Sony DSCW800/B 20.1 MP Digital Camera (Black)

I am an amateur photographer and own three dslr cameras with a selection of lenses. However that collection does not eliminate the need for a handy item for just daily needs. I keep this one especially in my car’s glove box as a reserve for occasions which require something better than my cell phone camera. For that purpose it meets my expectations and even exceeds it. Yet, this is still a snap shot device with a relatively low price tag and therefore a dslr level quality (like background blurring, high shutter speed, high level of low light performance etc.)should not be expected.

Pros:

-lightweight slim and stylish design: it can fit in small spaces and look and feel like a high quality item.

-usb charging ability: that is one of the selling points for me. I keep it in my car and i don’t want to run out of power any time or go through the hassle of removing the battery and charging it separately ,which requires carrying the charging adapter all the time and also the ability to plug in that adapter. Instead. All i do is to connect it to my 12v car usb charger and it pretty quickly accumulates good amount of charge level… It comes with a wall adapter (5v 0.5a) which connects to a detachable usb cable (so you can use the cable and attach it to any usb charger). But be careful about the usb cable. The standard usb-micro b cable that charges most mobile devices do not work for this type. If you need a replacement or an extra you need to buy a usb-uc e6 cable.

-easy menu mode: practicality should be the main focus in a snapshot device and even my grandfather could get through this menu. One of the most user-friendly interfaces i have seen so far.

-panoramic shoot ability: that was a surprise for me. I had not read the product description in detail before buying and that was such a handy function. I used to take panoramic photos by taking tens of photos with my dslr and stiching them with a software which was both difficult and time consuming. This function does it instantly and produces comparable quality photos.

-5x optical zoom: when it comes to zooming, in photographic terms, the less is often more. The best lenses even come with no zoom at all. However for a practical item like this, zoom is essential and 5x is a good range for the optical zoom (it is also critical that you compare the optical zoom capacities of devices and not the digital zoom before making a judgement.)

-image quality: as i said above, it does not match the quality of a dslr and i don’t care about the high pixel size either. For cameras with small sensor sizes like snapshots, it is actually better to get a low mp device for sharper images, but this one not bad at all especially in daylight. Hd video quality is also good but again depends on the light…

-price: the $78 price tag as of august 2014 makes it one of the most affordable snapshot cameras in the market. You can get better deals from time to time but this is quite appealing too.

Cons:

-low light performance: again, i want to stress that i am not expecting professional quality from this device, but i found the low light performance moderate at best. The noise was somewhat irritating even with flash.

-slow shutter speed: it has a continuous shooting mode which is supposed to take multiple frames in a short time as long as the shutter button is depressed. However this device has a long long refractory period between shoots that it is not even worth bothering with that mode. You need to decrease the image quality 3 steps to be able to notice some multiple shooting effect and that is not worth it. So if you wish to take a photo of a flying bird or a running person or a passing by car, you don’t have much choice to take multiple photos and decide later.

-zoom buttons: i like the zoom to be a ring style beneath the shutter button but this is like a plus and minus at the back which is not very convenient.

-no optical viewfinder: this is not a problem for this model only. Most recent cameras sacrifice from an optical viewfinder and all you get is a digital image on the screen to help you adjust your photo before taking it. First of all it does not give the sense of taking a photo but more importantly digital screen viewfinder drains battery and also performs bad in bright light.

-video focusing sound: while recording video of a closely located object (where there is a constant need to re-adjust autofocusing) and if the surrounding is silent, you can hear the sound of focus adjustments in your recording. But as i said that is only obvious in full silence and for short distance recordings.

Overall you like it or not depends on your expectations. For me it is a handy and adequately performing device with quite useful features. I am happy with this purchase

I am not a professional, but take a lot of pictures for personnel use, both at home and traveling. I like the smaller point and shoot cameras which can be carried in my pocket or a small case on my blet. My previous two cameras were high dollar point and shoot, but too complicated to operate quickly even on ia. The screens were touch screens which is not conducive to carrying in the pocket. Also my previous two cameras had the fan type shutter which began sticking after only a few months use until they both finally stuck at half open.
Although i have had the dscw800 sony for less than two months, it has met all my expectations. It is light weight, easy to operate, takes excellent outdoor pictures, and thin enough to carry in my shirt pocket. There is a two or three second delay between pictures. I have had no issues with the battery. My one recommendation is to install the wrist strap and use it. Maintaining a safe grip on this small camera could be a problem, especially if damp with moisture.

