to the camera that I have found thus far.

Build quality is excellent, as expected from a Japanese-made product. The LCD screen is more durable than I had expected, and its 2.7" size is more than large enough for viewing back and editing any images.

My first impressions of this product are very positive. As a compact camera the DSC-W300 is a very capable camera, with many of the intelligent design features expected from Sony. However, for those wanting a decent amount of zoom or other quasi-SLR features, it may be best to go for another model, or just take the plunge and go for an SLR instead.

After a week of owning this camera, I have been very impressed. The in-camera editing modes are actually really cool. Not sure that I needed 13.6 mp, but bragging rights are always cool. Screen has been very impressive, though I hate the half-second loading/refining delay when browsing through your photos --common to all cybershots-- though it's much improved over my old k790 cybershot. battery life has been fine. smile shutter is a lot of fun, but embarassing when it can't detect smiles (doesn't like detecting people with ugly smiles, or people with hats, I think). Movie mode works well, and the slideshow thing is pretty fancy, with different music choices, even! I miss the BestPic and landscape feature that I had on my last cybershot, though...

I've purchased a new Sony DSC-W300 camera just a few days ago.
I mostly take pictures of landscapes and architecture so I wanted some higher-resolution upgrade for my current Sony DSC-T100 camera to be able to take more details of each scene.

Sony states that T100 is an 8 MP camera and I believe it is not less, but definitely not more than 8 MP. It is important, because having read many critical reviews on the W300's predecessor - DSC-W200 I was concerned about the actual picture quality of the new W300 and did some comparative testing altogether with my current T100 camera.

My first impression on W300 - nicely looking well built ultra-compact P&S camera in a dark-grey titanium body which seems to deserve $350 I paid for it. Because the main reason to buy this camera was to have those 13.6 MP resolution, my further review is mostly based on that criteria.

Positives:
Looks and feels like a real Sony high-quality product. Has a good 2.7" display which you can still use even in a direct sunlight, however with less visibility than the T100's one in the same light condition. An optical viewfinder is a big plus - it is tiny and cuts a significant bottom part of the picture but might be very helpful on a bright sunny day and especially for the beach photos. The menus organized as the same way as in T100 plus several new features like the ability to choose the noise reduction level, to invoke the picture's dynamic range compression so you can have more details in shadows on the highly contrast scenes, contrast and sharpness adjustments, etc. The colors are great - as the same as provided by T100 but with slightly more saturation. I read many enthusiastic reviews on the Kodak cameras especially regarding their colors quality, so about a month ago I purchased their new 12 MP V1273 still camera with HD video feature. V1273 really could take the real 720p HD video, but the colors on still photos were far away from that Sony's level, so I just returned back that camera to Kodak. To be consistent I have to say, that the poster-size printing I ordered from Kodak Easyshare web-site of some pictures taken by my T100 camera were of a very good quality. The movies taken by W300 are almost the same good VGA quality as of T100 but with remarkable lower noise which comes at the cost of slightly less sharpness. The sensor of Sony's W300 camera seems to have the stated 13.6 MP resolution, but you can not really see that because of the low lens quality and here is where most of the problems come.

Problems:
The biggest issue of the new DSC-W300 camera is its poor lens which is a root cause of all its quality problems. The thing is - you can not take a full-size 13.6 MP pictures. At most wide lens angle (1X) the actual picture's resolution is not equal from side to side: it is high in the center with a big degradation to the edges in both directions. Imaging a circle in the middle of your picture with the diameter approximately 60 percent of the picture's width. The actual resolution inside that circle is remarkably higher than on the same picture taken by T100, so I believe it is around 12-14 MP, but everywhere outside that circle the resolution gradually degrades and near the edges it is noticeably less than of my T100 with its 8 MP so I could estimate it as dropped down to 5-6 MP. If you are to take a shot of a group of people occupying the whole width of your frame then I guess those on the sides would not be happy with their blurred faces in comparison with the ones in the center. On the other hand, if you take a full-body portrait of someone with the vertical frame orientation, then most probably his/she's face would happen to be in that relatively blurred area. When you apply the full zoom (3X) but NOT the digital one, the image resolution becomes equal across the frame and everywhere is lower than provided by my T100, so it looks like 5-6 MP on the whole picture. I'm not sure if it's exactly the zoom or maybe AF problem, but it is the same on different photos. And one more thing: when you apply zoom on T100 you can set any gradation you wish, but on W300 when you release the zoom button it does not stop immediately and continues changing on its own for a while so it hard to get the zoom degree you want. It is not mentioned in the camera description, but unlike T100 in W300 you can not use zoom while capturing movies. I would assume if Sony provided an appropriate lens like the T100's one then W300 might be one of the best P&S cameras because that picture resolution issue was one and only I experienced while everything else was very good.

