With the prices of DSLRs and mirrorless compacts edging closer toward the 400 dollar mark, the market for compact digital cameras are not as profitable as they once were. Manufacturers struggle to find every possible way to reduce production cost to bring the retail prices of these little imagers as low as possible while maintaining their usability as an actual digital camera.
It would have been impossible to imagine a model like the DSC-W530, having a 14.1 sensor, usable high ISO sensitivities, 4x optical zoom with Carl-Zeiss optics to sell for anything less than 400 dollars just 5 years ago.
With compact digital cameras becoming obsolete as soon as they are released, Sony has attempted once again to maintain its position as a serious point-and-shoot maker since their Mavica days.
The W530, along with all of Sony's most recent W series, stands somewhere between Sony's entry level models and their somewhat advanced but expensive "luxury" models. Under the current W series line-up, Sony has the W510, W520, W530, W550, W570, WX5 and WX7.
For the past few years, Sony has been creating one ultimate point-and-shoot for each one of their W, HX and T series, stripping away certain premium features as they go down the price tags to finally arrive at some insanely cheap model made out of painted plastic for each one of those series.
So for the price of just over 100 dollars, Sony was able to retain some of the more important features from their most expensive W model, the WX7 on the DSC-W530, and they are:
1) Usable high ISO sensitivities at 1600 and 3200. Colors look a bit flat and the images look processed at these settings, but at least the images are usable for smaller prints. Please bare in mind that this is after all a point-and-shoot and not a mirrorless or DSLR with APS-C sized sensors, so I'm applying a very different standard here when rating the high ISO output of this camera.
2) Useful, good quality 4X Carl Zeiss optics and fast focus lock.
3) Punchy colors and very well balanced exposure, although dynamic range (the total number of levels that can be captured from the darkest point to the brightest point of an image, without clipping) is very limited.
4) Very elegant semi-metal chassis with brushed aluminum for the front.
5) Extremely thin profile with the extra small battery, weightlessness: this camera will most likely be able to sneak into a concert without you having to convince the bouncers that you are carrying a bar of soap in your pocket.
6) Generously sized 2.7" LCD screen with plenty of light under room lighting, just barely viewable under very bright sunlight..
7) VGA video recording with sound and Sweep Panorama.
8) Uses both Sony Memory Stick and SD cards (Up to SDXC), although this feature is nothing new but it's worth mentioning,
However, the wafer-thin battery has very limited operation charge capacity, and the camera seems to missing a few traditional controls such as creative mode selection (color, b&w, sepia, etc) and a "mode" dial to give you direct access to preset photographic parameters. Some basic manual controls like the W300 over the camera's shuttle speed and aperture were of course also missing, and due to the size of the camera, it is being operated and controlled by only a handful of buttons.
And here's a list of things that I did not like about this camera:
1) A Sony processor instead of a Bionz processor. Although I think there really isn't anything to shout about over the lack of a Bionz processor in the camera, since the Bionz processor doesn't really do that much in terms of picture quality improvements over a Sony processor. The Sony image processor for the W530 seems to be doing quite well in noise handling,
2) No sports mode (may also explain the slower than average maximum shutter speed of just 1/1500 sec). Difficult to freeze moving objects when needed.
3) No USB charging (Sony never had them though).
4) Super slow continuous burst. At 1 frame per second, Sony might as well remove this feature altogether.
5) No zooming during movie shooting.
But other than the few gripes above, I find myself enjoying the use of this camera completely. The camera is small, light and looks really good up close and shoots half decent pictures under most conditions. It comes with a USB / Video connector so the user can playback their shots directly on a tv.
At the end of the day, the W530s will most likely end up in your purse or briefcase for the simple fact that they are so freakishly small and easy to carry, provide butt-kicking images with punchy colors, balanced contrast at the resolution of 14.1 megapixel even at maximum ISO and the camera simply looks too elegant to be left in a desk drawer. The camera has its limits but as far as a point-and-shoot camera goes, Sony may have hit the right spot again in terms of beauty, afforabiliy and usability with the W530. Definitely worth a test drive if you are out there shopping for a compact point-and-shoot that looks elegant but cost a little over 100 dollars. Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W530 14.1 MP Digital Still Camera with Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 4x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom Lens and 2.7-inch LCD (Silver) - Lens Cleaner - Sd Cards'
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