The Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-W5 Digital Camera

Personally I would love to go back to my totally manual 35mm camera, but the convenience of digital photography is too great. I personally like to have as many manual features at I can get so I’m the one deciding if a picture is how I want it. While I can’t find a digital camera that allows me to do everything manually, the DSC-W5 allows me to control most of the features.

This camera is obviously not intended solely for the user like myself who wants total control, because there are several preprogrammed options (i.e. landscape, dim-lighting, snow scene, indoor and a few others. Admittedly, those are all really nice when you want to take a quick shot and you don’t have the time to fine tune your F-stop and white balance. In fact they’re so well programmed in this camera I find myself using them more often than I ever expected. On occasion though, I do like to go back to manual control to get things to look just the way I want and there is a manual mode on this camera that allows me to do that.

This camera also has a macro feature that is fantastic. You can take a picture of a pin head and blow it up to the size of a poster and it still looks good. The tough part is getting it focused, since there isn’t a manual focus feature. There are several different focusing options though. You can set it to either focus on a small point in the center (great for macro photos), just on the center 1/8th of the screen, or you can use a multi-region focus that picks out 1-6 different depths in the field of view for focusing (like if you’re shooting a family photo).

The camera is also extremely robust and fairly compact. You can also easily expand the memory to 1 Gb (more than 1000 pictures) or leave it with just the internal memory for about 6 pictures. With as cheap as memory is, I’d suggest expanding it as much as you can, since you don’t want to run out of free memory on a trip.

The camera comes with 2 Sony AA batteries that hold their charge better than any other rechargeable battery I’ve found. I plan on purchasing an extra set of these 2300 mAh batteries so I can have an extra set on hand. The charger that comes with the camera is also reasonably compact, so it’s easy to travel with.

Overall I’d say this camera is a great buy. The quality of the pictures I’ve taken are comparable to those I get with a totally manual camera. The manual operation of the camera is a bit slower than for other cameras (since you have to go through several menus to get things right) but the auto features are pretty close to how I’d want them for a camera I expect to own for several years.