I bought this little camera recently from Amazon. Thanks for tremendous service and speedy delivery, Amazon.
The Sony DSC-W100 is terrific. It is very simple to operate. The menu system is well-organized and easy to understand. Inserting the battery and memory card is a snap. The Zeiss lens system yields incredibly sharp photos even at the automatic setting. The flash is pretty powerful,too! I took some shots in a rather dark restaurant, and the pictures came out really nice and clear. The macro function is superb with crisp, well-defined details at very close range.
The powerup time on this camera is fast as well as time between shots. There is very little shutter lag, and you usually get the picture you intended to get. Autofocus can be a little slower until it "finds" the target perfectly in certain situations. But this is no big deal compared to older digicams.
I like being able to switch quickly from viewing the pictures in replay mode back to camera mode by simply tapping the shutter release button lightly. You are quickly ready for another picture.
The camera is not miniature and weighs nearly six ounces, which is not extremely light--but is comfortable to carry or place in purse or pocket.
I also have a Canon Digital Rebel XT, and this little camera does take sharper pictures. Of course, you do not have the versatility of the SLR, but it is a great everyday camera to take along with you for all the shots you would otherwise miss. I highly recommend this camera and recommend purchase from Amazon.
Update: I have now used this camera in the video mode. WOW. It produces incredibly sharp videos with a fast frame rate that looks terrific on our television. A multi-purpose cable is supplied with the camera that allows USB 2.0 and audio/video hookup. You must decide what zoom level before you start shooting your video because once you start, you cannot zoom in and out. If you have a 1 Gb memory stick Pro Duo you can take about 12 minutes of video. I want to get the 2 Gb Pro Duo stick which allows almost 25 minutes of video. This would be ideal to take along when you want to switch between still and video shots and keep your video shots consistent and consecutive in order. You must use the PRO Duo stick for the high quality (fine) video mode.
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Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2006
Pros
Tremendous capability in such a tiny package. (easy shirt pocket)
Size and picture quality are the two biggest benefits of this camera.
Excellent control capability
Amazing flash 18ft no problem in wide mode
movie mode is good quality and lots of capacity
Memory duo is tremendous storage for its size
optical finder a huge plus for fash shooting with fixed focus
Fixed focus setting a big plus for fast candids
Long batter life!
Cons (or things I would like to see)
No RAW file option (not unique to w100)
No 2000 th ss in manual mode
f2.0 would be worth a small increase in size - not unique w100
zoom in movie mode
IS will be a huge bonus when it arrives in these high MP Ultra compacts.
Slow focus - common amongst tiny digicams.
If an optical finder is important to, which is very nice for bright daylight shots, fast composure with zoom, saving battery..., then this camera is one of the few at 8 MP ultra compact with the optical view finder. If you prefer using the LCD for composure, then the N1 with its huge LCD screen would be much easier to use, as the type font sizes on the N1 are huge vs. the W100...so if you need glasses to see small text, the N1 might be less cumbersome as you will probably not need reading glasses for fonts this big. The added cost would be well worth it IMO, as this camera you will not trade up for quite some time....
I marvel something this small can have such amazing photographic capabilities.... in my case, i wanted a camera (in addition to the 15 others I own) to fit in my shirt pocket that I can bring anywhere and have it not be a bother....and the W100 fits the bill perfectly. If you want an ultra compact, but desire some of the other features such as IS, then you often pay a bit of thickness penalty, often .5", which makes the camera much less pocket friendly.... hence why the no IS, but with massive flash capability is a nice mix for preventing blur.
Update after testing Jul 24/06
I have tested the w100 to see how well it performs at both ends of it's fstop range and the full range of ISO. I have uploaded a jpeg, as you can see in the customer images at the top of this page. The jpeg shows an "apples to apples" comparison for a
f2.8 ISO 80
f5.6 ISO 80
f5.6 ISO 1200
Having much experience at this, I would have suspected at f 5.6 diffraction would have really eaten into image quality. F 5.6 on this camera is equal to f22 on full frame 35mm. However, the image quality was quite remarkable. Remember, when you zoom, the fstop is no longer 2.8, it becomes f5.6, as the widest. I can go down to approx f10. Needless to say, the results were excellent.
Next at f5.6 and ISO 1200, I expected garbage... yet the results are surprisingly acceptable... quite impressive results. Remember these small crops would represent bigger than 8x10, which is really beyond what an 8 MP digicam should be pushed to...so on 4x6 prints, these differences would be barely noticeable. There was no secondary processing, images were straight out of the camera!
