Best small camera I have ever owned (Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W270)

Member Name: MrsE

Product:	Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W270
Date:	21/10/09 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use

Disadvantages: Price

I own what I call my big camera, which although great for quality, is too big to take everywhere. However, when my small Casio packed up after 8 years I decided to go with a Sony as my bigger camera (DSLR A200W) proved to be a great buy. After quite a bit of shopping around I decided on the W270 although it's a little bit on the pricey side I figured it was worth it. Thankfully I wasn't wrong!

Okay the first thing I noticed was the sleek design, it looks smart without too many complicating buttons to get to know. The screen is 2.7 inch LCD which is clear and bright (this setting can be changed so your display is bright, very bright or has extras on the display and so on). The camera was also very light and slim with the exact measurements being 56.6H x 97.6W x 22.6D

On to the techie stuff, this is the basic highlights of the camera:-

12.1 Megapixels
5x Optical zoon and 10x digital zoom
11 Mb internal memory
Wide Angle Lens
HD Image Capture
Face Detection and smile shutter technology
Optical Steady shot
9 scene modes

First off, I though I would give it a go without reading the manual. Never a good idea but I wondered how easy it was to use. Thankfully I managed to work most of the basics, however once I read the manual I found there were many things I could do that I wouldn't have worked out myself. My advice would be to read the manual in full first as it is very helpful.

There is an option to have your camera in easy mode which basically decides which setting it should be on, so all you need to do is point and click. However if you are feeling more adventurous you can change the settings yourself to various scene modes. I found that when you use the optical and digital zoom, when you look at the LCD screen when you are taking the picture the image looks slightly blurry, however once you have actually taken it the image is crystal clear. There are lots of quirky little features on the camera such as smile shutter which automatically detects when people are smiling. However after a little playing around I found it easier to do my own `detection'. There is a bizarre feature on the camera where once a photo is taken if there is somebody who is not smiling it can change that for you to make them appear as if smiling. The only downside to this feature is that it ends up making the person look slightly deranged! The video camera function on the camera is very good and not only has great picture as well as sound but is done in HD. One of my favourite features on this camera is the retouches you can do directly to the memory card. In the past if I wanted to crop an image, remove red eye or so on, I would download to my PC and then make the changes, but with the Sony you can do it directly on the camera itself, a very hand little feature. All in all a feature packed camera that although on the pricey side WELL worth it.

Also reviewed on Amazon

Summary: All round great camera

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