rorsteven's Full Review: Sony Cyber-shot® DSC-W70 Digital Camera
Updated: July 9, 2008 - Correction on low light performance
My wife has owned this camera for over a year. It has been kept in good condition and to my knowledge has never been dropped. Until recently it was a super performer. More on that in a minute.
The camera has some excellent controls for people who want to tinker with their shots (like me, an avid amateur), but can also serve the complete novice, like my wife [hope she does not read this!]
"High End" Features
One feature that high end camera users like myself would kill for is a real-time histogram display. Many point and shoots, including this camera have it! This display shows the overall light the camera is seeing. You can use this display to your advantage. A good image is usually one that has a nice "graph" from left to right with no sharp peaks at either the leftmost (dark) or the rightmost (light) portions of the graph. You can access the real-time histogram by pressing the |[ ]| button repeatedly. The histogram can also be seen when viewing pictures. This is a good thing because what looks like a good shot on the tiny screen of the camera may look awful on a computer, or vice versa.
Color Balance
This camera seems to take sharp, clear pictures and intelligently handles color balancing, saturation and shutter speeds. Color balance is harder to achieve than you might think. A camera has no idea what color "white" is - it just takes its best guess. The "white" light of florescent light is quite different from the white light of sunlight. A previous Canon point and shoot (S230) often guessed wrong and resulted in a strong blue tint in low light (cloudy) scenarios. The W70 seems to be pretty darn accurate.
Mode Dial
There is a dial at the back (mode dial) to handle a variety of conditions: beach scenes, portraits, high sensitivity with no flash, moon lit scenes and more. This dial changes more than just the sensitivity and flash mode of the camera, it also affects the white balance - in a good way.
Most of the time, leaving the mode dial on the "green camera" icon (full automatic) mode works quite well. That is goood news if you are more interested in taking pictures than becoming a master manipulator of camera complexity. No learning is required. Eventually, however, you will want to know how and when to use the other features of the camera. One nice thing about the W70 is that the display tells you something about what the mode means. The Sony display says things like "Bright Beach Scene" or "Pictures in Twilight Without Flash" or "Soft Portrait" as you turn the dial.
My daughter's Nikon Coolpix drove me nuts because the selections were difficult to distinguish. Was the "stylized woman with a hat" icon the beach and water, the person in shadow, or the portrait mode?
Manual Control
In addition, there is a "manual" mode (marked 'P') where some of the parameters can be tweaked - like selecting where and how to do auto-focus, ISO sensitivity, color balance, flash mode (red-eye reduction, or normal flash) and other interesting and sometimes critically important settings for those difficult shots.
Shooting with Flash
Using the flash works, OK, not great. Like most point and shoots, you will usually get washed out subjects if you are too close and poorly lit subjects if you are too far. Stay about 4 to 7 feet away for the best results. Because the flash is so close to the lens, you sometimes get harsh shadows and red eyes even with the red-eye reduction on.
Focus Accuracy
The auto focus seemed to always be "spot on". The exceptions are scenarios where you try to shoot something more than 15 feet away through branches or a fence, or when you try to get one flower in a field of flowers or against a more distant background. These scenarios are difficult for all cameras.
Zoom
The zoom is limited to 3x. Skimpy for many scenarios, but enough to get some shots that would otherwise include unwanted elements. This is a trade off between portability and zoom length. This camera is the size of a deck of cards and easily slips into a pocket. More bulk is needed to house a larger lens for zooming.
Real Life Low Light Shooting
On July 4, 2008, my wife used this camera at the Chihuly (glass) exhibit and got better than expected results. She set the camera to ISO mode which turns off flash (not allowed in the museum) and turns up the sensitivity. Most of the images were well balanced. Some had surprisingly low noise (visual grain or snow), others were very noisy. By comparison my Canon 40D set at 1600 ISO easily outperformed the Sony point and shoot. I was surprised to note, however that the best of the Sony shots were visually on par with average shots from the Canon which costs 10 times as much. The worst of the Sony shots, however, were unacceptably grainy (noisy) and would require significant extra processing to make the noise acceptable. I should probably point out that the Chihuly exhibit has a very dark background, but the objects themselves are brightly lit - like a stage show would be. This is a different scenario from trying to shoot, e.g. indoors in a dimly lit area.Indeed I noticed that the shots in dim light were much noisier than those shot in the darkest areas.
ISO, Noise, Huh?
If I have lost you at this point by talking about "ISO" and "noise", perhaps this will help. ISO is the standard that defines how sensitive the camera is to light. Video cameras often refer to this as low-lux. The bigger the ISO number the more sensitive it is (whereas for video cameras, the lower the 'lux' the more sensitive it is). If you do not have a sensitive enough sensor you have to take a longer exposure, that is the shutter stays open longer when you press the button to take the picture. At some point the length of time the shutter stays open makes it impossible to hold in your hand without getting some "shake" and blurriness in your image. Even if you held the camera as steady as superman (or used a tripod), your subject may move and you get "motion blur". To combat this, digital cameras can increase their sensitivity. Unfortunately when they do this they usually get more "noise" (looks like "snow" on an old analog television).
Comparison with Canon S230
Comparing the photographs from the W70 to those taken with my wife's earlier camera, a Canon S230, I conclude that the older Canon has generally better color saturation. The Sony wins by a nose on focus performance.
Mechanics
This camera, as noted before, is nice and small. Self contained. Cool. It seems pretty ruggedly built and goes from "off" to "ready to shoot" quite quickly and smoothly.
The Sony has an OPTICAL view finder. This is great for a number of reasons and I would NOT buy a camera without one. Try taking a picture with bright sun on your display holding a camera at arms length and you'll see how much nicer it is to hold the camera still and close helps your shot.
BUT after about 8 months it developed a 'lazy lens cover'. When the camera closes two pieces of plastic cover over the lens to protect it from scratches and gunk. When you turn the camera on, the barrel of the lens extends and the lens cover opens. When you turn it off, it covers the lens. Unfortunately, the camera's lens cover stopped working properly. At first it wouldn't fully open. Now it is WORSE than useless. Why? If you use the optical viewfinder - which you SHOULD to get better shots - you will NOT discover that your lens cover has not opened all the way until you look at your shots.
I will need to replace this camera soon to restore marital harmony.
For sample W70 pictures, please see
http://picasaweb.google.com/WomensMinistryDirector/SampleSonyW70Pictures
To make an (unfair) comparison with Canon 40D pictures of the Chihuly exhibit see
http://www.flickr.com/steventheamusing/Chihuly
Picture Taking Tips
1. Fill the view with the subject. Most people try to include too much in the picture.
2. Decide what is most interesting element and make that 2/3rds of the picture. A common mistake when taking pictures of people is to have the person dead center with the lens pointed at their head. Try putting the top of their head very near the top of the shot and move so that they are off center 1/3 to the right or left.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 225 This Camera is a Good Choice if You Want Something... Flexible Enough for Enthusiasts
7-megapixel CCD captures enough detail for photo-quality 15 x 20-inch prints 3x optical zoom; 2.5-inch LCD display High Sensitivity Mode (ISO 1000) al...More at Amazon Marketplace
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