With such a broad variety of nice point-and-shoot cameras in this price range one gets to be picky, and a couple of relatively minor things is all that's wrong with this camera. I am a pretty big Sony fan and own, or have owned, many items from them - headphones, laptops, cameras, and of course, PSP and PS3. This one is a bit of a let-down. Not a BAD camera, just clearly not the best, and clearly not up to the standard of Sony quality and construction. Here's why:
- The marketing photos look cooler than the camera does in person. The rear of the case is dark gray plastic; only the front half is silver.
- The shutter release button is a small, low-profile rectangle. Every other camera ever made has a circular shutter release that protrudes from the top, making it very easy to locate without looking for it. This one is smooth and low-profile so it's not as easy to just blindly grab and shoot. I just can't fathom why they would have made a button that's harder to locate by touch...
- Untrue to Sony's standard, the body feels light-weight and plasticy. The buttons (power, shutter release, zoom) feel kind of loosely fitted not solid and firm. Very un-Sony-like.
- The flash is overpowering for subjects up close. Subjects across the room (or the room itself) turn out pretty good colors with flash on.
- The battery life is truly abysmal. I took around 50 test pictures and one short (<15s) video and found that a fully-charged, brand-new battery was completely flat dead. I'm hoping this was some fluke with the first charge of the battery or something, although I haven't observed that in other cameras.
But does it take good pictures?
Yes!
Focus works well even while zoomed all the way in. Image stabilization works brilliantly. Low-light images turn out pretty well - obviously you need a steady hand and it won't take a sharp picture of a crazy kid chasing the dog across the room with only table lamps on, but if the kid stops for a second, you can get a good pic. Colors are very life-like. In pictures taken outside, I got about 19/20 clear and sharp and the one that wasn't sharp was only because it snapped a second photo while I was taking the camera down to put in my pocket - so, essentially 100% sharp clear focus as long as you're pointing at the thing you want a picture of. Indoors I'd say about 2/3 of the pictures came out perfectly clear in very low, incandescent light with no flash.
It's so-so because of the aforementioned form factor issues and dreadful battery life. Taking good pictures is meaningless if the thing goes through 2 or 3 batteries in a single afternoon outing. I'll revise my rating up to 4/5 if in subsequent use I find that the thing has more acceptable battery life; but, fewer than 100 pictures is just crazy. On other point-and-shoot cameras, even some where there are complaints about battery life, I've been able to take 200+ pictures, half indoors w/ flash and half outdoor with zoom heavily used, and 5-10 minutes of video, and the battery still indicates full charge. This issue alone could be a deal-breaker for this otherwise OK camera.
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Revising the review up from 3 to 4 stars. Although the first use did have a fully-charged battery, the same battery, as well as the backups I bought, do appear to deliver a more standard, expected usage in the camera - several hundreds of photos over a couple of weeks. Glad that that was just a new-battery fluke! Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W570 16.1 MP Digital Still Camera with Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 5x Wide-Angle Optical Zoom Lens and 2.7-inch LCD (Silver)
This camera gives so much bang for your buck. The camera is a great size to fit inside a suit jacket, loose pants, or purse. The image quality is great and the panoramic view is impressive. The smile detection, a feature that will automatically snap a picture at the best moment of a smile, is a lot of fun too. This is the first time I've used a camera that had a panoramic feature that uses multiple shots to generate one wide or tall image. It worked very well! The camera has other fun features like a timer that only takes a picture once one or two people are in the frame. If you're used to other cameras of the same year, you may experience a slower shutter speed than you're used to, but believe me, that is a slight if even noticeable drawback. I would highly recommend this camera.
Pros:
This camera is terrific! I absolutely love it. All the features are great and it takes beautiful pictures.
Photos come out clear and the soft skin feature can make anyone look young and fresh.
Underwater pictures look great.
Very easy to manipulate.
Can connect to your television and display a slide show of your pictures and videos instantly.
The television and USB are the same cord, so you don't have to keep track of two different cords.
Blink detection, face detection and smile detection technology is very reliable.
You never get any red-eye and photo editing on the camera is very useful
Sweep panorama is useful
Cons:
You can't charge it using your USB
Night photos aren't very good and the flash often spoils pictures
Not good at capturing people in motion
Pictures take a bit long to display after they're captured
Memory card is sold separately
You look really ugly in night photos and light streaks come across the picture
I purchased this camera for my son so he could take pictures and movies of our new grand daughter and email them to me. The quality of the pictures and videos are very good even though he is using the lower quality imiage so they travel by email easier. The camera was delivered on time and in good working order. It's got a ton of features and is still small enough to put in a pocket or purse. Great value, great price. Thanks Amazon. - High Speed - Elph - Point And Shoot - Powershot'
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