Sony Cybershot DSCW100 8.1MP features in simple, easy-to-operate digital cameras that are ideal for serious amateurs and photo enthusiasts. In the compact Sony Cybershot DSC-W100, that means 8.1-megapixel resolution for more detail in editing, cropping and making big prints–plus manual focus/exposure control for greater creativity and a big, bright 2.5-inch LCD screen for setting up shots and checking results.
With 8.1-megapixel resolution, you’ll be able to edit, crop, and make big prints that show more detail–and Sony’s advanced Super HAD (Hole Accumulated Diode) CCD design allows more light to pass to each pixel, increasing sensitivity and reducing noise.
The DSC-W100 incorporates a 2.5-inch LCD screen that gives you a big, bright view of your subject for setting up shots and checking your results–with a one-touch “Play” button that makes it quick and easy to view your photos.
An on-screen Function Guide text/icon display makes it easy to learn the camera functions that give you greater creative freedom to adjust color mode (including “Natural” for subtle colors and “Vivid” for more intense colors), sensitivity, brightness, and image size.
Helpful consumer’s review
Photography afficionados have long had two choices when it comes to buying a digital camera: a tiny everything-automatic portable camera that takes decent pictures or a brick-sized everything-manual professional camera that takes fantastic pictures. Almost a decade after the introduction of the consumer digital camera, Sony has finally taken a swing at combining the best qualities of both worlds into one package, and the DSC-W100 is a solid first effort.
Sony has had the tiny part down for some time – dimensionally, the W100 is on par with other recent Cybershot models and competitor brands’ offerings, and features the now-common 2.5″ bright LCD display with a minimum of buttons on the back. Aside from the attractive mini-diamondplate face and chrome trim, visually there’s little to set this camera apart among the others at your local electronics counter.
Initial toying with the camera doesn’t dispel any first impressions. All the prerequisite automatic features are there, the buttons are smartly arranged so all the most common functions are right at hand, it’s obviously a point-and-shoot camera. But it’s when you begin to delve into the features that you realize that the W100 is something entirely different.
The usual mode knob is there on the back with the Auto mode and Scenes modes, but now there’s Program and Manual modes – something standard issue on professional cameras but radically new for a point-and-shoot. This means you can use any combination of auto or manual settings on all functions to get a shot. For example, shooting in a dimly lit room, you can use a slow shutter flash to even out lightning, or turn off the flash with a slower shutter for richer colors, or raise the ISO so you can get a steady shot with a higher shutter speed, or just put it in auto and shoot, etc. All the different possibilities previously reserved just for professional cameras are now at your disposal. The camera is as simple or as involved as you want, and it still fits in your pocket.
I’ve owned several other digital cameras, both portable and pro, and they’ve all had somewhat manual features, but the W100 takes it to a new level. Mounting the W100 on a tripod, I attempted to get a long exposure shot of the night sky, something all the other digital cameras have done adequately. Manually setting the shutter speed, the camera displayed the overall exposure value as I adjusted – the camera was telling me before even touching the shutter button if the resulting picture would be dark, bright, or even. I set the shutter as slow as it could go and using the two-second timer, fired away. The picture was amazing; though only a few stars were visible to the eye, the W100 caught the light of well over a hundred. I noticed a bit of radial blur on the stars around the border of the image, only to realize later that the camera was pointed North – the shutter speed was so slow that I was actually *capturing the rotation of the Earth*. Now THAT’S manual.
