Point and shoot the Sony way! (Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W220)

Member Name: thebigc1690

Product:	Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W220
Date:	04/06/09 (393 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great features, good image quality and all at a great price .

Disadvantages: Only a couple (see review) !

The last camera review I wrote was on the fantastic Sony A700 DSLR and at the time I mentioned that Sony are still very new in the DSLR market, they are however very well established in the point and shoot market and the camera I am reviewing today (the Cyber-shot DSC-W220) is the latest in their fabulous Cyber-shot W range.


It comes in the usual range of colours (silver, black, blue and red, with a pink version no doubt on the way soon). It was only released in March so it is still relatively new on the market but the price has come down fairly quickly, having been released at over £200 you can now pick one up for around the £140 mark. This is the first budget range Cyber-shot camera to feature many of the settings that were previously only found in Sony`s premium range.


The premium features that can be found in this camera include things like Intelligent Scene Recognition, Dynamic Range Optimizer, Optical Steady Shot image stabilisation, Smile Shutter technology and HD output, making it a fantastically developed camera at a very affordable price. It also has a 12 megapixel sensor, a 2.7 inch screen and a 4X optical zoom.


For a budget range Cyber-shot camera this unit offers the user a very wide range of manual settings and can in fact almost be set up completely manually if the user has the know how or of course it can be used in Auto mode (cheekily known by some as idiot mode), so whether you are a first time user, a basic user, an intermediate user or a well advanced user this camera will offer the right choice for you.


I found the built in settings such as portrait, landscape, beach and fireworks, to name a few, worked very well and set up the camera almost as I would expect for the type of shots in question. When shooting portraits which I do professionally, I set up my DSLR with very similar settings to what this clever Cyber-shot camera chose and I was very impressed with the outcome of the shots I took using this particular setting, obviously not professional standard but to the naked untrained eye they could probably fool a few.


The premium features also work very well (well most of them anyway), the Dynamic Range Optimizer was particularly impressive, I have only experienced this once before in my Sony DSLR so I was not sure what to expect of this in a point and shoot but the results were very similar to those in the much more advanced and much more expensive DSLR. The Dynamic Range Optimizer uses a sophisticated algorithm to determine the best exposure and contrast settings for almost any shooting environment. The result is more natural images with clearer details that more closely match what your naked eye sees.


A good example of how the Dynamic Range Optimizer works is if you imagine looking at a piece of pure white card in sunlight, it will look pure white but in the shade it might look grey through the lens whilst the human eye adapts to see it white because the brain knows it should be white. Well the Dynamic Range Optimizer works as the cameras brain and tells the lens and sensor that this card should be pictured pure white and adjusts settings to make this so.


The only setting on the camera that I was not very impressed with was the somewhat gimmicky Smile Shutter technology, this to a professional photographer like myself is pointless and I would suggest as it does not work that well that it is pointless to most others too. Sony tell us that this setting will capture a smile the moment it happens but it basically detects any facial movement or change and if you are trying to photograph more than one person at a time you will soon get very frustrated with the results and turn this off.


The face detection setting on the other hand is a great setting that works brilliantly in DSLR cameras but in most point and shoots is a bit disappointing but not in this unit. Face Detection technology detects up to eight individual faces and controls flash, focus, exposure, and white balance to deliver accurate, natural skin tones with reduced red-eye, so if you are shooting people and want to get the very best results then this setting will give you just that.


This camera also has a high sensitivity ISO, most commonly found in DSLR`s, it allows you to adjust your ISO (film speed in film cameras), a high ISO allows for faster shutter speed, so you can take photos indoors or in low light without the need for a flash. The higher the ISO the more noise will appear in the image but where most point and shoots will only really be useable up to about 800 ISO this Cyber-shot still produces useable images at 1600, it can be raised to 3200 but I would suggest you want to avoid this as the pictures will be very grainy and even after noise removal in Photo Shop or the likes the image will not be able to be printed any larger than a tiny 6X4.


One of the most impressive thing about this tiny camera is the fact that the lens is a Carl Zeiss lens and it not only zooms 4X optically it starts at 30mm rather than 35mm allowing you to get a bit of a wide angle experience in your landscape shots which is a good thing to have even in a small point and shoot camera, it can really bring your landscape shots to life.
As well as all the shooting modes this unit also has an editing suite built in so you can edit your images right here in the camera before printing or moving them to your PC or laptop.


The imaging suite is limited of course but what it does, it does well and if you like to print direct from your memory card then it can be very useful for removing red-eye and fixing exposures that you have not got quite right and the fact that you have a 2.7 inch screen to do this on is great and gives you a decent image size to work with.


The looks, build and handling of the unit are also very good although the using of it might not be suite to someone with particularly big hands and fingers as the buttons and dials are all fairly compact. Build wise it feels very strong and durable for such a small unit and looks wise it is a very attractive unit as you would expect from Sony as they are a company renowned for good looking products, for me this unit looks best in silver but everyone will have their own opinion on that.