I really like this camera, though i think there is some room for improvement. It takes very nice still photos, which according to my linux box are 19.9 mp. Weird, but nothing to complain about.

My personal rationale: things seem to be hit or miss, but for my general purpose it is not bad. I was going to buy a new phone, e.g. Lg g4, to record my exploits into the mountains. The htc one m8 camera is pretty weak. But i got this instead. Two devices is less than one in this case, but it’s not so bad and saving $500 never hurts. So i bought my first dedicated camera.

Ergonomics: the size is quite nice as it easily fits in my pocket for long hikes and other outdoor activities. I love the inclusion of a usb standardized charging port, as it makes things a lot easier. I don’t know why sony didn’t make it a micro usb like most other mobile products these days, but whatever. One extra cable, but having the device be chargeable via a portable battery bank is very nice. Also includes a standard sd card slot, which i would strongly recommend adding to your cart. Internal storage is not sufficient unless you take 3 photos and visit a computer. The size of the maximum quality photos are about 7.5 mb.

Screen: essentially worthless. There is no way to measure the quality of the photos through the built in display, aside from tremendous blurriness. Take to your nearest hd monitor to gain better appreciation…

Photos: i went on a small hike to test this out before a much larger one and attached a few photos. My opinions are that outdoor photos come out quite nice, but zooming in on regions makes them quite grainy. I analyzed merely with my eyes and a 4k monitor, which may lack professionalism for some. Nevertheless, i don’t really see much reason to complain. A minor gripe is that they shoot in 4:3 aspect ratio vs 16:9.

Indoor photos are much more variable. I have taken a few good ones, with flash and mildly close range necessary to achieve this goal. Others look very washed out. View finder doesn’t help so be wary.

Panorama is a pretty bad feature in my opinion. It captures more, but with less. What i mean by that is the vertical height of my resulting photos is 1080 pixels, whereas standard photos are over 3800. Thus they looked washed out.

You can also adjust brightness in the menu, but i usually default to 0 unless in exceptional circumstances.
Video: i don’t use this much, as 720p is quite low by today’s standards. Even my bad phone camera does 1080p, so it’s not for me. Maybe for some this will apply.

Cost: excellent. For $80, i am happy with my decision. Sony is the king of camera sensors, so i thought this was a good buy for my purposes. Just be wary of the above comments.

I got tired of taking photos with my phone , i wanted a real camera , that had a real zoom . I have a number of very expensive slr’s but they are heavy to carry around all the time . This is the perfect mix of convenient and efficient . To look at copies of your photos , all you have to do is simply take the card out of the camera and put it into your computer , and you have them ready to transfer to your hard drive . Plus if you want you can use a cable like you would do with a phone . It is a cheap camera , but it takes expensive photos . It doesn’t do the same as my $3000.oo nikon’s , and the reviews here seem to think it should . But to take great snap shot photos it is as good as any cell phone camera , and it very small easy to carry thus you are going to take more photos that you would not do other wise , even with a cell phone camera . For what it is designed for , it gets 5 gold stars

Works for me

I wasn’t expecting much from this, i only wanted a camera that was a) cheap and b) would provide a better quality image than the average smart phone camera. But the image quality is truly amazing. I will upload a few customer images of my hiking trip as an example. An sd card is absolutely necessary, the internal storage can only hold 3 maximum quality images.

I did have one problem with the camera, the battery that came with it refused to take a charge. Amazon made up for this by offering me a 40% refund to buy a new battery, and the battery was much cheaper than the $31 refund i got so this issue wasn’t even reason enough to take a star off. Overall great camera and great customer service from amazon.

I’ve only owned this for a month and only used it for 2 days for a hiking trip so i can’t speak on long term survival of this camera. I will update my review if i have any other issues. Be sure to check for my customer images if you want an idea of the maximum image quality.

