I went over to the contest site, and Neil’s panorama shots are sharper/crisper than most of the contest entries. The nighttime shots on the contest site exhibit quite a bit of noise as well, so I don’t know how that is different than Neil’s concert shot, which has less noise.

Ron, I did indeed control the white balance for many photographs. But the WX1 is surprisingly good for such a compact camera, and doesn’t offer much user control anyway other than WB .. that I just let the camera handle everything.

Neil vN

Nice camera!
By Nick from Denver NY on 9/29/2009
Bottom Line:Yes, I would recommend this to a friend
Comments about Sony DSC-WX1 Cybershot Point & Shoot Digital Camera (Black):

After 3 weeks of waiting for this camera to be released I now have it in my hands and taken over 500 pictures. Within those photos I have found out the best settings for the right scenes and conditions. With that, I will clear up problems previous owners have had. First, I’m sure all of you want to know how good the new Exmor R sensor is. It’s pretty good, WITH THE RIGHT SETTINGS. I will go into that later. This camera really has some cool features, Like Sweep Panorama, Smile Shutter, Handheld Twilight and AntiMotion Blur Mode. The key is setting the camera up for the right scenes, which means not keeping it set on Intelligent Scene Recognition (iSCN) Mode(AKA Auto everything). I find that iSNC mode and easy mode don’t work well and as a result people are complaining about the the noise, the low light picture quality and outdoor picture quality. I’m now going to go though the scenes and the right settings and modes to put the camera on for best results. For Low Light shots(at widest zoom): Again iSCN Doesn’t work well at all in low light. You have to switch the camera to Handheld Twilight mode and adjust the Exposure Value(EV) from -0.3 to -1.7(this is a very important setting that needs to be set on order to remove the noisyness and grain from the photo, a setting people don’t adjust and then complain about how bad the photo looks in low light). You might also want to try different White Balances,setting correctly results in really nice low light shots. Outdoor shots: This camera in iSCN mode seems to keep the lens all the way open(F2.4)and it adjusts the shutter speed(a big No No)resulting in washed out over exposed photos(yuck). The solution: switch to “P” Mode which closes down the lens to around a nice F5.0 to F7.1(much better) and switch the White Balance to “Flash” . Also for better exposure you can again adjust the EV. Panorama Shots: This one’s tricky, from where you press the shutter to start the panorama it locks the exposure at that point. If you start in a dark scene and move across through a bright scene, It’s going to be over exposed. Make sure you start in a modernity lit scene and if needed switch EV from -0.3 to -1.0. Hopefully this information helps and clears up previous reviewers problems with this camera. Other good things to add: This camera does quite nicely in bright sun light(see my test photos above, however [...]doesn’t let you upload them in high quality but you’ll get the idea). Takes really nice close up Marco photos. High Definition video is really nice and clear(just remember to adjust the EV in low light 1.0 to 2.0 to remove noise). Over all a nice Sony camera great size, style and pictures. UPDATE: I just found out today that a White Balance setting might be the key to this camera for outdoor shots. When setting on “P” mode I found out that switching the White Balance from “Auto” or “Daylight” to “Flash” in improves outdoor photos color, tone, exposure and warmness. I was so amazed in the difference!! See my photos above!

hope you find this usefu. Neil did you shoot on auto everything mode or did you go into the menus