Sony Cybershot DSC-W100 8.1MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom

The entire software has malfunctioned since the day I got it. It glitches for almost 3 minutes before you can take a picture. Plus, the battery never says it has charged at all no matter how much you charge it. On top of that, the composite for the charging cable’s plastic protector is broken. Absolute rip off for the amount of money I spent, Would have been better off spending an extra $50 for a brand new one.

Photography afficionados have long had two choices when it comes to buying a digital camera: a tiny everything-automatic portable camera that takes decent pictures or a brick-sized everything-manual professional camera that takes fantastic pictures. Almost a decade after the introduction of the consumer digital camera, Sony has finally taken a swing at combining the best qualities of both worlds into one package, and the DSC-W100 is a solid first effort. Sony has had the tiny part down for some time - dimensionally, the W100 is on par with other recent Cybershot models and competitor brands' offerings, and features the now-common 2.5" bright LCD display with a minimum of buttons on the back. Aside from the attractive mini-diamondplate face and chrome trim, visually there's little to set this camera apart among the others at your local electronics counter. Initial toying with the camera doesn't dispel any first impressions. All the prerequisite automatic features are there, the buttons are smartly arranged so all the most common functions are right at hand, it's obviously a point-and-shoot camera. But it's when you begin to delve into the features that you realize that the W100 is something entirely different. The usual mode knob is there on the back with the Auto mode and Scenes modes, but now there's Program and Manual modes - something standard issue on professional cameras but radically new for a point-and-shoot. This means you can use any combination of auto or manual settings on all functions to get a shot. For example, shooting in a dimly lit room, you can use a slow shutter flash to even out lightning, or turn off the flash with a slower shutter for richer colors, or raise the ISO so you can get a steady shot with a higher shutter speed, or just put it in auto and shoot, etc. All the different possibilities previously reserved just for professional cameras are now at your disposal. The camera is as simple or as involved as you want, and it still fits in your pocket. I've owned several other digital cameras, both portable and pro, and they've all had somewhat manual features, but the W100 takes it to a new level. Mounting the W100 on a tripod, I attempted to get a long exposure shot of the night sky, something all the other digital cameras have done adequately. Manually setting the shutter speed, the camera displayed the overall exposure value as I adjusted - the camera was telling me before even touching the shutter button if the resulting picture would be dark, bright, or even. I set the shutter as slow as it could go and using the two-second timer, fired away. The picture was amazing; though only a few stars were visible to the eye, the W100 caught the light of well over a hundred. I noticed a bit of radial blur on the stars around the border of the image, only to realize later that the camera was pointed North - the shutter speed was so slow that I was actually *capturing the rotation of the Earth*. Now THAT'S manual. Also of special note is the W100's digital "Smart Zoom". As a general rule with digital cameras, you should disable the digital zoom feature, as zooming in beyond the optical range produces a cropped and therefore lower-quality image. But here again Sony has a trick up it's sleeve, by cropping from an 8.1 megapixel capture regardless of where you have the image size set. If you shoot a 5 megapixel-size picture that utilizes the digital zoom, the image is actually captured at a full 8.1 Mps and then your 5Mp picture is cropped from that. The result is an optically-zoomed clear picture. This also means that at the lowest image size, you can get a full 15x zoom (the equivalent of a 500+ mm telephoto - in a pocket camera!). It's an absolutely brilliant technique that you'll probably see on all future digital cameras. Sony still has a bit more work to do on the pocket SLR idea. Included with your purchase is an accessories catalog featuring an array of lenses and filters, none of which are compatible with the W100. It's typical of Sony to have a bizarre distribution of features in any given product lineup, but it would seem obvious that the most SLR-like camera should have SLR-like accessories. And W100 owners should disable the Auto Focus Illumination light when shooting people; the blazing red light is great for focusing on inanimate subjects, but could probably be used as a tactical light to blind assailants in a pinch. Overall, the W100 is a remarkable newcomer that truly raises the bar for what you can expect from a point and shoot pocket camera. Novices are accommodated with full automation, and can learn gradually by trying out individual manual functions while other settings remain automatic. And experienced photogs will be right at home with the Manual mode and wide range of settings. Five stars for what is hopefully Sony's work in progress.

I read a lot about this camera before I purchased it. Apparantly I didn't read enough. All in all it's a great camera. Pretty fast shooting, big LCD, 8.1MP, and easy to use. Shooting at night with the flash leaves something to be desired. The aperature it shoots at when the flash is on, f2.8, is way to wide for shooting in dark with a flash. Which means you'll see a lot of out of focus pictures unless the subject doesn't move much and you get a good focus on them.

I have just bought the Sony Cybershot w100 camera little over a month ago and I have only taken 30-40 pictures, I loved it and then it just stopped working, so I recharged the baterry, no luck still the camera wouldn't turn off or on. So Thankfully I had bought a 2nd backup battery charged it and tried the camera again. No it doesn't work it only makes a slight ding sound and shuts off. Basically worthless. It seems like it might have short circuited. But I was so excitted to buy this camera I read all instructions before use, I haven't let anyone else use it and it hasn't been out of my sight, never been dropped, never in extreme hot or cold, always well protected. SO I am going to try to return it or exchange it. I am hoping to get good service or I will be really upset for spending so much money and research just to take 30-40 pictures. Hopefully I can let you know if they stand by their products. Before now I have always been happy with what I have bought from Amazon