New Sony Cams Will Know When You Smile

With PMA just a week away, Sony announced a slew of new Cyber-Shot digital cameras that range from entry-level point-and-shooters to ultracompact cams with high-end features. In all, eight new Sony cameras were unveiled today.

Four new additions to the Cyber-Shot W series are on tap in the coming months. The 10.1-megapixel Cyber-Shot DSC-W170 ($300) and 8.1-megapixel Cyber-Shot DSC-W150 ($250) will both offer wide-angle Carl Zeiss lenses and 5x optical zoom.

oth the W170 and W150 have 2.7-inch LCD screens and are slated to ship in April. The lower-end Cyber-Shot DSC-W130 (8.1 megapixels, $230) and DSC-W120 (7.2 megapixels, $200) instead offer 4x optical zoom, 2.5-inch LCD screens, and no Carl Zeiss lens, and will be available in March.

For all the new W series cameras, Sony is highlighting the "smile shutter" mode, which senses when someone in the frame smiles and automatically takes a picture. The advanced face-detection technology can recognize up to eight faces per shot and lets the user prioritize the "smile shutter" to trigger when a specific person smiles.

At the entry-level end are two new additions to the Cyber-Shot S series. The slim 8.1-megapixel DSC-S780 ($180) and five-megapixel DSC-S750 ($150) are both one inch thick and offer 22MB of on-board memory for out-of-the-box shooting. Both cameras boast facial detection for up to three people per shot, as well as seven pre-set scene modes. Both the S750 and the S780 are slated for release in April.

Also announced by Sony today were the 8-megapixel Cyber-Shot DSC-H10, a compact high-zoom camera that's geared towards families. The DSC-H10 boasts a 10x optical zoom, a long-distance flash for faraway shots, a Carl Zeiss lens, and a high shutter-speed mode for rapid-fire sports or action shots. The DSC-H10 also has some on-board image-editing apps, as well as face detection for up to eight people per shot. The $300 camera will be available in May.

At the highest end of Sony's Cyber-Shot announcements is the DSC-T300, a $400 camera due in March. It's an ultracompact 10.1-megapixel cam with a 5x optical zoom Carl Zeiss lens. The DSC-T300 has a 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD display, as well as in-camera management tools that let you sort shots by date (or smile, according to Sony) and view them in a calendar-like interface.

The DSC-T300, the DSC-W170, and the DSC-W150 also have Sony's new Intelligent Scene Recognition (iSCN) tech, which the company says will automatically adjust the camera's settings to the best possible for each shot.

PC World will have full coverage of the big announcements from PMA 2008, which begins on Jan. 31.

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