Sony W1, W5 and W7

[Michael68]

Hi,
Just got the W5 to complement my Oly cameras. Care to share any tips and comments on the Sony W series? Any problems encountered and how can they be avoided? Thanks!

Michael

[afbug]

Originally Posted by Michael68 Hi, Just got the W5 to complement my Oly cameras. Care to share any tips and comments on the Sony W series? Any problems encountered and how can they be avoided? Thanks! Michael

My W1 is still going strong. Tough cookie. Lots of dents and scratches liao. Somemore mine is black. Looks ugly now. My only issue is the weight. A bit heavy. Not as light weight as i would like for a P&S cam. It went with me to reservist overseas ICT. If only they have a ruggerdised case for it. Army version, battlefield fit, FFI will be great.

[limkopi]

My 1-yr-old W1 has seen 11495 shots (to-date) & still going strong too... Love the huge screen, fast response & looong batt life. Tough metal body able to withstand a couple of knocks too. If only it had aperture & shutter-priority modes, it wld've been a perfect compact cam for me!!

1 problem I notice was when using normal Alkaline AA batts on it... Body gets heated up & the cam juz hang (LCD dies, no response fr buttons, lens still pertruding out) after leaving it on for awhile... Wonder if it's juz my cam. But rechargable Ni-MH batts works perfectly fine...

[psdcrdsc]

i had this problem with my NiMH. after 3-4 days of purchase, i imediately went Sony gallery (bought from them) and demand 1 to 1 exchange. new set was ok.

believe some sets are faulty. i bought W1 when its just launched. the new set with me till now, great cam.

Originally Posted by limkopi My 1-yr-old W1 has seen 11495 shots (to-date) & still going strong too... Love the huge screen, fast response & looong batt life. Tough metal body able to withstand a couple of knocks too. If only it had aperture & shutter-priority modes, it wld've been a perfect compact cam for me!! 1 problem I notice was when using normal Alkaline AA batts on it... Body gets heated up & the cam juz hang (LCD dies, no response fr buttons, lens still pertruding out) after leaving it on for awhile... Wonder if it's juz my cam. But rechargable Ni-MH batts works perfectly fine...

[Michael68]

Hi,
It is normal for alkaline batteries to generate heat when in use as their capacities are not as comparable to that of NIMH. It is not a problem but rather the nature of alkaline batteries.

To summarise my feel of this camera after about a week's of use:

1) Compact enough for my hands

2) Good start up and response time

3) Large LCD screen a plus point

4) Limited modes: Program and manual only.
Just to get a feedback, do you use mainly Program mode or do you play around with the manual mode and adjust the shutter speed and aperture under the EV levels is "0"? I find this feature rather cumbersome....

5) Noise levels (at night) is higher than my Olympus camera (C4040).

6) Flash for indoor is weak. usually I have to increase the flash power to get a decent shot. Group photos indoors is quite impossible without slave flash.

Question: Do you still use Program mode at night? Notice the shutter speed is always set to rather low, at 1/40 or less. This would usually result in blur pictures as handshake magnifies the impact of slow shutter

Hope to hear from all about your preferred shooting modes, for both outdoors as well as indoors.

Anyone tried it for
a) Night photography
b) Infrared photography?

Excited as I just received my order from eBay on a step up ring from 30mm to 52 mm, so I can use my entire set of filters from the Nikon days (cross screen, polariser etc) to test on the W5. Of course this is attached to the Sony adaptor tube which I got for $50! (realised OEM is about $30, but of course the fitting may pose a problem....)

Regards,
Michael

[afbug]

Originally Posted by Michael68 Excited as I just received my order from eBay on a step up ring from 30mm to 52 mm, so I can use my entire set of filters from the Nikon days (cross screen, polariser etc) to test on the W5. Of course this is attached to the Sony adaptor tube which I got for $50! (realised OEM is about $30, but of course the fitting may pose a problem....) Regards, Michael

You will not be able to use the flash and IR with the step-ups. (W1's flash and IR will be blocked) For W5 i am not sure.

Night photo, gotta use a tripod. I use either M, P or the night mode.

[limkopi]

I use P mode most of the time, mixing M, Night & Night Portrait modes depending on the occasion. For night photography, using M mode (set to long shutter) + ND filter + tripod will give u very nice ambient light & water reflections (if no tripod, then leave it on a stable surface & set timer).

I use a 3rd party 36-52mm adaptor tube to add filters (52mm) & WA+Macro lens (Vitacon) on my W1... Juz like wat afbug said, the big attachments will partially block the built-in flash. But since I hardly use the flash, it din really pose much problem to me... I've tried taking IR pix using a piece of unexposed negative as "filter"... Did managed to achieve IR-looking pix but can see hotspots in some pix too...

I think the W-series is quite an all-rounder... Other than the lack of A / S modes + inability to achieve "starry" effect on bright light source, it basically does (almost) everything!

