Sony Cybershot DSCW300 13.6MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom with Super Steady Shot | 
 enlarge | Brand: Sony
Category: Photography
Buy New: See price in cart
New (20) Used (1) Refurbished (1) from $294.95
Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 53
Color: Silver
Media: Electronics
Number Of Items: 1
Batteries Included: Yes
Floppy Disk Drive: None
Includes Software: Yes
Optical Zoom: 3
Digital Zoom: 2
Connectivity: AV
Display Size: 2.7
Maximum Focal Length: 22.8
Minimum Focal Length: 7.6
Maximum Resolution: 13600000
Has Red Eye Reduction: Yes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 3.7 x 0.7 x 2.3
nv:Sensor: 13.6 Megapixels
Size: 1/1.7" CCD Sensor
Movie Resolution: 640 x 480
Memory Included: 15MB Internal
Storage Media: Memory Stick Duo
Storage Media: Memory Stick PRO Duo
Movie File Format: MPEG VX
Optical Zoom: 3x
Digital Zoom: 2X
Combined Zoom: 6x
Focal Length: f= 7.6 - 22.8mm
Focus Mode: Manual
Focus Mode: Spot AF
Focus Mode: Center AF
Focus Mode: 9-point Multi AF
Focusing Range: W:Approx. 1 15/16"(5cm) to Infinity
Focusing Range: T:Approx. 13 3/8"(34cm) to Infinity
LCD Monitor: 2.7 inches
MPN: DSC-W300
Model: DSC-W300
UPC: 027242728905
EAN: 0027242728905
ASIN: B00153WWRK
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | 13.6-megapixel Super HAD CCD image sensor | | • | 3x optical zoom/6x digital zoom (35mm-105mm) lens | | • | BIONZ image processor delivers speed and precision | | • | Large, 2.7-inch Clear Photo LCD display | | • | Smile Shutter technology captures smiles |
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Product Description
The DSC-W300 includes a wide range of convenient features, including Smile Shutter Mode, which captures smiles the moment they happen. The compact and scratch-resistant titanium-coated body features an astounding 13.6-Megapixel resolution, 2.7" Clear Photo LCD display, Carl Zeiss 3x optical zoom lens, and Sony's Double Anti-Blur solution for crisp, clear images. In addition, it has Face Detection technology that optimizes flash, focus, exposure and color for up to eight faces, as well as Intelligent Scene Recognition that automatically detects five different types of scenes and takes a picture with the optimal camera settings. Lens Construction - 6 Elements in 5 Groups, 3 Aspheric Elements Focal Length - 7.6-22.8mm 35mm Equivalent - 35 - 105mm 9-Area Multi-Point Auto Focus - AF, Center AF, and Spot AF Shutter Speed - Auto (1/4 - 1/2,000) / Program Auto (1- 1/2,000) / Manual (30- 1/1,000) Aperture Range - Auto (f2.8-f16) / Program Auto (f2.8-f16) Filter Diameter - 74mm with Adapter Ring Color Modes - Normal, Vivid, Real, Black & White, and Sepia Red-Eye Reduction Self-Timer - 10 seconds, 2 seconds, and off White Balance - Automatic, Cloudy, Daylight, Fluorescent 1, Fluorescent 2, Fluorescent 3, Incandescent, Flash, and One Push - One Set Movie Modes - MPEG VX Fine with Audio (640x480 at 30fps), MPEG VX Standard with Audio (640x480 at 16fps), 320 (QVGA, 320 x 240, 8.3fps) Scene Modes - Beach, Extra High-speed Burst, Extra High Sensitivity, Fireworks, Landscape, Snow, Soft Snap, Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Auto Adjustment, Program Auto, Easy Shooting, Manual Exposure, Movie, High Sensitivity, Smile Shutter, and Underwater Flash Modes - Auto, Flash On, Flash Off, and Slow Synch Dimensions - 3 23/32 x 2 1/32 x 1 1/64 (94.3x59x26.8mm) Weight - 5.5 ounces (156 grams) Body only
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| Customer Reviews: Read 30 more reviews...
