More on compacts

Michael Reichman weighs in on compact cameras.
The Sony W300 looks interesting. Particularly how we all are so sure that more megapixels invariably produces more noise, and here comes this camera which has the highest megapixel count of any compact, but apparently also unusually low noise. I guess we don't know nothin'.

Small note; Michael writes:
"Joy of joys, the W300 has an optical viewfinder. Yes, it's small, and only shows about 80% of the taken frame. But it's there, it zooms with the lens, and it means that one doesn't have to shoot with the camera at arm's length the way middle aged people have to read menus in restaurants when they've forgotten to bring along their glasses."

Mike is not alone in feeling this way, I read it many places. But I can't help wondering how we'd all feel if all cameras had had screens for many decades, and somebody now introduced a camera with an optical viewfinder... "the makers of this camera apparently expects us to walk around with it pressed against our faces like a nicotine patch. It's very odd and inconvenient, it hides your face and greases up the backside of the camera..."
Some suggest it helps to stabilize the camera to press it against your head. I doubt so, you have to hold your breath so it does not interfere, and then you get tense because you get out of breath.
Apart from that it restricts the view angles you can photograph from, to head height.

Update: The Sony W300 has a label which reads: "Full HD - 1080". But if you look closely with a magnifier, you can see the words "still image" next to the label. And sure enough, the video is only VGA. And sure enough, the still image resolution is far above "1080". But what kind of weasel marketing is this? "Full HD - 1080" is meaningless unless it's about video. Clearly they want people to buy the camera thinking it delivers high-end HD, and when people find out it doesn't, then they can point to the label: "see, it's only the still images which are HD". Very disingenuous.