Sony DSC-w500 settings

Anyone have this camera or anything close? So far it seems I take better pictures with my iphone. Wondering what settings are best. What is best aspect ratio to choose? 3:2 4:3 16:9 1:1.

superior auto? intelligent auto? I will mostly be taking pictures on a European cruise.

I had a Sony HX-5V that hat the i-Auto. Intelligent auto and Superior auto select virtually every setting based on algorithms chosen by the camera's analysis of the scene you point it at. These are both very sophisticated but can't be expected to handle all situations. Gary Fong did a pretty good video explaining the features. It references the A6000 camera in the video, but the feature set and algorithms are pretty much the same.

https://www.garyfong.com/learn/sonys-intelligent-auto-and-superior-auto-modes

Using the 4:3 aspect: L 18M will capture the full sensor and can be cropped later if you want. The other ratios simply display a cropped image as you take it and pre-crop the image file for you. This may be handy if you always make slide shows for a 16:9 tv format or post a lot of 1:1 images to instagram (though Instagram will auto crop for you).

Choosing anything other than the "L" file size is not recommended. The other settings will save the file with a decreased resolution. You can always save a smaller copy later if you need to, but if all you have is a low resoluton file to begin with, there's no good way to make it higher resolution after the fact.

Modern high-end phones take great photos. I have a Pixel XL that has replaced the pocket camera I used to carry everywhere. Your camera has the potential to take photos in a wider variety of situations since it has a significant optical zoom but at web resolutions, you won't see much difference between photos from the phone and the camera in normal snapshots.

Turn off digital zoom. It is a feature I wish they would leave off of cameras that have a good optical zoom capability. It works by cropping the image and blowing it up just like you would in a photo editor and therefore loses sharpness and clarity.

Dave

Thanks so much!