Sony Cyber-shot DSC W350 review

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W350 - a simple point and shoot compact, ideal for beginners

'Compact and powerful' states Sony when talking about the W series, and the company is certainly out to prove that quality can come in small sizes.

The W350 hits the middle ground in its series when it comes to price and features. The compact keeps the shooting process simple, from its menu options through to shooting modes. The Easy Shot mode is an example of this, as it turns off options for adjusting camera settings, with the exception of image quality, at large or small. Easy Shot will decide on the scene you about to shoot and adjusts the exposure needed for best results. However, avoiding Easy Shot sometimes produces better results, with the use of the other shoot modes and options. There are three additional modes to Easy Shot: iAuto, which allows control over many other settings; Program Auto, and lastly Scene. Using Program Auto, you have the ability to adjust ISO settings (80-3200), focusing area, white balance setting, metering mode, exposure compensation, and smile detection with variations to the strength of smile. Scene mode contains 10 options for users looking to take a bit more control over final results. Scenes include ‘Soft Snap’, which shoots your subject while making the background softer. Also, ‘High Sensitivity’ will increase the ISO setting without using the flash to shoot in low light conditions, and ‘Landscape’ mode makes sure distant subjects are in focus.

Sweep Panorama deservedly takes pride of place in the mode selector switch. Given away in its name, panoramas are really easy to shoot, requiring you to press the shutter button just once, and then moving the camera from left to right in one careful, steady motion. The panoramic image is quickly built in-camera, and it creates and saves the image quickly too, producing an excellent composite of the scene. The in-menu setting 'DRO' option is useful for recovering details in dark shadows and highlights of a scene. Available in two levels, you can set the DRO to work for just the shadows or for the entire dynamic range of your image.

The W350 has a 2.7-inch LCD display, keeping the camera's dimensions to a minimum, while providing a clear playback of images. In playback you also have Easy Auto mode, reducing what you can do to simply 'erase image'. Outside of Easy Auto, and you can apply a number of editing features. Some of which include sharpening to images that are suffering from blurring, red-eye correction, rotating, and trimming images too. All of which seems fairly basic, but this is a design that works well, and is especially useful if you're just stepping into compact photography for the first time.

Sony's trademark Carl Zeiss lens is stabilised with an Optical SteadyShot for a basic set-up. The camera is ultra-light, as well as being compact, making it the perfect pocket-friendly camera. It has no distinctive design, but comes in five colours: gold, silver, pink, blue and black, all helping to spice things up on its blocky frame.

When it comes to controlling image quality, the camera makes use of its wide ISO range, depending on the lighting conditions. Unfortunately, in ISO ratings of 400 and above, image quality is reduced, and cropping images post-shoot is something best to avoid. We had a lot of enjoyment making the most out of Program mode, allowing us to set ISO to 80 or 100 to produce the better results. Putting the W350 under tough scrutiny, we also found that the camera struggled to produce blur-free and pin-sharp results, especially in low lighting. The best remedy for this is to always stick to ISO 80, and using the on-camera flash wherever possible.

If you're hoping for a compact that demands little attention then the W350 does this very well. Set the camera to Easy Auto mode and you won't have anything to worry about. But in Program mode, you're presented with some very inviting manual options for adapting and improving the exposure of your images.