Sony pulls out all the stops for its latest compact offering, as Phil Hanson discovers

Even if it didn’t have a Zeiss lens with a decent optical zoom range, or 12.1 megapixels or commendable build quality, there would still be one compelling reason to buy Sony’s Cyber-shot W210 compact: its dynamite user interface.

True, there are some very good interfaces out there that are intuitive and easy to understand, but the W210’s stands with the best in the business. Its graphics are so clear the photographer is left in no doubt about which feature is being selected and why. It’s a real boon to those who are new to using a camera and certainly is of no harm to the rest of us.

For example, turn the knurled mode dial and the generous 2.7-inch LCD screen reproduces a graphic image of the chosen setting as well as a written description. As a random for-instance: “Soft Snap. Shoot subject with soft background”.

BUT THERE’S MORE

The W210, which replaces the well-regarded W120 of 7.2 megapixels, includes features such as Smile Shutter and Intelligent Scene Recognition that are appearing on many compact and which, although it’s tempting to write them off as gimmicks, are actually very useful. It also has Sony’s SteadyShot image stabilisation.

For those yet to experience it, Smile Shutter automatically takes the photo of a group or solo subject when it detects a smile and can be adjusted to prioritise children’s or adults’ smiles. Here’s the neat thing: it really does work. Well, our test grouch caught it out a couple of times, but the percentage of keepers was high.

Smile Shutter also works with face detection that fine-tunes focus, exposure, white balance and skin tones. These results can look a little artificial but you can take that as either praise or criticism, depending on what you’re trying to achieve.

The Intelligent Scene Recognition automatically adjusts settings for a range of common and sometimes tricky situations like twilight portraits or backlighting. This is again a feature creeping into compact cameras and saves having to dial through a whole bunch of alternatives on a menu. Of course, it stands or falls by how well it recognises the scene. For the most part the W210 performed admirably.

YOU HAVE CONTROL

Most controls are arranged on the back, to the right of the LCD panel. These are principally two dials, the top one setting the various modes, the other for controlling the display, flash, self-timer and focusing range. Above these dials a small toggle switch zooms the lens.

THROUGH THE LENS

One of Sony’s pluses is its alliance with Carl Zeiss, among the world’s best known and best lens makers. The W210 comes with a 4x optical zoom Vario Tessar. It zooms from 5.35mm to 21.4mm, or 30-120mm full-frame equivalent. That’s only two millimetres shy of the 28mm that starts to put a smile on wide-angle enthusiasts’ faces, while the ‘long’ end is excellent for really tight portraits or bringing in action from a medium distance.

If the telephoto end of the optical zoom isn’t enough, the reach can be extended by digital zoom, with the inevitable lessening of picture quality.

A SENSITIVE ISSUE

The camera offers sensitivity of up to ISO 3200 but there’s a lot of noise and it’s a setting best used for must-get photos only.

CONCLUSION

The Cyber-shot W210 does a good job of handling most photo opportunities. Another nice pocketable solution for when you just want to point and shoot.

SONY CYBER-SHOT 
DSC-W120 – Specifications

Manufacturer: Sony
Model: DSC-W210
Effective Pixels: 12.1 million
Lens: Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 4 zoom, 5.35-21.4mm (30-120mm full-frame equivalent)
Monitor: 2.7-inch TFT colour LCD, approx 230,000 dots
Aperture: f2.8-f5.8
ISO: Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200
Shooting Modes: Auto, scene selection, movie.
Media: Memory Stick Duo (15MB internal memory)
File format: JPEG Exif 2.21, MPEG1
Flash: Auto
Interface: USB
Battery: NP-BG1, NP-FG1 rechargeable
Dimensions: 95 x 56 x 22mm (W/H/D)
Weight: 146g with battery

CONTACT

www.sony.co.nz

PROS

• Good image quality

• Excellent interface

CONS

• Limited manual overrides

• Body styling a bit run-of-mill

Design                      17
Performance             17
Features                   16
Image Quality           17
Value for money       16

TOTAL     83/100

This article if from D-Photo issue 30.

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