Photos: Hands-on with the Sony Cyber-shot WX1, TX1 and Party-shot

Early in August should be a great time to test out panoramic photography on a riverside rooftop, but sadly the weather has other ideas. So today we got our hands on the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1 and DSC-WX1, two very smart new 10-megapixel cameras, against a bleak London sky. We also got to try out the Sony Party-shot camera dock, which cheered us up by being just a little bonkers.

Both cameras use a new sensor first seen in the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX1 superzoom. In fact there's a bunch of high-end technology from the HX1 trickling down into these sophisticated compacts, including a clever panorama function. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

The Exmor CMOS sensor is unusual in the still camera space: CMOS is increasingly common in camcorders, but stills snappers tend to pack CCD sensors instead. Sony reckons backlighting the sensor improves low-light performance. Both cameras include twilight and anti-blur modes that take a selection of pictures at different settings -- known as bracketing -- and run them through the wash, rinsing out noise and improving dynamic range.

Click through our gallery for more on the Sony TZ1, WX1 and batty Party-shot.

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