Bottom line, as PacoBell pointed out, I would agree this camera is an excellent low light performer as the higher ISO's do not degrade to the extent one would anticipate. Of course, I would not normally push the ISO past 800, except for extreme circumstances, such as tele mode and very low light where flash is not allowed. So whether in wide mode (f2.8) or tele mode (5.6) this camera can really perform. Of course, if you can avoid it, never shoot at higher than f5.6 fstop as diffraction will become noticeably worse... The camera was designed to fit right into the sweet spot of the aperture diffraction dilemna.
Make no mistake though, a good IS system would still gain you about 2 stops of hand holding shutter speed (ss) which is huge, so if you hand hold most of yoru shots, and can get the IS feature in a size camera that suits your needs, by all means, grab those 2 stops of free shutter speed! In the case of the Sony w100, it's mostly when in very low light and no flash is allowed will ss be an issue and your images may be compromised by hand shake. In most all other situations, ss should not be a problem. Each additional feature seems to add size to the camera....
Verified Purchase
size, features, price, optical finder and huge flash!
By funbear on July 21, 2006
Lots of good reviews, so I won't be too repetitive, here is the best of the highlights and the small shortcomings...By funbear on July 21, 2006
Pros
Tremendous capability in such a tiny package. (easy shirt pocket)
Size and picture quality are the two biggest benefits of this camera.
Excellent control capability
Amazing flash 18ft no problem in wide mode
movie mode is good quality and lots of capacity
Memory duo is tremendous storage for its size
optical finder a huge plus for fash shooting with fixed focus
Fixed focus setting a big plus for fast candids
Long batter life!
Cons (or things I would like to see)
No RAW file option (not unique to w100)
No 2000 th ss in manual mode
f2.0 would be worth a small increase in size - not unique w100
zoom in movie mode
IS will be a huge bonus when it arrives in these high MP Ultra compacts.
Slow focus - common amongst tiny digicams.
If an optical finder is important to, which is very nice for bright daylight shots, fast composure with zoom, saving battery..., then this camera is one of the few at 8 MP ultra compact with the optical view finder. If you prefer using the LCD for composure, then the N1 with its huge LCD screen would be much easier to use, as the type font sizes on the N1 are huge vs. the W100...so if you need glasses to see small text, the N1 might be less cumbersome as you will probably not need reading glasses for fonts this big. The added cost would be well worth it IMO, as this camera you will not trade up for quite some time....
I marvel something this small can have such amazing photographic capabilities.... in my case, i wanted a camera (in addition to the 15 others I own) to fit in my shirt pocket that I can bring anywhere and have it not be a bother....and the W100 fits the bill perfectly. If you want an ultra compact, but desire some of the other features such as IS, then you often pay a bit of thickness penalty, often .5", which makes the camera much less pocket friendly.... hence why the no IS, but with massive flash capability is a nice mix for preventing blur.
Update after testing Jul 24/06
I have tested the w100 to see how well it performs at both ends of it's fstop range and the full range of ISO. I have uploaded a jpeg, as you can see in the customer images at the top of this page. The jpeg shows an "apples to apples" comparison for a
f2.8 ISO 80
f5.6 ISO 80
f5.6 ISO 1200
Having much experience at this, I would have suspected at f 5.6 diffraction would have really eaten into image quality. F 5.6 on this camera is equal to f22 on full frame 35mm. However, the image quality was quite remarkable. Remember, when you zoom, the fstop is no longer 2.8, it becomes f5.6, as the widest. I can go down to approx f10. Needless to say, the results were excellent.
Next at f5.6 and ISO 1200, I expected garbage... yet the results are surprisingly acceptable... quite impressive results. Remember these small crops would represent bigger than 8x10, which is really beyond what an 8 MP digicam should be pushed to...so on 4x6 prints, these differences would be barely noticeable. There was no secondary processing, images were straight out of the camera!
Bottom line, as PacoBell pointed out, I would agree this camera is an excellent low light performer as the higher ISO's do not degrade to the extent one would anticipate. Of course, I would not normally push the ISO past 800, except for extreme circumstances, such as tele mode and very low light where flash is not allowed. So whether in wide mode (f2.8) or tele mode (5.6) this camera can really perform. Of course, if you can avoid it, never shoot at higher than f5.6 fstop as diffraction will become noticeably worse... The camera was designed to fit right into the sweet spot of the aperture diffraction dilemna.
Make no mistake though, a good IS system would still gain you about 2 stops of hand holding shutter speed (ss) which is huge, so if you hand hold most of yoru shots, and can get the IS feature in a size camera that suits your needs, by all means, grab those 2 stops of free shutter speed! In the case of the Sony w100, it's mostly when in very low light and no flash is allowed will ss be an issue and your images may be compromised by hand shake. In most all other situations, ss should not be a problem. Each additional feature seems to add size to the camera....
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