Good bargoon!

[PaulT]

Hi All

A good bargain--at least in Canada at BestBuy stores--is Sony's Cybershot W150 retailing at $159 with $10 off this week. Ok it's a point & shoot and last year's model but it's a really good one with a 30mm wide angle and 5x zoom plus a lot of other nifty features like smiles shutter and image stabilization.

It has ISOs to 3200 and in my careful tests ISO 800, 1600 and 3200 are all usable with better resolution at the lower ones of course.

I bought mine as a supplement to my larger and bulkier Canon Powershot S3 and I can see that I'll be using it a lot. Check out this camera if you're looking for a pocket sized shooter.

Paul

[photograham]

Thats not a bad deal I guess!
http://www.snagpic.com/users/img/3726/n09x0302vnsn/clear.gif

[Beowulff]

I agree...

I bought the W-150 about six months ago for AUD$199 on special.

My thoughts?

Pros:
Clearly displayed, intuitive, easily accessible settings and menus.
Compact, solid body build, good overall ergonomics.
Effective, well spread flash up to 4 metres.
Flash squelches accurately at macro focus.
Battery life around 400 shots per charge.
Workable zoom 30wide—150tele.
Excellent auto daylight pics (but see below).
Metal tripod thread on lens long axis.

Cons:
Difficult locking focus (correctly) at infinity in poor lighting.
Auto ISOs too high at dawn and dusk.
Auto shutter speeds too high in poor lighting (indoors and outdoors).
Tendency to select unnecessarily smaller apertures in auto, never(?) selects ƒ3.3.
Not enough steps in zoom range, hard to frame accurately, need to use feet!
LCD washes out in bright sunlight (must use eye-level viewfinder).

At the moment, I'm more than happy with this little camera, particularly considering its cost versus image quality.

Cheers :)