[Michael68]

Thanks for your feedback. Just to check if you set the focusing to Central AF or Multi AF (default)? I was taking pics of my daughter and noted the subject seemed to be slightly soft or out of focus compared to the surrounding. On checking, I realised I used the default Multi AF mode. Hope this is the cause of the problem.
Well, guess IR is out for W5 due to the hotspots....maybe just use the rest of the 52mm filter for now...

[Michael68]

Thanks, so I guess the P mode is the way to go. But appreciate if you could share on whether the focusing that you used is in the default setting ie Multi-AF instead of the Center AF (where it focus on subject in the center). Thanks.

[flowerpot99]

I normally used P mode when in hurry. But prefer to use M mode when shooting landscape or when i want the skyline to be better exposed instead of being white all the way. Forcusing is really hard to tell(at smaller aperature) when u are in a hurry but with the 2.5" screen it is definately better at spotting blur than others. Great camera as P and S if only it has more details and high ISO with low noise it will be a all round camera that can go anywhere

[cciRRus]

One tip on taking videos with the W1/5/7.

If you leave it in auto-focus mode, you will realize that your video sharpens, then blurs, then sharpens, then blurs... This is extremely irritating when I am taking videos of my fish and people (close range). I fix this by manually setting the range of the focus (e.g. 1 metre).

[afbug]

Originally Posted by Michael68 Thanks, so I guess the P mode is the way to go. But appreciate if you could share on whether the focusing that you used is in the default setting ie Multi-AF instead of the Center AF (where it focus on subject in the center). Thanks.

I use mostly multi AF. IF your pics a bit soft, maybe you wanna increase the contrast and saturation?

[Michael68]

Thanks, I think you may have a good point there. It appears soft on skin tones, so maybe, increase the contrast and saturation to "+" may be the way to get sharper pics. Will try it soon! Thanks.

[Michael68]

Sorry just one more question on IR. Is there any aperture settings to minimise the hotspots problem on IR photography? Or are there any post processing techniques to reduce or remove the hotspots? Thanks.

[miko]

Originally Posted by cciRRus One tip on taking videos with the W1/5/7. If you leave it in auto-focus mode, you will realize that your video sharpens, then blurs, then sharpens, then blurs... This is extremely irritating when I am taking videos of my fish and people (close range). I fix this by manually setting the range of the focus (e.g. 1 metre).

Hey, that's a good point that I ought to remember. never crossed my mind to set the focus range for video shooting. thanks for the tip~

[limkopi]

Originally Posted by Michael68 Sorry just one more question on IR. Is there any aperture settings to minimise the hotspots problem on IR photography? Or are there any post processing techniques to reduce or remove the hotspots? Thanks.

No idea... Dun think there will be, since the W-series' has very limited aperture settings to play around with in its M mode... Post processing wise, I guess by tweaking the contrast & curve (trial & error) may help... For the pix focus'd on the trees, hotspots r negligible but for the ones focus'd on the sky, I reduced the contrast to "camou" the hotspot (so tt it blends better into the bkgrd) but the result is a less contrasty cloud-sky combi lor...

Originally Posted by Michael68 Just to check if you set the focusing to Central AF or Multi AF (default)? I was taking pics of my daughter and noted the subject seemed to be slightly soft or out of focus compared to the surrounding. On checking, I realised I used the default Multi AF mode. Hope this is the cause of the problem.

I use Multi-AF... Sometimes if the subjt is moving / shaky hands / being too close to the subjt / having another subjt in front of ur main subjt / low batt may cause the AF to go haywire...

[Michael68]

Thanks for your valuable feedback. I guess every type of camera and brand has both its strength and weaknesses. problem is I am so used to the 3 Oly cameras that I have difficulty adapting to the Sony Brand.

[afbug]

Waa....me and limkopi joined around the same time and limkopi only got 99 posts! Looks like i've been crappin around.

[limkopi]

Originally Posted by afbug Waa....me and limkopi joined around the same time and limkopi only got 99 posts! Looks like i've been crappin around.

Ok, here's my post #101... Finally made the 3-digit mark!!!
Aiya, posting alot doesn't necessarily mean crapping wat. I'm juz too lazy to post la. Sometimes see some pple got their words misinterpret'd then blur blur kena flamed very sian... Dun wanna post too much to invite trouble. Besides, there wasn't much discussion abt W1 back then b4 the launch of W5/7 this yr... So yah la, basically I'm juz too bochup. Heh...

But I'm quite happy to see the Sony threads alive again with the recent increase in W-series users... Dun feel so lonely anymore!!! Harlow to all ~

[casanova]

Originally Posted by cciRRus One tip on taking videos with the W1/5/7. If you leave it in auto-focus mode, you will realize that your video sharpens, then blurs, then sharpens, then blurs... This is extremely irritating when I am taking videos of my fish and people (close range). I fix this by manually setting the range of the focus (e.g. 1 metre).

Thx for this wonderful advise...