If most of the time you take pictures of your family and friends, your kids and pets (not a big group) who are next to you (zoom less than 2X) and place them into the middle of your photos then kindly disregard the above mentioned issue - it will not bother you, and just enjoy the incredible picture colors and clarity provided by this Sony camera.

I bought the new Sony Cybershot for my husband for Christmas 2008. He had the older model of the same camera, but had many complaints. Fortunately, it seems Sony has listened to what consumers disliked about its previous versions and has corrected everything about it. (Given we've only had the camera a few weeks, but so far so good.)

Here are THREE major aspects we disliked about the OLD Cybershot and how they have been corrected (at least to our knowledge):

1.) OLD - The old Cybershot didn't have a viewfinder, and on a sunny day you couldn't see what you were shooting because of the reflection off the LCD screen.
NEW - There's a viewfinder! This was seriously my first criterion for buying a new digital camera.

2.) OLD - It could not handle photographs at nighttime. Everything always turned out blurry and the colors distorted.
NEW - the new, more user-friendly camera now has a setting which makes night shots a breeze. And the red-eye removal even eliminates red-eye for my blue eyes, which I rarely see the true color of in pictures because my pupils are always enlarged.

3.) OLD - The batteries went like hot cakes!
NEW - Now, the Cybershot comes with a lithiom ion battery which holds up well and it includes an easily portable wall-charger (NO CORDS!).

Overall, we are truly enjoying the new Cybershot. It's sleek, thin enough to fit in most pockets, user-friendly, and the picture quality is excellent with the 13.6 megapixels. We highly recommend this Sony if you're in the market for a new digital camera!

Of all digicams I have used, including Canon DSLRs, this little Sony did the best job at retaining highlights at standard auto-exposure settings in contrasty sunlight shooting situations. I don't agree with others' comments that the lens is "poor." The lens at mid-zoom and telephoto is fine. At wide-angle, though, the edges are noticeably soft; the center is okay. 13.6 megapixel is really overkill in this kind of camera. You can use the 8 mpixel resolution setting, have plenty of resolution for prints up to 11x14 inches, and get lower noise.

Given the list of criteria that matter most to me for a point and shoot digital camera, I seem to keep coming back to a Sony model as much as I try to explore the field when I'm in the market for a new camera. This time around as I was preparing to update from the Sony dsc-p200 I've had for 3-4 yrs, I wanted a more pocketable formfactor, optical image stabilization, closer macro focus, higher MP rating while maintaining at least the level of image quality I get from my current P&S, continued access to manual control of shutter and aperture and, finally, a wider angle + longer telephoto range.

Tall order it seems in the P&S category. At first I rejected the w300 because of its pedestrian 35-105 mm focal length, though it had everything else I was looking for, but subsequent investigation didn't turn up many other options that didn't offer some other tradeoff. When it came to evaluating the relative merits of the various tradeoffs I determined that the focal length wasn't my greatest concern, based on my photography habits. And where there are not remedies for the shortcomings of the other cameras I considered, Sony does offer the option of wider angle and telephoto lenses for the w300.

So the w300 it is and what a camera it turned out to be. Nearly doubling the the maximum resolution of my current P&S camera while not introducing any more noise to the picture, the image quality is superb. Fine details come through in lower light conditions where other 10+ MP cameras I tested would lose those details in aggressive noise. Color temperature is perhaps a little warm by default but easily manageable while framing the picture or in post-processing and isn't generally displeasing by any means. I wouldn't claim a trained eye for objective image quality but I know what I like and this represents the single most important factor in a camera purchase for me and the w300 puts a lot of others to shame in this regard. I've seen others mention that the w300 experiences some noticeable color fringing but I haven't seen it in the shots I've taken so far (600+).

