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For a compact camera to boast great low light photography without making use of the flash sounds very intriguing, so of course I was very happy to be given a chance to play with the Sony DSC-WX1.

The low light photography is made possible by three of Sony’s own creations: A quality lens, a new sensor design and a fast image processor.

It is amazing how many features and how much technology Sony has managed to cram into such a small and lightweight body.

Handling the camera is super easy. Without compromising design or holding space, Sony has managed to put almost all of the camera’s controls on the back of the body.

There is a dedicated button on top of the camera which activates high-speed shooting. Only button annoyed me slightly, the power on off button – I bumped it once while I was shooting and turned the camera off. Not the end of the world, and it only happened once the entire time I was playing with the camera, but it might be an issue for someone with bigger hands.

There are some nifty warnings on the camera when you try and use two features that don’t mesh well together. For example; put Spot metering on and then try and turn on face detection. Instead of just not coming on – the camera will tell you that face detection can’t be turned on while spot metering is active. (so much better than leaving you to guess why face detection won’t work!)

There is a menu button on the body that takes you straight to all of your setting and shooting controls.

The Sony DSC-WX1 functions like a much larger camera and is able to do this because of its back illuminated R CMOS Sensor and the speed Sony G f2.4 wide angle lens. Both of these features are found in the much larger DSLR Sony Cameras.

The Sony DSC-WX1 is a hybrid and even offers you a movie mode which is able to shoot 720p HD quality video. You can use optical zoom as well…just note that the zoom isn’t completely silent.

Shooting modes found on the dial are: Program Auto, Intelligent Auto, Easy mode and SCN.
Program Auto lets you have access to Exposure, Focus, White Balance, ISO and Metering.
Intelligent Auto does everything for you.
Easy Mode does half of the work for you but still lets you fiddle around with the basic shooting settings.
SCN which allows you the option of choosing between eleven different scene settings and then once the scene is selected and then does everything else for you.

I spent some time playing with the Intelligent Auto mode and found that the results were pretty impressive. It runs its own image stabilisation and face detection and chooses well between eight scene options (iSCN). If you set the camera to Advanced iSCN as opposed to Auto – the camera will take shots of one scene using two different (and best matched scene options) instead of one, allowing you to pick which was best in that particular situation and giving you double the chance of catching the best result.

The Sony DSC-WX1 also has more specialised options such as Sweeping Panorama, Handheld Twilight and Anti Motion Blur.

Sweeping Panorama lets you take incredible horizontal or vertical images. Simply click the shutter release once and then sweep your camera the full length of the scene you wish to capture, perhaps a really tall building, sweep the camera from the bottom to the top of the building and the DSC-WX1 will snap a number of high resolution images and then piece them together perfectly to give you the full impact of the building. All this in only three seconds! 

Hand held Twighlight and Anti Motion Blur both use the same concept. They both take six images really quickly using different settings and then merging those images into one – results are pretty good. Less blur, great colour and depth. Just don’t use these last two settings if you are planning on printing anything bigger than about 25cm, you lose some image quality if you go larger than that.

The Numbers: 2.7 inch LCD, 230,000 dots. Weighing in at 147 grams, 350 shots per battery charge, 10 shot burst mode.

I think it’s an awesome little camera. Available in Black and Silver.