[Recovered Thread: 64195]

[adam123]

Hello. I haven't made many posts on this forum, but I've been using it extensively to help decide which camera to buy.

I've tried about 10 different P/S cameras over the past few months, including recently the Sony DSC-W5.

To be brief, this camera is absolutely awesome - super fast operation, outstanding low light autofocus, etc. - except for the blurry pictures, which is a real phenomenon. I was hoping that all the complaints on this forum about blurry pictures were due to people not knowing how to use/hold a digital camera properly.

However, in the automatic and P-modes the W5 produced blurry pictures about 30% of the time in situations where virtually no other camera I've tried failed to take a good picture (I'm talking outdoors on a sunny day, both wideangle and full telephoto). So even if I do shake a bit (I don't), it was only this camera that produced blurry pictures in similar situations. The M mode seems toalleviate this problem somewhat (crank up the shutter speed), but NOT always. Anyway, shouldn't have to resort to full manual on a sunny day like that if you're just taking landscape shots.

Maybe I just had a dud camera. It was a shame, because aside from that it was the best performing P/S camera I've tried. I just couldn't be 100% confident it would take a crisp picture. The pictures that turned out fine were among the best I've seen (sharpness/detail-wise).

As a side note, I noticed the W5's lens assembly was a lot "looser" than any other camera I've tried (there is a lot of lateral and up/down play when it's extended... it wiggles around a bit). Several display models I've seen in stores exhibit the same thing. You can even hear it if you shake the camera slightly. Perhaps this has something to do with the blurry pictures?