Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W200 results continued…

Outdoor / Resolution / Noise / Noise 2 / Corner sharpness / Fringe & macro / Distortion / Vignetting

At 100 ISO, the Sony Cyber-shot W200 can capture an impressive amount of detail, and unlike the Panasonic compacts, there’s little evidence of noise or noise reduction yet. There’s arguably too much sharpening on the Sony images, but it’s still a good result here and again illustrates the genuine resolving power benefits of this 12 Megapixel model.

Increase the sensitivity to 200 ISO and some noise reduction artefacts can be seen, but it’s not as bad as the Panasonic crop – although again the Sony is applying more contrast and sharpness, so try to look beyond the punchier appearance. At 400 ISO, the W200 crop reveals worsening artefacts, especially in the foliage, but at least it’s not suffering from the sudden drop in saturation of the Panasonic.

The big drop in quality for the Sony W200 occurs at the jump to 800 ISO when noise levels significantly increase. From there on, it’s the usual downward spiral in quality, but still worth mentioning the results are consistently preferable here to the Panasonic. This is doubly impressive considering the Sony’s higher resolution, although to be fair it does also feature a slightly larger sensor. Also remember the W200’s artefacts seen below will appear slightly smaller than the FX30’s if images from both are printed the same size. Now let’s have a look at the Sony W200’s corner sharpness.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W200		Panasonic Lumix FX30
100 ISO		100 ISO
200 ISO		200 ISO
400 ISO		400 ISO
800 ISO		800 ISO
1600 ISO		1250 ISO
3200 ISO		3200 ISO (High Sensitivity preset)