Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W120

Reviewed September 2008

Characteristics

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W120 is a 7.2 megapixel point-and-shoot digital camera with a 1/2.5-inch CCD sensor and a BIONZ image processor.

Start-up times for the camera ranged from 1.66 to 2.04 seconds. Shot-to-shot times for images at maximum resolution were 1.15 to 1.40 seconds. Flash recycling times spanned 3.2 to 4.4 seconds.

Seven image sizes can be captured by the camera. They range from 3072 x 2304 to 640 x 480 pixels. Photos can be taken in two popular aspect ratios--3:2 (3072 x 2048) and in 16:9 (3072 x 1728 and 1920 x 1080).

Compression levels for pictures shot with the camera cover a spectrum from 2.0:1 (640 x 420) to 3.1:1 (3072 x 2048) [see compression table].

The snapper has 15 megabytes of internal memory and supports Sony's Memory Stick Duo cards. Still shots are captured in JPG format and video as MPG files.

A 1GB Memory Stick can hold from 313 (3072 x 2304) to 6013 (640 x 480) photos. The same size card can host 12 minutes, 30 seconds of fine grade video (640 x 480); 45 minutes of standard grade video (640 x 480); and three hours, 20 seconds of 320 x 240 video.

Shooting one minute of video at each quality setting revealed the following: one minute of fine grade video occupied 76.8MB of hard disk space; the same length clip at standard grade, 21.1MB; and at 320 x 240, 3.24MB.

What's nice about this point-and-shoot model, however, is that it has an optical viewfinder, which can be used as a substitute for the LCD when lighting conditions require it. Zoom movement is reflected in the optics. The viewfinder does have some drawbacks, though. It's small. It doesn't have a diopter to accommodate variations in the eyesight of its users. And it displays less than 100 percent of the image that will be in the final shot.

In addition to auto mode, six light sensitivity settings are available to the camera. They range from 100 to 3200. The higher the ISO number, the higher the shutter speed will be for a shot. That can be helpful for pulling off a shot in low lighting conditions, but the trade-off is the introduction of more noise into the image.

The camera has three autofocusing modes--multi, center and spot.

In Multi AF, a broad area at the center of the frame is kept in focus. That means that subjects that aren't exactly in the center of the shot will still be in focus.

In Spot AF, focusing is concentrated on a small area at the center of the frame.

Another focusing twist found in the W120 is face detection.

With face detection, the camera can identify up to eight faces in a frame and keep them in focus. The feature can be modified so that an adult’s face will be given priority over children’s faces, or vice versa, when the shot is taken. In addition to keeping faces in a frame in focus, this feature will automatically adjust exposure and white balance settings, as well as flash and red-eye reduction, to make sure that the best faces are brought forward in a shot. The technology can be foiled, however, by extreme lighting conditions, faces partially obscured by things like sunglasses and hats or less than full frontal mugging for the camera.

Three exposure modes are offered by the W120.

Center Mode will base the exposure of shots on a light reading at the center of the frame.

Spot Mode also bases the exposure of a shot on a light reading from the center of the frame but the area from which it takes that reading is much smaller than the one used in Center Mode.

Metering modes can only be selected when Face Detection is off.

It is recommended that Center AF mode be used in conjunction with metering modes that expose shots based on light readings from the center of a frame.

The exposure of a scene can be tweaked by using exposure compensation. That feature can be accessed through the camera's menu system. A shot can be underexposed or overexposed two stops in either direction. Exposure bracketing--where the DSC takes three consecutive shots at different exposures--is not available with this Sony model.

A number of scene modes are available with the camera. They adjust the exposure and other settings for a scene based on his character. Scene modes available are twilight, twilight portrait, landscape, waterside, bright white and fireworks.

The camera will take shots one at a time or in rapid succession. In rapid succession mode, the unit will continue to snap pictures as long as the shutter button is depressed for up to 100 images. The recording interval varies depending on the size of the images being captured. The larger the image, the longer the interval. When shooting a sequence of pictures, the entire series will have the same focus, white balance and exposure as the first shot.

Up to five sequential shots can also be taken with the camera's self-timer. When the self-time is activated, the unit will snap a picture in either two seconds or 10 seconds after the shutter button is depressed.

Another way to delay the camera's shutter response is with Smile Detection.

As with face detection, whether or not the technology works depends on shooting conditions.

The W120 has a full complement of white balance options. There are settings for sunny and cloudy days; for white, natural and day white fluorescent lighting; incandescent lighting; and flash lighting.

The unit has only 15 megabytes of internal memory, but the storage capacity for images can be expanded with Sony Memory Stick Duo cards.

A flat flash is built-in to the camera. In addition to three red-eye reduction modes (auto, on and off), it has four flash modes--auto, always on, slow sync and off. You can quickly toggle through the modes by pressing the navigation dial at the back of the camera at three oçlock. Flash range at the wide end of the lens is 7.88 inches to 12.8 feet; at the telephoto end, 19.75 inches to 6.23 feet.

Standards supported by this Cyber-shot model include EXIF, PictBridge, USB 2.0, Print Image Matching III and NTSC/PAL.