Sony Cyber-shot DSC-WX1

Sony’s new range of digital cameras and camcorder feature the Exmor R sensor and a bunch of innovative features that makes photography easy and fun for everyone. The all-black Cyber-shot DSC-WX1 is the latest compact digital camera by Sony that promises outstanding low-light performance thanks to the latest image sensor.

This slick camera weighs only 148 grams (with battery) and is about the size of a deck of cards. The most striking features are the 5x optical zoom lens with a focal length of 24 mm at the widest angle and 720p video capturing capability—very rare for a compact digital camera. Further the optics is complemented by an optical image stabilization mechanism and the firmware has a raft of fun features.

Features
By the user interface and feature-set the Cyber-shot DSC-WX1 is clearly targeted towards those who want something that’s compact and powerful but at the same time fun and easy to use. If you have a large group of friends whom you hang out with, you’ll love the 24 mm wide angle lens on this camera—you can easily capture them in one frame without moving away too far.

To give you a rough idea, you can shoot a person from head to toe from a distance of just 3 feet. Face detection and smile shutter comes in very handy while shooting people. With the smile shutter option enabled the camera automatically clicks the picture when the subject smiles. The intensity of smile can be set to slight, normal or big. So you choose between the three depending on how broadly you want the subject to smile. Unlike mega-zoom cameras that offer complete and partial manual modes, the WX1 is sweet and simple with just auto, easy and program mode. While the auto mode allows you to adjust the resolution, EV, smile detection sensitivity, face detection and so on, easy mode only allows you to set the image size to large or small and enable/disable flash.

The camera automatically detects the type of scene and adjusts the exposure automatically. So even if you haven’t held a digital camera yet, this camera won’t intimidate you. If you’re well-versed with parameters such as white balance, ISO settings, focus, metering and bracketing, you can switch to the program mode which is the most advanced mode this camera offers.

To make shooting in low light a breeze, Sony had added the anti motion blur and hand-held twilight modes. These modes ensure you get steady and well-exposed shots in low light. When enabled, the camera captures a burst of six shots taken at high ISO speed and manipulates them to give a single best shot—a very neat feature.

Next up, the scene selection mode has presets such as fireworks, beach, food, pets and twilight. A very useful preset here, is soft snap in which the camera automatically adjusts the aperture for capturing subjects with soft background. The most fun-to-use mode is sweep panorama. With this mode enabled, you simply have to hit the shutter release button and move the camera from left to right or right to left to capture a 180 degree panorama. The capturing and stitching is done automatically by the camera. The shooting direction can be set to top to bottom or bottom to top, and the white balance, focus and metering can be set manually in this mode.

The Cyber-shot DSC-WX1 can seamlessly capture videos at 720p (1280x720) at 30 fps which is very respectable for a compact digital camera. Exposure parameters such as EV, white balance and metering mode can be adjusted depending on the ambient lighting. Optical zoom and image stabilization are operational while shooting videos. So you can shoot videos even from a moving car without worrying about jerkiness.

The camera lets you show off your photos and videos in style both on the camera’s large 2.7-inch or a TV. In addition to the conventional in-camera image viewer, the Cyber-shot DSC-WX1 offers a slideshow mode with background music. You can choose between four music loops (two soothing, one techno and one rock) depending on the mood of your photos. Plus you can choose between four effects—simple, nostalgic, stylish and active. While the simple effect displays photos one after the other after the set time interval, the rest feature fancy transition effects.

The nostalgic effect displays all images in sepia tone with a soothing music playing in the background—nice for recalling those precious old memories. The playback mode also offers options for printing images (using PictBridge) and retouching images. There are built-in tools for cropping, sharpening and redeye removal—very easy to use requiring just a few button presses. You can access the playback mode directly from the off state with the press of a button. No need to first power up the device and then switch to the playback mode.

The camera bundles with a strap, common cable for transferring data and AV out and a 4 GB Memory Stick Pro Duo card. We wish Sony had included a carrying pouch. Nevertheless, you’ll never run out of space as you can shoot 80 minutes of video at 720p or 830 photos (10.2 megapixels) with 4 GB of bundled storage.