This is my first full digital camera i have ever had. I always loved photography, and i have been using all kinds of different types of smartphone and tablets for taking pictures. While lots of those handheld mobile devices did very good at taking pictures, this sony dsc-w800 beats all the smartphone and tablet cameras especially with the image processing like (exposure etc.) also the 5x optical zoom is awesome lots of smartphone cameras don’t have any optical zoom and the ones that do are very limited on the distance because of the focal length. Most new high end smartphone cameras have 1x-2x optical zoom which is barely noticeable. And digital zoom just sucks. So coming from tablets and smartphone cameras i have to say this is my best first digital camera i have ever had! The camera has auto focus, 5x optical zoom, has a proprietary usb cable for data transfer and changing. The pictures are very good which i will attach in this review.

My sony digital was 12 years old and i was reluctant to buy a new one for fear it would be lesser quality. A series of issues made me buy this one. Very pleased with picture quality but does not have macro setting so i’m getting used to auto focus and shooting at the right time to omit blur for close ups. Transfer software from the cloud is easy and awesome. For a point and shoot, its hard to beat a sony.

My previous camera died after several years of use, and needed to replace it and came across this one. Its very easy to use and all you have to do is buy a memory card, because if you don’t you will only be able to take 4 pictures at a time and then delete them. Otherwise, its a good camera and glad i came across this one.

Plain and simple … The best small travel camera ever and it fit’s easily into panth pocket, purse, shirt pocket or a small nylon case. I really love using the -in camera battery charger too. Takes great indoor photos as well. At this price it’s a steal and one heck of a camera.

I bought this camera mainly for work purposes. I have a cannon rebel xs dslr, and this camera in no way compares to the quality of it. Of course i wasn’t expecting it to. For this review i will focus on indoor shots of about 25 feet or under. I will start by saying low light, and even no light, performance is excellent. I tested it in my completely dark bedroom and the picture turned out as if it were brightly lit. I will say now that the colors do trend on the warm side. Subject tracking is a nice feature, great for moving objects, such as pets, and for people who have had to much coffee. It has an ‘easy mode’ which is great for good casual shots, but i think that it’s a little to simple. It simplifies the menu choices to one: large images or small images. I personally think they should had left all of the sizes selectable in this mode. Video is limited to 1280×720, but this is more than enough for close up movies. The rated battery life is fairly short at 100 minutes, but this is most likely due to the viewscreen. Additional batteries are, as of this review, under $13 for the sony battery np-bn1, and half that for generics, which is very inexpensive for a camera battery. It charges via a special usb cable, which i hate, instead of a standard usb type b which all small electrical devices seem to charge from, so be careful that you don’t damage it. The included ac adapter connects through the usb cable as well, and outputs 0.5a, so it is no faster than charging it from any other usb source.

All in all i would say this is a great camera for taking pictures up close, under 20 feet ideally. It’s compact size, portability, features, and low cost make it a great camera for close up shots. It’s not close to a dslr quality, and i wouldn’t think about using it to record once in a lifetime memories, but it’s also less than 10% of the cost of a dslr, and a great item to have around.

I have mixed feelings about this camera. The picture quality is pretty good for the most part but not having enough manual control over the actual picture taking is a bit frustrating. I am not asking for slr type of manual control, but enough to get a good shot in many different lighting conditions. I find myself having to constantly override that automatic flash settings to ensure i don’t get washed out pictures which are too bright because the flash wants to overcompensate for semi-lit conditions. My iphone 6 plus handles low light situations superbly without a flash. Then when the flash is necessary, it is not a blinding white flash that makes people know there was a flash used, but a dual warm color flash that makes pictures look like they have natural lighting. The point of a flash is to compensate for low light, not to overpower the low light and essentially be a light replacement. I am also quite disappointed with one major flaw that makes recording videos almost not realistic. The video recording resolution and optical image stabilization are fantastic. But again, there is a downside. The motor that is used for auto-focusing is ridiculously noisy. So when you record a video with a moving subject, which is kind of the norm, you can hear the constant and agonizing sound of the motor running in the background. The only way to avoid this is to have a subject that pretty much does not move. This would totally defeat the purpose of taking a video. In conclusion, this camera is a good one with good picture quality, but it has its few downfalls that make it less appealing than the cameras that are on most mid-to-high-end phones. This camera is much better suited to outdoor conditions with plenty of natural light. Once it starts to get dark outside then the flash makes taking ‘natural’ looking pictures very difficult.

