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Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W230 Digital CameraEnter the world of digital photography with this impressive all-around performer. The DSC-W230 Cyber-shot® digital camera combines...
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Enter the world of digital photography with this impressive all-around performer. The DSC-W230 Cyber-shot® digital camera combines point-and-shoot ease with a host of advanced features in a sophisticated, compact body. A 12.1 megapixel image sensor and a Carl Zeiss® 4x optical zoom lens offer ultra-crisp shots and quality close-ups. Not sure which mode is best for your shot? Intelligent Scene Recognition automatically detects the surroundings and adjust the settings for you. Face Detection capture faces with natural skin tones, while Smile Shutter" technology capture a smile the moment it happens. To minimize blurry photos, Optical SteadyShot™ image stabilization is included for great-looking pictures. You can even hook your camera up to a compatible HDTV and show off your shots on the big screen in high definition.
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1 Review from Shopping.com
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Picture quality issue
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Pros: Big LCD for viewing pictures, low price, smiles detection
Cons: medicore battery, poor focus at high resolution, red and blue fringe around bright spots.
The Bottom Line:
I'm going to return this soon due to described issues and try a different model of Cyber-shot.
I got this one not too long ago because my old camera had quit working after about 3 years and more than 10,000 keeper pictures. I choose Sony based on past experience with them as they made long lasting, quality camera with long life rechargeable batteries. I've had the Cyber-shot line, started with a 1Mpix P30, then went to P70 briefly before I went to a nice P200. Both the P30 and P200 lasted more than 3 years before it started showing problems. Extended warranty? Pshaw these camera outlasts the expensive and useless extended warranties. The P70 I had was only for a year and I sold it to get the P200.
I thought Sony would continue with the quality... Unfortunately the W230 I tried failed on some points. First, the zoom button are rather tiny compared to past Cyber-Shots I've had. Second, if you use 8Mpix or 12Mpix resolution for still pictures, there are obvious sign of focus issue. It looks like a classic barrel distortion. This is on auto setting, only the middle area (about 30% of whole picture) looked OK at normal size on computer screen, that left a good portion that looked blurry. This is noticeable from 10 feet and beyond. I did not find any focus issue when using Macro mode on object less than 18 inches away.
I've gotten a bit less focus issue on manual setting but it takes time to get the picture perfect and I'd rather not spend 2 or 3 minutes trying to get perfect focus when the camers is supposed to get it done in a few seconds at most.
Also if there are any bright spots, I've noticed there are excessive amount of blue and red fringes around the spots. This kinds of ruin any bright outdoor shots. See http://personalpages.tds.net/~wilykat/w230_problem.jpg for sample picture showing focus issue and red/blue tint.
With smaller resolution setting or movie mode, these problem do not show up as there are not much detail in smaller resolution, so the problem are merely hidden at lower resolution.
Lastly, the battery seems medicore compared to the last one I had (P200). The last one I was able to get around 300-400 pictures (about 50% with flash) before the battery runs out. With W230 and its G series battery, I get maybe 50 pictures with 50% flash before I get low battery warning. I have yet to reach 100 constructive pictures (without flash) on one battery.
If you plan to take lots of outdoor pictures (picnics, travelling, families, sports, etc), skip this camera.
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