Digital Trends

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300

June 30th, 2008 | by David Elrich

Features and Design

Don’t expect to be wowed by this digicam even though it’s available in charcoal gray rather than the traditional silver finish. However, the body is titanium instead of plastic so that’s a plus as the metal can take more of a beating than the typical plastic shell. Shaped like the proverbial Altoids tin, the –W300 measures 3.68 x 2.31 x 1.1 (WHD, in inches) and weighs only 6.4 ounces with card and battery. There’s no problem sticking this one in a pocket and having it with you anywhere and everywhere. I did just that during my tests.

The front features a 3x Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar zoom that extends from the body when you power up. This lens is equivalent to 35-105mm in 35mm terms, a very basic range; I wish Sony went a little wider (28mm) and longer (132mm). Alas no such luck. Also on the front fascia is a small porthole for the viewfinder, a rare thing in a point-and-shoot. There’s also an AF Assist/self timer lamp, flash, pinhole mic and several nice logos and decals. Clean, neat, sophisticated.

Three edges of the camera have metallic silver accents. On the top you’ll find the shutter and a tiny recessed power button that requires a sharp nail to operate. There’s also a miniscule speaker you won’t confuse with a pair of B&Ws. The rear of the –W300 is dominated by a 2.7-inch LCD screen rated 230K pixels. The LCD is decent but gets wiped out by direct sunshine so the small viewfinder on the top left is a welcome addition. To the right of the screen are the controls you’ll find on every point-and-shoot. On the top right is the wide/tele zoom toggle. Below it is the main mode dial that has a few things not found on other digicams including a smiley face. No you’re not in Wal-Mart but this is Sony’s Smile Shutter setting. With it the camera automatically takes a shot of someone when they smile so there are no worries on your end if you don’t press the shutter quickly enough. You can even adjust the type of smile that’ll trigger it (low, medium or high for a toothy grin).

Other mode dial options include full Auto and Easy which limits the parameters you can change plus cleans up the icons on the screen and makes the type bigger. There’s an ISO mode that defeats the flash and raises sensitivity (up to 3200) to shoot in available light. This is done automatically; you can only adjust ISO manually up to 400. The Hi ISO setting jumps this automatic boost to 6400 but drops the resolution to 3MP, a feature I wouldn’t recommend. Another I wouldn’t use is the Hi-Speed Burst mode that again drops resolution to 3 megapixels but lets you take 5 frames per second compared to a solid 1.9 fps at full resolution. Unless you’re shooting sprinters the standard frame rate should be good enough.

You’ll also find a setting for seven Scene modes such as Landscape, Fireworks, Portrait and so on. There’s an O.K. movie mode (640 x 480 pixels at 30 fps), Manual and Program AE. The manual options for a point-and-shoot will always less than a D-SLR but here you can adjust the shutter speed (between 4 seconds-1/1000th) and aperture (f/2.8, f/5.6, f/8). They’re nice options to have but I doubt if anyone buying this camera will use them.

Along with the mode dial there’s the classic four-way controller with center set button. The points of the compass let you change the flash, self-timer, switch to macro and adjust the display by clearing up the many icons. The camera does have grid lines, a favorite feature of mine. Around the controller dial are Menu, Home, Playback and Slideshow. This one is kind of weird where it creates an automatic slideshow with fades and dissolves plus you can even change the background music or download a favorite tune to use. We try this out in the Performance and Use section.

The bottom of the Made In Japan DSC-W300 has a metal tripod mount and a compartment for the battery and Memory Stick Pro Duo card slot (it accepts up to 16GB). There’s also a connection for the supplied hydra-headed output cable (USB, A/V). The camera also connects to an optional dock that offers HD out to your HDTV or you can get the optional VMC-MHC1 cable with component video and stereo audio outs to check out images on the big screen.

This camera comes with a bare bones outfit so you get the battery, charger, wrist strap and software CD-ROM—no owner’s manual or card although there is 15MB of internal memory in case you need to crank off a shot without the Pro Duo media.

Once the battery was charged and a 2GB card clicked into place, it was time to start shooting.

Image Courtesy of Sony