The Sony WX50 is currently the smallest pocket camera I own. I used to have a Canon Powershot SD780 which I traded to a friend a few years ago, which was about the same size as the WX50. Needless to say as far as digicams go this one is one of the smallest you can find.
It's really hard to explain why I like this little camera. By all accounts this thing should be a fairly meh little pocket camera but I liked shooting with it far more then my late Powershot SD780, the smallest pocket camera that Canon ever made. So let's chalk up the physical size as being one of the primary reasons I like it and makes it Unique. The thing is small enough that I can fully conceal it in the palm of my hand, as you can see from the photos:
The WX50 has a 1/2.3" 16mp CMOS sensor. This is a pretty standard sensor for consumer pocket cameras of the Era and it would be pretty Meh if that's all it had going for it.
But this tiny camera has a few features which make it unique enough that I enjoyed shooting it; even if I had to basically un-learn everything I know about photography while doing so. It's the ultimate pocket camera for someone who's used to shooting on a Smartphone and maybe that's part of the reason these actually go for the higher end of used DigiCams on E-Bay right now.
The Sony WX50 was launched in 2012, right around the cusp of when Smartphones started to enter a niche for Digital Photography, and it shows. It has a rudimentary AI processing software built in the Firmware which automatically reduces noise (more then a standard in body noise reduction) and does a scene detection to determine what mode to use and apply settings and contrast adjustments based on that determination.
It has a small amount of manually select-able "modes" you can access manually but if you let it just do its thing and shoot mindlessly it surprisingly does a pretty solid job. For example, you can't manually set it to Macro mode manually- but if you point it at something close to the camera it usually will pick this hidden mode and change the focus engine to match.
One manually select-able mode it does have is 3D. When the camera is in this mode it takes two photos right after each other and writes two files, the Standard .JPG file and a proprietary .MPO file. This isn't a RAW file per-say but it contains two stacked images that you can open with a 3D viewer or convert via a converter tool into something like this. The tool I used really reduced the overall photo quality and color saturation when I exported it (There may be better ones out there), but its still a cool effect.
The Sony WX50's rudimentary AI is far from perfect. For the example of Macro Photography it did get confused a few times and wouldn't switch into macro mode for some D&D miniatures the first time I tried it out.
Future attempts where it did detect that Macro focusing should be used it did an adequate job, so when it worked it worked when it didn't it failed pretty spectacularly. I certainly wouldn't use this camera for Macro work seriously as a result.
Alongside the AI mode the WX50 has a built in HDR processor as many times the camera will take multiple photos in a burst and will stack them together to even out the highlights if you have it set to its "Intelligent Auto" mode. The AI mode also takes a few seconds to apply its processing to each photo- so if you make use of this feature you'll be stuck for a bit before you can snap another photo.
The camera's Smart mode did a good enough job that for the purpose of this challenge that's all I used outside of the 3D shots I took.
The one thing that really sets it apart is that it has exposure compensation available in these "Smart" modes even the Intelligent Auto mode- which is something that you really don't see in most other pocket cameras. So this still gives you some control over the image if you are willing to press buttons to change it.
This camera would fall short for so many reasons for being a daily shooter for me. Its 5x Optical Zoom is limiting, and still has all the limitations of a small sensor when it comes to Dynamic Range and very limited Low Light capabilities.
It also can't shoot in RAW nor has any priority modes for serious work. But for a quick snapshot of something that's not too far away its actually quite a fun little camera.
A camera like the Sony Cybershot WX50 becomes an alternative to shooting with my Smartphone; having about the same limited level of creative control and image quality. What it does add that my phone does NOT have is a large physical two stage shutter release, wrist strap, optical zoom lever and physical control buttons vs relying solely on the touchscreen which is my biggest turnoff of Smartphone photography (and why my phone will NOT be used in this blog other then using it to take a few occasional reference photos of the cameras themselves).
Overall the camera is just Fun and I can't explain why. Some of it comes down to it just being small. The WX50 also takes a Standard SDHC card instead of Sony's proprietary memory which is a plus.
I wouldn't use it for anything serious, and it won't likely ever be one of my daily goto shooters; but for a tiny camera that's a lot smaller then a phone that I can hide fully in my hand it was actually a fun tiny digital camera and I think that's enough to say it makes the cut as something I would take out again.
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