As with any camera, the most important thing should be the final image quality and not how shiny or nice it looks so what did I make of the image quality? Well I was very impressed with the majority of the 500 images I took over three days of use and the indoor portrait shots I took using it with professional studio lighting were fantastic. As well as those images I went on to take some outdoor shots at the safari park (which you can see if you are reading this on Ciao), these too were very impressive and look almost as good as anything I could have achieved with my DSLR.


Overall the only images that were a bit of a letdown were the ones taken in poor lighting, although this camera does offer the use of a high ISO and a super steady shot to prevent both blur and darkness in images, I found that neither worked as well as you might expect and therefore the images taken in poor light looked like exactly that. When I say poor light though I am not talking about just in the shade or the likes, I mean as darkness falls or in a poorly lit room and you can of course use the flash to combat this but beware the flash like any point and shoot flash will throw up its own problems such as red-eye when shooting people or animals and also things like hot spots and poor skin colouring, these however are symptoms point and shoot users just have to put up with and they take nothing away from how good this camera is.


The one last thing that makes this camera a winner is the fact that as with most Sony cameras, it uses a rechargeable battery unit rather than the dreaded AA`s, so there is no need to worry about spending a fortune every couple of weeks on batteries. A fully charged battery will allow you to take about 300 photos and can be recharged in under 40 minutes so you can spend more time snapping.


IMPORTANT SPECIFICATIONS

WEIGHTS AND MEASUREMENTS

Dimensions (Approx.) : W x H x D: 3 3/4" x 2 1/4" x 7/8" (95.2mm x 56.5mm x 21.8mm)

Weight (Approx.) : Body: Approx 4.2 oz (118g) / With battery and MSDuo: Approx 5.2 oz (147g)


HARDWARE

LCD : 2.7"1 Clear Photo LCD (230K Pixels)

Lens Construction : 6 elements in 5 groups (including 3 aspheric elements)

Lens Type : Carl Zeiss® Vario-Tessar®

Microphone/Speaker : Yes/ Yes

Viewfinder : No


OPTICS / LENS

35mm Equivalent : 30-120mm

Aperture Range : Auto(F2.8/F7.1(W), 2 steps with ND Filter) / Program Auto(F2.8/F7.1(W), 2 steps with ND Filter)

Digital Zoom : Smart Zoom / Precision Digital Zoom / Off

Exposure Compensation : Plus / Minus 2.0EV, 1 / 3EV step

Face Detection : Yes - 8 faces with priority

Filter Diameter : 46mm(with Lens Adapter)

Focal Length : 5.35-21.4mm

Focus : 9-Area Multi-Point AF, Center AF, Spot AF, Semi Manual Focus (0.5m / 1.0m / 3.0m / 7.0m / Unlimited distance)

Macro Mode : Yes

Optical Zoom : 4x

Shutter Speed : Auto(1/4 - 1/1,600) / Program Auto(1" - 1/1,600)

Smart Zoom® Technology : 8M:Approx.4.9x(Total), 5M:Approx.6.2x(Total), 3M:Approx.7.8x(Total), VGA:Approx.25x(Total), 16:9(2M):Approx.8.3x(Total)

Total Zoom : 8x


SOFTWARE

Operating System Compatibility : Microsoft® 2000 Professional, XP Home and Professional; Macintosh® OS 9.1/9.2/OS X (10.1-10.5)

Supplied Software : Windows: Picture Motion Browser Vers 4.2 (Mac not supported)


TO SUM UP

Overall I found this a great little unit to work with and I would be happy to recommend it to anyone in the market for a point and shoot, it does have limitations like any point and shoot does but in its price range it is highly impressive and produces high quality images in 80% of its settings. Battery life is good also and as I mentioned earlier it is a rechargeable so no need for further expense.


The manual that accompanies the camera is very clear and as the camera settings are very easy to follow anyway, you should have no problems in learning quickly how to get the best from your Sony Cyber-shot. Connecting it to your PC or laptop is also a very simple process that should take little longer than 5 minutes.


As with most point and shoots this one is capable of taking video clips but as I am forever saying in these type of reviews, cameras should be for taking still images and still images alone and the video quality in this otherwise very good camera further shows why this should be the case. This camera can be connected straight to your TV so you can view any video images you may have taken and also your photos should you wish.


The camera basically has everything you could expect from a point and shoot camera and then some, and as long as you are not intending to sell your images or turn pro any time soon then it will be a very handy little unit that will allow you to get the feel for a higher standard of photography than most point and shoots are capable of.


MY SCORES

LOOKS - 10/10

BUILD QUALITY - 9/10

EASE OF USE - 9/10

IMAGE QUALITY - 8/10 (falls to a 6/10 in poor light)

FUNCTIONS AND FEATURES - 8/10

VALUE FOR MONEY - 10/10

OVERALL - 9/10


Thanks for reading.

© thebigc1690

Summary: Simply great value for money!

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