Digital Trends

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W90 April 26th, 2007 | by David Elrich

Use and Testing

The DSC-W90 reacts very quickly. In less than two seconds, the camera boots up and you’re ready to frame shots on the LCD screen. Starting off in Auto mode, I went to the Jersey shore to shoot the aftermath of the April nor’easter storm and, on a more pastoral side, some of the first blooms of spring.

There’s something about flowers that demand macro close-ups — especially after you’re stuck with dreary landscapes for months. Some beautiful yellow tulips had popped up, so I set the camera in macro and fired away. Fortunately, the DSC-W90 can get as close as 1.67-inches — much better than other digicams — so you can get really tight close-ups. Since it was a breezy day, the benefits of optical image stabilization were readily apparent; the focus for most of the shots was dead-on sharp.

As noted earlier, this camera has the Bionz processor, so you can shoot almost as fast as with a D-SLR. I’m not kidding. Put the camera in continuous mode, and it will crank off seven shots at full resolution at over 2.5 frames per second at 8.1-megapixels. At that point, the camera pauses. In about another two seconds, you can fire away again. This is terrific for capturing running kids. Granted, not every shot will be in focus, but at least you have a chance to grab the image. I got these results with the flash off; shoot with it on and things slow down considerably, but all in all, this is a very responsive point-and-shoot digicam.

Image Courtesy of Sony

This camera has Face Detection, and it works well, but it’s still not as good as the Canon SD1000. I wasn’t too thrilled with the LCD screen, especially in bright sunshine since it wiped out. That’s what happens when you have a screen rated 115K pixels. Fortunately, the camera has an optical viewfinder to use during those situations. It’s almost quaint holding the camera close to your face instead of framing subjects with the LCD.

The DSC-W90 doesn’t have many manual options. Forget about aperture- and shutter-priority modes. In Program mode, you can adjust white balance, type of focus and metering, and exposure compensation, plus, you can take three shots (bracket) at three different compensation options. Of course, you adjust ISO (sensitivity) up to an absurd 3200. There’s no point-and-shoot digicam that can take a decent shot at that level, and this Sony is no different. I took a few indoors without a flash and the final 8-½” x 11” prints were terrible. Four hundred was ok, but at 800 they really started to fall apart; you might be able to squeeze a 4” x 6” and get away with it. That said, this option will come in handy if you want to shoot indoors without a flash. Sony’s image stabilization did a good job eliminating blur, and the AF Assist lamp practically guaranteed sharp focus.

The camera has an excellent menu system that is very simple to operate. I especially like the grid lines that help keep your horizons straight. There are a few in-camera editing functions such as red-eye removal, cropping, adding starbursts, and things like that. This is all well and good, but editing on a 2.5-inch screen doesn’t really do it for me.

I churned out many 8-½” x 11” full-bleed prints and was very happy with the results. Colors were very natural and true-to-life. The yellow of the tulips was vivid in a “real” way, not overly processed. Images taken indoors and out were accurate and pleasing.

Conclusion

I have no problems recommending this latest addition to the W series. It’s compact, speedy, easy-to-use, and takes good-quality photographs. However, I’ll keep squawking about the lack of a cable for the touted HD Output on your HDTV. If that piece of wire was in the box, this one might have received an Editor’s Choice. If that isn’t a problem for you, by all means, buy it.


Pros:

• Good, accurate photos
• Very responsive
• Optical image stabilization

Cons:

• Few manual options
• No HD Out cable
• So-so LCD screen