Easily fits in your shirt pocket. My earlier camera was also sony, a p200 which was bulkier and heavier. This one is much smarter looking and has a much larger screen and bigger memory capacity for such a small camera. Both take good pics but in low light you want to use the flash to get clear pics. Setting everything on auto including flash is the best option. Easy point and shoot clear pics. But if you are moving around, setting it to ‘steadyshot’ may help. A coupla things different from my old camera: the battery remaining time does not show the number of minutes left in each mode. And even when you set the date to ‘english’ month, it displays the english month only on the screen (i.e., aug for august) but not on the actual picture’s date stamp. This shouldn’t be a problem if you don’t send pictures to people in other countries where the date format is day/month/year. So if it reads ’08 04 2014′ they might think it’s april 8 instead of august 4. Also, there is no volume adjustment while playing back a movie on the camera. In fact, you won’t hear anything at all, regardless of what level you set the volume (the highest level is 4 in settings). To hear the sound, you plug it into a computer and play the movie.

So far a cheap and ez camera to use, not many functions, no display button to clear the screen of stuff, cheap and plasticky, light, kind of seems like a real cheap feeling camera, but seems to take descent enough pics and vids is a one button option that as soon as pushed starts filming then when pushed again stops. Downloads are as ez as drag and drop and quick too. I’m hoping to get some you tube use of this camera which i got with a tripod. Not near as nice as my old 600.00 sony camera but twenty megapixels and good for 70.00. If your expecting aluminum body and a whole list of options this is not the camera for you, mostly an intuitive camera that doe’s everything for you and shows you flashes on the screen of what it’s doing, such as night time, portrait, facial focus, low light, etc. Great kids camera but i think some adults might be let down if looking for a fancy sony high end product. Good enough is what i keep saying, i will update this in time maybe if it works better or worse to let you know.

So little!! Granddaughter loved it, she will have a great time with it in disneyland this summer! Picture quality is great and its easy to use. She figured it out, then read the directions to check her thought.

Takes great photos,easy to carry, small and easy to store away. It’s perfect for family vacations or recording videos from concerts or birthday parties. The image that is show on the screen of the camera doesn’t show the details of the photos you take, so it is a good option to wait until there is a computer to compare the photos before you delete them. There is an auto option when taking photos, so the (scene)lighting depending on what kind of picture you’re taking will change. The camera doesn’t get it right all the time, but it’s accurate most of the time. The setting inside can easily fix what scene you need to change it to. The panoramic capture is great and the sound quality it catches in videos is good too.

I ordered this camera as a birthday present for my 6-year-old grandson, who was always wanting to take photos using my camera. It’s a big hit. He’s been taking photos ever since he unwrapped the package. Right now we’re content with knowing how to turn the flash on and off and using the zoom. Some of the photos are blurry, but i’d say that’s because the photographer is six and some of the photos are of a very fast one-year-old. The camera’s a hit–and so is gramma.

Great little pocket camera with a decent zoom capability. Still need to figure out how to lock focus when in video mode… It was going in-and-out of focus while i was videoing things on a recent trip we took which was frustrating since we didn’t take the instruction booklet (live and learn)… And the screen wasn’t the 3” screen i had on the sony this one replaced, but 2.7” is still a decent size. Loved that my batteries and charger from my previous sony was compatible with this camera… I was going for as close a match to my last sony and this was almost a bulls eye but with a greater image resolution.

The quality is good …but remember you need the right amount of light to get the best quality out of the pictures and video! Don’t forget that, for those that complain about the quality from any camera, it’s a no-brainer. The various levels of megapixel quality is great.

With my last sony touchscreen 8mp camera, there is a little tiny bios battery hidden in the camera. It goes out in a couple or few years and then you send it in to get it ‘repaired’ not knowing what happened. I never sent it it to get it ‘repaired’ for a whole 200 dollars. I discovered this hidden secret battery on my own and haven’t been able to stick the new battery on quite yet. I hope that sony didn’t do that to this camera too.

The camera’s menu system requires getting used to. At first, it seems very counter-intuitive, but after a while, you will see the logic to it. Takes good pictures overall. I have somewhat shaky hands but good thing the camera has jitter control, and overall compensates for that. Closeups of items is where either i have to do a better job setting things up for the picture or the camera doesn’t adjust for it properly, i don’t know.

Camera may be a bit to small for some. I am a smallish person and had some trouble holding it properly to take pictures with.

Still need to take more pictures and use proper techniques, but this camera is a pretty safe bet for getting something that will do the job.