Sony W730 Sports Photography Score
Sony W730 has a score of
17 for Sports Photography which makes it a
POOR candidate for this type of photography. If Sports Photography is important for you, we strongly recommend you to consider the Alternative cameras listed at the bottom of this page.
Read our detailed Sony W730 Review
Sony W730 Sports Photography Detailed Analysis
Image Stabilization
Image stabilization reduces the effects of camera shake at long focal lengths thus ensuring sharper photos during sports photography.
224 mm Tele Lens
224 mm reach lens will be adequate in most sports events.
Slow Continuous Shooting: 1.0fps
In the world of sports photography, faster is always better.
Environmental Sealings
Most outdoor sports games are held in all-weather, so your camera has to be ready for difficult conditions such as rain and snow. Exposure to dust and water splashes are also very common in sports.
Slow Max shutter speed: 1/1600s
Sony W730's max shutter speed of 1/1600s is quite slow and it may not be enough to freeze the motion in some cases. Another potential problem may be when you use a fast aperture at very strong light, your camera may overexpose because of slow max shutter speed
Unknown Focus Points
In sports photography , you keep continuous autofocus (AFC) mode on for tracking the subject and more focus means better tracking.
Poor Battery Life: 240 shots
In most sports events, you shoot at high speed for a long time and this drains the battery pretty quick. With a battery life of only 240 shots per charge, you may need to change batteries very frequently in the middle of an event.
Not so good Ergonomics&Handling
Sony W730\s compact body is not very ideal for sports photography as it lacks the external dials and knobs to change the camera settings fast and the ergonomics doesn't help you to have the most stable shooting position.
No Manual Exposure Mode
Even though modern digital cameras features advanced algorithms to calculate the right exposure, they still may fail some difficult conditions. Lack of manual exposure mode in these conditions means lot of shadow and highlight clipping.
No Manual Focus Mode
Compact cameras are not great at focusing moving objects especially at low light and your camera may not even fire bacause of not locking the focus, so manual focus mode is very useful at these times.
No Built-in Viewfinder
In the lack of a a viewfinder, holding the camera away from the body while using live view is not very stable, especial with heavy camera bodies and lenses. Besides, LCD screens are very hard to read under bright sunlight.
No External Flash Shoe
When shooting indoor sports or outdoor sports at low light, an external flash may become very helpful.
Slow Lens at Tele: f6.30
You will have hard time getting fast enough shutter speeds with a lens that is slow at tele.
No RAW shooting capability
RAW files contains much more color information compared to JPEGs, and gives you more room for post processing without significant quality loss. They provide wider dynamic range and option to recover shadow and highlight clipping to some degree.
You may also be interested in these reviews:
Sony W730 for Portrait Photography Sony W730 for Street Photography Sony W730 for Carrying Everywhere Sony W730 for Landscape Photography