Sony’s 12-megapixel Cyber-shot DSC-W200 : the best example for the evils of sensor-resolution specmanship. Elegant silver ,makes a perfect addition to the sensible W series, even if Sony doesn’t offer a black alternative.It shares the same atrractive compact design and midrange feature set of models like the W80 and W90. The reasonably price for this compact models for occasional amateur, puts Cyber-shot DSC-W200 in the top of your digital camera priorities.

Almost nothing to complain about the 6-once camera’s design. Even if it has no area to rest your thumb, wich should be a problem, i’ve discovered a slightly indented mode dial that fufills this purpose without incident. It drives an advantage from small but manageable buttons.

As usual, we get what we expect from a premium-priced snapshot camera: its high feature set.
It benefits of Sony’s Super SteadyShot optical image stabilization, 9-point autofocus, and face detection.Although, there are some different choices from Sony: we can only enable face detection in full Auto mode wich is not even available in Program mode.The W200 also provides us with a fairly exposure mode, in wich you can select up to two or three aperture settings, that depends upon zoom but without providing a shutter-priority choice.

Desapointing is the the 2.5-inch LCD, wich has the same coarse ( 115,000 pixel model) that we can find in cameras at half of the price, with a verry poor off-angle viewing. Viewing in birght light is near impossible, the Brightness Up setting being practically indistinguishable from its initial state. The camera has a verry large optical viewfinder wich somehow supplements the LCD. The narrow f/2.8-5.5 35mm-105mm-equivalent 3x zoom lens being also a little bit limiting.
None of the things we havent seen on previews Sony models: the W200’s face detection works nicely by its power of recognizing multiple faces in a scene. Although it is a bit incnosistent, meaning that in a three-headed test setup, it would usually choose one, sometimes three, occasionally two faces, and a couple of times none,through the same conditions.
As about its shooting speed , wich is moderately well, from power-on to first shot it takes 1.6 seconds.Under harder-to-focus conditions, it takes a 1.3 seconds record. Unfortunately, the W200’s typical shot-to-shot time is a about 2.2 seconds, and if you enable the flash, that doubles the time, it goes up to 4.4 seconds.Though, its 2fps continuous-shooting rate compares better to its series classmates.
The W200 is verry satisfing, when it comes to image-related performance and image quality, because of its 12-megapixel sensor. Even that is physically larger than the 8-megapixel sensor in the W90, the pixels still remain insanely small, being the only reason for wich we think of for the W200 as simply incapable of exposing shots at ISO 100 that most snapshot cameras can handle without problem
I often found verry necessary to boost the ISO setting to at least ISO 400 in order to use a reasonable shutter speed (even if SteadyShot is enabled) while shooting in very bright sunshine. Theoretically, Sony’s Dynamic Range Optimization, which is enabled by default, should automatically expand the midtones to fix the exposures, but there is no situation in wich the DRO could help in a underexposed or high-contrast photo.Although , I took a variety of DRO/no-DRO test shots,i saw no affect whatsoever.
If you combine this with an increased focus problems heading out to the right side of the lens, plus aggressive 8-plus-to-1 compression(at a minimum level) for keeping those 34MB files under control,it becones simply too hard to get a sharp, artifact-free photo. Trying to get some decent shots, i’ve ended up shooting at ISO 200 and bringing up the exposure in Photoshop. After some adjustements,I got a few nice 12.5×16.5 prints. But this isn’t the main goal for someone who is looking forward to benefit from a such high-resolution camera.
The greatest part of this camera is that, W200, can capture some very nice 30fps VGA movies, even if you cannot operat the zoom while shooting.
In conclusion the W200 is just a medium camera, whos price is way over the limit, for what services it drives. If your looking for a compact snapshot camera that will provide great photos at a much reasonable price,feel free to browse through any model on our list of top ultracompact cameras wich will deliver better photos for those money.