Sony W300

2010-01-04 11:26:45
SONY W300 REVIEW

I have over the years owned 3 Sony point and shoots from the W series stable.  I continue to buy them as my compact camera of choice.  The camera has not been without its frustrations.  The first two effectively ceased working on me.  Nevertheless I have continued with them because I like the tonal quality of the images.  My first digital camera was the 5 mp version of 2004.  It was a necessity buy at Manchester airport on my way to Bangladesh.  I had resisted digital until that point.  In fact I was blown away by this little marvel and could not put it down!!  If you visit the Bangladesh gallery you can see the results.  I took it everywhere and discretely photographed what I saw from day to day.  I was working for a small exploration company at that time.  Wherever and whenever I pulled out my camera and shot images of the intensity of life during the monsoon.  Downtown Dhaka was awash and families had moved out of their houses and were living on the pavements.  Out in the countryside was an altogether different scene.  Children were running around swimming in the ponds and fishing and eventually the rice planters were at work. 

The current W300 is image quality wise superior to the earlier versions - no doubts.  However it is slower and more quirky than the earlier models.  Perhaps the most important thing to say is that it does not in any way match either my D80 or my D700.  No surprise here!!!  But what I have learnt from photographing in the third world is that nobody really cares whether you photograph them with a point or shoot or an SLR.  So I now use my SLR as camera of choice.  Rarely do I use my compact camera these days.