Cameras: Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-WX1 Digital Camera – Review

New to Sony’s Cyber-shot range of digital compact cameras, the DSC-WX1 makes full use of its high burst-shooting speed to offer some innovative and genuinely useful features.

The WX1 is a small and lightweight offering, perfect for the pocket or ultra-miniature purse. Build quality is to Sony’s usual high standards, and despite its compactness the camera still feels solid. Unfortunately for the fuller-fingered, the controls are tiny, certainly smaller than they needed to be given the space available. Even I had a little trouble and I’m usually pretty good with such things.The real selling point of the WX1 is its high-speed capability, good for 10 frames-per-second in burst mode. This is particularly useful with kids or pets, if you don’t mind picking through 10 shots to find the one you were after.

Capitalising on its high speed, the WX1 offers an amazing ‘Sweep Panorama’ feature sure to hook landscape-lovers. To shoot a panorama you just spin the mode dial, select a direction to sweep in (left, right, up or down) and click. You’re then free to pan across your subject as if shooting a video. The WX1’s motion detector stops you if you’re going too wildly off course, but it’s pretty easy to pan a camera in a relatively level arc.

Images shot with Sweep Panorama come out as a single, very wide JPEG — there’s no stitching together of multiple images to be done on the PC. The quality of these camera-generated images is brilliant; I only found a few very minor stitching errors in the many panoramas I shot, most of which I could have avoided with greater care.

This is a brilliant opportunity for those without the time or patience for the multiple-image approach to shooting panoramas. Though some great software is available to do so, not all of us like to spend hours working with images after shooting.

In general, the WX1’s image quality is great, and daylight shots show off the camera’s low image noise and high dynamic range. Night shots are a disappointment, however; despite the camera boasting a dedicated ‘Handheld Twilight’ mode, you’re unlikely to catch those vampires on digital film without a few halogen spotlights. Nightscapes are too noisy to be of any use and party snaps aren’t good for much more than Facebook.

While it certainly packs some nifty features, the WX1 is priced well into the high end of digital compact cameras. Sony Memory Sticks are also slightly more expensive than the generic SD cards used by the majority of competing models, and unless you’re a Sony fan you’re unlikely to have a few spares sitting around. This also prohibits you from using some of the niftier accessories out there, such as wireless SD cards that transmit your images back to a PC in real time.

Overall the WX1 is a quality digital compact, perfect for anyone looking to shoot panoramas with the smallest kit possible. But if panoramas or high-speed shooting don’t interest you, then the WX1 is a pretty sizeable investment for an otherwise average digital compact.

HARLEY OGIER

Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-WX1 Digital Camera - Tech Specs

Effective Pixels: 10.2 million
Lens: 4.25-21.25mm (35mm equivalent 24-120mm)
Monitor: 2.7-inch LCD, 230,000 dots
Shutter: 1/6000 to 1 second
Aperture: f2.4-f5.9
ISO: 160-3200
Shooting Modes: Intelligent Auto, Easy Shooting, Program Auto, Sweep Panorama, Handheld Twilight, Anti-Motion Blur, Scene Selection
Exposure Metering: Multi-pattern, centre-weighted, spot
Focus Modes: Multi-point AF (9 points), centre-weighted AF, spot AF
Image Stabiliser: Image sensor shift (Optical SteadyShot)
Internal Memory: ~11MB
Media: Memory Stick Duo/PRO Duo/PRO-HG Duo
File Format: JPEG, MPEG-4
Flash: Built-in
Interface: USB 2.0, composite video out
Batteries: Rechargeable lithium-ion, approx 350 images
Dimensions: 90.5 x 51.8 x 19.8mm
Weight: 149g with accessories

PROS

• Sweep Panorama
• Great dynamic range

CONS

• Poor low-light performance

VERDICT

Offers some great features, but the price is a stumbling block

Contact

www.sony.co.nz

This article is from Tone issue 81. Click here to check it out.