 Techno Geeks Review. July 14, 2008
Chris M. Reibold
52 out of 54 found this review helpful
To start things off, please. Do not listen to the reviewers who said that the lens is poor. The lens on this camera, when compared to the lens on the Canon Sd790IS, Sd1100IS, and SD770IS, simply trumps them in every way - from middle to the extreme corners of the image. The canon, however, becomes very blury toward the edges giving a kind of "motion" feeling - not the sony.
Some say the canon shots look for colorful and eye-popping. To achieve shots like this, simply go into program mode, adjust the image sharpness to "+" and the color mode to "vivid" and the pictures are the same, if not better. The sony outdoes canon here by adding in a Dynamic range optimization in three steps: off, normal, or extra. With this, the camera can achieve a great range of colors in both the highlights and shadows of a shot.
Where as the sony doesn't have the "color-swap" wiz-bang functions, it does have more usefull settings like the Extra High Speed Burst setting, which can take 5 Frames per second! I tested this with my dog rolling around in the yard, and at each frame the camera had shot at such a high shutter speed my dog was stopped in time with out any blur. These pictures are only at 3MP, but are still very respectable for a camera that can fit in your shirt pocket. Also, the camera has program settings to bring out different colors in an image to achieve a certain look. Either Blue, Red, Green, or your can change the image to warmer or color depending on the shot you want to take. The green mode is very usefull for macro nature shots.
Also - 13.6 megapixels may be to big for some people (roughly 5-5.5 MB's per image), however when you turn the notch down to 8M, Bayer Interpolation goes away on the sensor, and the picture quality, in good light, starts to approach starter level SLR's, when the noise reduction is set right. Simple do a search on Flickr for "W300" to see what i mean.
One small gripe though - you cannot zoom while recording video. You CAN zoom before starting the video, but once the camera starts recording you cannot zoom in or out any further.
I also purchased Soft Carrying Case (Genuine Leather) LCS-TWB for DSC-T100,T75 T70,T25,T20, W90,W85,W80,W55,W35 black with this camera, and although the case doesn't even mention this camera in the compatibility list (I believe this camera came out AFTER this case) the case works wonderfully with the camera, and makes the already exuding quality of this product feel even more classy.
P.S. -> Nikon Is going to use the Sony developed sensor in this camera on their upcoming "P6000" flagship advanced P&S, adding to the credibility of this camera.
Spend more time learning about your cameras... July 5, 2008
T. Duong (Dallas, TX USA)
21 out of 22 found this review helpful
To those that are blaming the lack of sharpness on lens quality... I think the lens is phenomenal considering the size of the sensor.
I myself personally own a canon 700 IS, and this camera as well. I have spent ample time framing the same shot with both cameras and changing settings on both cameras.
In my opinion the sony IS capable of creating very sharp pictures superior in both color saturation and exposure then the canon series. It just isn't as obvious to do it as the canon as the canons don't offer near the amount of manual options that the sony offers. They pretty much lock the consumer into making good pictures and the consumers think they're the greatest.
That said, even a digital SLR can take very poor/soft pictures if you don't focus correctly. Spot, scene, average focusing can cause lots of problems with sharpness.
To make the sony perform as a Canon series camera would, place the camera into the auto mode, enable the iSCN option (not iSCN+). No muss no fuss sharp pictures just like Canons with in my opinion more vivid pictures and realistic colors. At least compared to my canon 700IS.
Either way, both cameras are great, both cameras have their shortcomings as they are compact cameras, but every digital camera is capable of taking great pictures. Just have to spend more time learning about it and trying to get the best performance out of them.
Fit For The Job. September 15, 2008
Mr. H. C. Orr (Littlehampton, England)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
I must start by saying that this camera (DSC-W300) is the first digital camera I have purchased. I have some experience with 35mm SLRs, but I wanted a versatile piece of kit that would enable me to upload pictures to the internet, print directly from the camera, and add images to my PlayStation 3 console.
