Finally, a Sony P&S to be excited about!

[KevinBarrett]

Sony has made a press release announcing two Point & Shoot models, the DSC-WX1 and the DSC-TX1. Both feature back-illuminated Exmor R CMOS sensors with a claimed 2x sensitivity over conventional sensor designs, as well as a lot of the new features and functionality from the DSC-HX1 Superzoom. The exciting part? The DSC-WX1 features a wide 24-120mm equivalent zoom starting at a fast f/2.4 aperture. I remember asking for something like this on Sony's Backstage 101 (though I begged for just a 3x zoom).

The 10.2 mega-pixel WX1 camera has a 2.7-inch Clear Photo LCD Plus display and is just over three quarters of an inch thin—an ideal choice for DSLR owners who also want to carry a compact, high performance digital still camera.

The WX1 camera features a Sony G lens with an extraordinary wide angle 24-120mm 5x optical zoom. This lens’ f/2.4 maximum aperture offers nearly twice the light gathering capability of conventional lenses, and works together with the “Exmor R” imager and low-light shooting modes to provide low-light photography beyond the abilities of other compact cameras.

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0908/09080 ... tx1wx1.asp

[David Kilpatrick]

I have posted a resume on this release which I also got this morning.

The sensor is VERY small (that lens is only 4.25mm at the short end!) and I guess we will not really see what Exmor R is capable of with the pixel pitch involved. Possibly exceptional by p&s standards, but I would suspect it still will fall short of DSLR quality at any ISO.

David

[Birma]

No Raw, and still little manual control. Is this really so hard to add? They obviously recognise the market of a dslr owner wanting a P&S backup, but seem to think you wouldn't also want 'control'. Panasonic Lumix LX3 is still pretty safe as the P&S backup of choice IMHO.

Wow - my first Sony moan. If I carry on like this I will have to give up my fan-boy membership.

[01af]

The exciting part? The DSC-WX1 features a wide 24-120 mm equivalent zoom starting at a fast f/2.4 aperture.

Sorry, I don't see the exciting part. The lens speed is 1:2.4-5.9---that's not what I'd call 'fast.' Why can't they use a 1:2.4-3.5 lens? Or a 1:2.0-3.2 lens? THAT would be fast and transform the camera into a 'like.no.other' low-light daemon ...

Of course, as usual the product is aimed at clueless fools, not at photographers, so lens speed is worthless from a marketing point of view. Only compactness, wide zoom range, and a nice collection of buzzwords count

The sensor is VERY small (that lens is only 4.25 mm at the short end!) ...

With an aspect ratio of 4:3 and a 35-mm-format equivalent of 24 mm, this translates to a 1/2.1" sensor which by today's standard isn't very small. To the contrary, when 1/1.8" sensors have become rare these days and 1/2.3", 1/2.5", and even 1/2.7" sensors are common with digital P&S cameras then 1/2.1" is not particularly large but above average. Of course, still no competition to D-SLR cameras by any strech of the imagination (until proven otherwise ).

Err, wait a minute ... I just see the specifications say the sensor was 1/2.4", not 1/2.1". That's weird---a 4.25 mm lens on a 1/2.4" sensor is 28 mm-e, not 24 mm-e. So we have contradicting specs ...

-- Olaf

[KevinBarrett]

Well, it's a step in the right direction, anyway. Sony P&S zoom lenses have had some of the longest short ends in every comparison. I'm mostly just glad to see Sony get to 24mm wide. I hope these two Exmor R-equipped cameras aren't what the whole "Twilight Football" thing is about.

[bfitzgerald]

I've looked at some samples from the WX1, and frankly I don't see anything great going on there. This one looks more like marketing than substance. But then after reading the "worked hard on image processing A230-380" comments from Sony, I don't take them very seriously in this regard

The lens looks a bit pants too, and is unworthy of the G badge IMO

[alphaomega]

o1af wrote 7 August

With an aspect ratio of 4:3 and a 35-mm-format equivalent of 24 mm, this translates to a 1/2.1" sensor which by today's standard isn't very small. To the contrary, when 1/1.8" sensors have become rare these days and 1/2.3", 1/2.5", and even 1/2.7" sensors are common with digital P&S cameras then 1/2.1" is not particularly large but above average. Of course, still no competition to D-SLR cameras by any strech of the imagination (until proven otherwise ).

Err, wait a minute ... I just see the specifications say the sensor was 1/2.4", not 1/2.1". That's weird---a 4.25 mm lens on a 1/2.4" sensor is 28 mm-e, not 24 mm-e. So we have contradicting specs ...

I support Birma's statement above that

Panasonic Lumix LX3 is still pretty safe as the P&S backup of choice IMHO.

Per my LX3 instruction book this camera fields a 1/1.63" CCD with total 11,300,000 pixels. Working out the size of this sensor is beyond me but I understand it is substantially larger than the Sony and using RAW it produces amazing results at ISO100. I have just sent in 8 LX3 images to Alamy and it will be interesting to see their reaction. LX3 is not on their banned list.

[alphaomega]

Reference my 26 October insert above I can now confirm that Alamy has passed my eight Panasonic LX3 images so although they prefer DSLR submissions quality, P&S images will pass if they meet the Alamy Quality standards. The LX3 is not on the banned list.
In that connection I had occasion to read the Silkypix help section and saw again their suggestion that CA removal is performed at 400%. I have always ignored this advice until now. I must admit that I get better results - at least in Silkypix - by removing CA at 400%. Anyone else with this experience?