Sony DSC-W350 14.1MP Digital Camera with 4x Wide Angle Zoom with Optical Steady Shot Image Stabilization and 2.7 inch LCD
Posted by brian | Posted in Camera Reviews | Posted on 03-06-2010
Tags: 14.1MP, 14.1mp digital camera, Angle, Camera, Digital, dsc w350 has it got black and white function, DSCW350, Image, inch, Lens, Optical, Shot, Sony, sony dsc-w350 14.1mp digital camera, Stabilization, Steady, Wide, Zoom
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- 26mm equivalent Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens with 4x optical zoom
- Capture breathtaking images in Sweep Panorama Mode
- 14.1-megapixel resolution; 2.7-inch LCD screen for easy viewing
- Capture your videos in HD Movie mode (720p); Optical SteadyShot image stabilization reduces blur
- Accepts Memory Stick Duo/Memory Stick PRO Duo/Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo (not included)
Product Description
The DSC-W350 captures images with amazing detail with its Carl Zeiss 26mm wide angle 4x zoom lens. Take breathtaking panoramas in Sweep panorama mode and review them on a 2.7” LCD. Record 720p high definition movies while Optical SteadyShot™ image stabilization, iAuto and Face Motion Detection makes taking great images in various conditions easy.
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Overall this is a great compact camera, I agree with the last reviewer. It has a ton of options, and several settings that simplify things (and take a more than decent picture) if you are a beginner and don’t want to mess with the settings. 720p movies is a great feature as long as your expectations aren’t too high. Resolution isn’t everything- you’re not going to see the kind of higher bitrate clean bright picture you would with a proper digital video camera or that you see on TV or anything, but that should be obvious with a compact camera where video isn’t the primary fuction. The image/coor/motion handling are still very good though.
Pictures are clear, great color, good performance in low light for a compact. My only real gripe is the “auto orientation” mode. It works in the camera’s display (rotates the picture to the orientation in which you took it), but the feature is meant to save this information with the picture so that when you download to your computer the images also display in the correct rotation. Now, I believe it IS saving the information with the picture, but it isn’t displaying them correctly in windows picture viewer (i’m guessing this is the case because the manual says that some software will not use the orientation information correctly and display as it should). I can understand that for ’some software’, but… windows picture viewer?! Come on… other than iPhoto or whatever it’s called on mac, that’s the only software people are going to be using to view their pictures! I mean- I know there are others, but realistically probably 95+% of people are looking at their pictures in mac or windows native picture viewing apps…likely far more in windows just based on OS market share…so seriously that seems like a pretty big miss to me, making the function almost pointless. And that was one of the features that I was using to narrow down my search, so…kind of a disappointment.
It’s still a great camera though, I can’t give it anything less than 4 stars.
Rating: 4 / 5
I’ve had this camera for a few weeks now and I’m still tinkering with all the settings so I know there’s more this camera can do. I’m just an amateur but I love taking pictures and am trying to use this camera not only for personal use but for artistic photography as well. My main comparison though is an old 7MP Cybershot DSC P200 so it’s better than that.
The good:
- The automatic settings work pretty well for me so far. I like the advanced scene recognition mode which will automatically take 2 pictures in lower light, one with the foreground more lit up and one with the background more lit. Produces some fun results(see customer shots).
- Decent low light pictures, not too much noise.
- Face recognition is great, it even picked out my dog’s face a couple times hehe.
- The panoramic feature is neat just practice using it a couple times to get everything in (or stop) right where you want to.
- The LCD screen is big and bright enough to see if the pictures are blurry or anything like that so that helps a lot.
- It starts up super fast, well I don’t have much to compare it to but it’s great for me. If something’s going on I can get the camera out and press the power button and it’s ready to go as long as I have it on the right settings before I turned it off.
- Light weight and very slim. Even in a case I can fit it in my small purse and carry it wherever I go. Sometimes I have to double check that the camera is even in the case because it’s really light.
The not so good:
- Washes out often. I took a trip to the park on a lovely sunny day and it seemed like every other picture I took was washed out. Also if I was even partially pointed towards the sun (not directly at it) I would get large lens flares. The flash really washes out the foreground as well, I’m not sure if it’s just because you can get so close to your subject with the wide angle lens or if it’s because the flash is overpowered.
- Can’t zoom in much. The 4x optical zoom is great but that’s as far as you can go at the full 14 MP fine picture setting. If you want/ need to zoom in more you have to go down to 10MP and then it gets a bit blurry.
- No zoom with the panoramic feature. You also have to just practice and get a feel for how long the panoramic is going to be with this feature so it may take a few trys to get the picture to start and stop right where you want it to.
- The power button is tiny and flush with the body of the camera. I have small fingers so I can usually press it when I want but I’ve had to resort to using my finger nails sometimes to turn the camera on. Someone with large fingers might have troubles getting the button to fully depress.
- Only pressing the shudder button halfway is sometimes a challenge. It’s very easy to accidentally take a picture when you were still trying to just hold it halfway to focus.
Overall for the price and for being a point and shoot it’s a nice little camera. I’m sure once I figure out more of the settings I’ll get some better results and the automatic settings have been pretty good to me so far. My complaints aren’t enough to make me want to take the camera back I think I just need to get used to it a bit more.
I hope this helps :)
Rating: 4 / 5
I had the camera now for two days. There is nothing really negative about this camera. The pictures are sharp, great colors, it’s easy to use, all important features are there and work as advertized. The display is great, the build quality is solid, it is small and lightweight. The objective with a 35mm equivalent zoom from 26 to 105 is great. I often found with my old camera that I can’t get all people in the picture and there is not enough room to back away to get a larger field of view. The 26mm wide angle helps a lot. In addition you can use the sweep panorama function. It works very good and is very fast. It just needs some practice to get good subjects beyond the usual panorama sceneries. Super Steady Shot is great.
So to help in a purchase I write about missing features. This doesn’t mean the camera is bad. For $200 it’s a steal!
-In camera HDR would be great
-No exposure bracketing mode (but you can shoot from -2EV to +2EV manually).
-Panoramas are limited to 1080pixel height x 7500 pixel wide. I had hoped to get higher resolution from a sensor that has 3000 pixel vertical resolution.
-No remote control
-Unfortunately Sony offers no waterproof cameras.
-Video is 720p max. 1080p would be nice but is not necessary either
-more colors would be great
As you can see it’s hard to find something negative about this camera at all.
The only negative I found so far is that the camera has one slot that takes either SD cards or Memory sticks. This means that inserting the memory stick is a bit tricky compared to older cameras that have only a dedicated memory stick slot. But it’s not a big problem either.
All in all highly recommended.
Rating: 4 / 5