The first thing I should note, and as indicated by the above comments, is that I think compact cameras are fundamentally utility devices. There are many people on the internet who criticise this model's unsuitability for longer-distance and wide-angle photography, and the lack of many video modes. On the first point, I would say this: compact cameras are designed for high quality close-up images (family and friends groups, primarily) and are not designed for vary-focal images (e.g., someone standing 300 yards in front of Mount Fuji and expecting both to be in focus perfectly). On the second point: movie modes on a still camera are a lovely bonus for a camera but are an add-on that should not be counted towards any final evaluation of the product. Sorry to sound snotty, but those are the basics.
So, does the W300 add up for the basics? Clearly, the Carl Zeiss lens is going to deliver on the bread and butter family snaps that is always going to be the brief for compacts. The 13.9 megapixel rating is useful, although the 8MP setting offers fantastic quality images that can be converted to 16:9 1080p for viewing on televisions. It is true that the .9 of a MP seems to have been lost in the implementation of actually taking photos, as the highest setting is the flat 13MP!
There are the usual ISO presets, automatic and night settings, as well as smile detection technology. Again, the brief of a compact camera has been observed well by Sony, weighing easy-of-use against range of use. This is again apparent in the neat Movie Mode: the 640 "fine" and "standard" image settings are perfectly acceptable for on-the-fly movies showing the drunken antics and practical jokes that are the stock-in-trade of the light-hearted situations that the W300 predominantly deals with. The MPEG-1 video format is also compatible with Windows Media Player and the PS3, among others.
The software that comes with the W300 enables the user to add their photos to a calendar on their PC, and even add location details for each picture via internet maps. The standard easy-to-use image manipulation features are there, again underlining the pick-up-and-play nature of compacts. Videos can be converted to WMV, too.
On the downside, the zoom is only x3, meaning for the occasions when it is needed it is not as versatile as, say, some of the Panasonic models. Secondly, the battery life is not quite what I expected (quoted in the manual at 150 minutes -with LCD panel switched on- for taking pictures alone), and the charge time for a full battery is a whopping 330 minutes. These are the only significant drawbacks to the camera that I have found thus far.
Build quality is excellent, as expected from a Japanese-made product. The LCD screen is more durable than I had expected, and its 2.7" size is more than large enough for viewing back and editing any images.
My first impressions of this product are very positive. As a compact camera the DSC-W300 is a very capable camera, with many of the intelligent design features expected from Sony. However, for those wanting a decent amount of zoom or other quasi-SLR features, it may be best to go for another model, or just take the plunge and go for an SLR instead.
great camera June 17, 2008
Mr. X (Bay Area, CA)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
After a week of owning this camera, I have been very impressed. The in-camera editing modes are actually really cool. Not sure that I needed 13.6 mp, but bragging rights are always cool. Screen has been very impressive, though I hate the half-second loading/refining delay when browsing through your photos --common to all cybershots-- though it's much improved over my old k790 cybershot. battery life has been fine. smile shutter is a lot of fun, but embarassing when it can't detect smiles (doesn't like detecting people with ugly smiles, or people with hats, I think). Movie mode works well, and the slideshow thing is pretty fancy, with different music choices, even! I miss the BestPic and landscape feature that I had on my last cybershot, though...
great looking, nice pictures June 28, 2008
Petr Zemanek (Houston, TX)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
This is one sweet looking camera. The design is excellent. The built quality is very high. I have only taken a few shots with it so far, but they look very good, colorful and sharp. Image size is about 5MB at full resolution, so you get about 800 images on a 4GB card. I am using the Sandisk Ultra II 15MB/s card which works great. Recommended.
Updates:
1) the colors on the auto settings are not as vivid, but you can control that in the P mode - I set it to "Vivid" which works well outdoor but not so well indoor
2) if you shoot video, be sure to set it to "Fine" quality. The lower settings are not that good and a bit jerky.
Still happy and pleased, this one is a keeper
3) the battery life is not so great. It seems to be discharging while not in use. I recomend getting a backup one (np-Fg1).
4) still can't quite figure out low light shooting, but daylight pictures are amazingly sharp and vivid
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