I make heavy use of the burst function on my P&S cameras, so it's nice to have the expanded options the w300 has over the p200 - not that the newer options are out of the ordinary now in newer P&S cameras. In particular, the infinite burst shoot mode is fun although, besides needing to drop resolution to 3 MP for each shot, it also seems to degrade image quality. The burst modes generally perform well but occasionally stutter and seem a little less reliable than the burst mode on the p200 in that regard. Of course, this may have something to do with a higher volume of data overall while writing to the standard MS pro duo card I currently have (as opposed to one of the "Extreme" cards with higher transfer rate).

I also use the Macro focus capability of my camera heavily and I appreciate the ability to now focus as close as 5 cm. That would seem to be as close as I'll need to get to most subjects and any further cropping around the image subject in postprocessing will retain a picture with enough resolution to still make the picture suitable for larger printed shots, thanks to that 13 MP sensor.

I can't speak to the stuff like facial recognition and smile shutter as they aren't of primary interest to me and I haven't really used them other than in an in-store demo for my wife. It certainly handled a transition from a feigned grimace to a slight smile in smile shutter mode but that's all I can offer here.

I prefer the minimalist menu UI of my p200 and the other Sony cameras of the time, but the w300 is not alone among new Sony models or among other camera brands in bringing more flash and better than 8-bit iconography to the menu navigation system. There's simply going to be some adjustment required, so not a knock against the camera, since everything seems to be organized logically enough.

As much as I tried to make a break from Sony's digital cameras this time around, it still ended up being a Sony model that had the best combination of features that appealed to my photography tastes. I think the w300 more than holds its own among the top competitors in this class. This also seems like a respectably future-proof P&S camera unless something remarkable happens in optics in the next few years.

This is my third Sony digital camera. I started off with a Sony DSC P72, a 3.2 megapixel workhorse that used 2 AA batteries (that unfortunately drained pretty quickly...). That's when my love affair with Sony digital began. That camera provided me with some really memorable pictures and it's still gong strong. Currently being used by my daughter, but now that I've picked up the W300 my daughter stands to inherit my 2nd Sony digital a DSC W50, a 6.0 megapixel gem that I've had for several years and has given me so much pleasure. So when I started thinking about upgrading I started checking out other brands such a Nikon and Canon. I was primarily looking for another point & shoot because that is what I love...the convenience of a small camera that can be readily available to shoot my pictures. Now I'm not a professional wannabe in any way...and the Nikon Coolpix S600 was a camera I seriously considered but after laying my eyes on the Sony DSC W300 and that "beautiful" titanium finish it was all over. Now this 13.6 megapixel monster with all of the amazng features crammed into a svelte looking design was too good to be true! Now my brother-in-law had shown me his Canon Powershot G9 which I thought was a really fine camera but then again...I like slim and compact and especially Sony so when I saw this gem it was pretty much all over for me.

Now to what I like about the camera... for one thing this camera is good looking! It caught my eye right away and the titanium finish which is advertised as being scratch free is pretty awesome looking! This camera
is very similar to my W50 in a lot of ways so the learning curve was fairly minimal although I am still learning new things about it every day! The feature I really like is the "face detection technology" and the unique "smile" feature which works great!

Now the output of the pictures I've taken so far have been phenomenal! Like I said I'm not too keen on photography related terminology but I know what my eyes tell me and when I load these pictures onto my Macbook Pro they look fabulous!

Now this review is not as technical as what you would read on cnet or some of the other sites where this camera is featured and if you're looking for that type of review I would say go and visit those sites but if you're looking for an individual's assessment of his experience with this camera keep reading.

This camera takes great photos! It's feature laden...and looks great! It is fairly compact and in my opinion is a pretty decent value for what you get. Now with all the cameras out there sometimes it may feel really overwhelming to try to make a choice but because of my experience with past Sony digital products I knew that I could count on an overall fulfilling experience!

The colors are rich and true and the addition of face detection technology and smile have definitely made photographing people more satisfying.

As a recap, this camera is definitely a nice piece of work from Sony..

And as my daughter will be inheriting my W50..my dad will be getting my P72 which wlll definitely be a step up from his 10+ year old Epson digital....

We are a Sony famly...the products are top of the line and well thought out...you can't lose getting this great camera!

It's a good little pocket camera and meets my needs for an easy-to-carry camera with lots of features. I mainly bought it based on reviews from Amazon and have been satisfied so far. However, the usual description of "What's in the Box" was not there, so I unnecessarily ordered a charger for $44 just to be sure. There is one included with the camera. Maybe I can use the extra one when I leave the first one in a motel room somewhere.