SONY DSC-W90 Rainbow Haze???

[nicksmarto]

I have a Sony DSC-W90 (point-and-shoot, ugh). I'm pretty knowledgeable about higher end cameras, but I needed a point-and-shoot for social reasons, and I've positive experience with a Sony in the past. I take a lot of medium range shots in fair lighting conditions, but went for this camera because it boasts an ISO3200 sensitivity and some sort of image stabilization system which is probably more advertising then technology (woo, it makes a faster shutter, or something dumb).

Anyways, as you can see attached, this is a crop at 100%, no resizing or resampling here. This subject is about 8 feet from the camera, and is under moderate indoor flourecent lighting + camera flash. Now, as you can see, there is a terrible rainbow effect, almost as if its a crap CCD from 1980. The Sony website boasts "with Sony Clear RAW™ Noise Reduction to take care of the picture noise that can ruin low-light shots." This shot was hardly low light.

I'm experienced enough to play with some settings, enabling and disabling various features, trying different shot modes, the usual diagnostic stuff. This camera has done this from day 1, and Best Buy technicians refused to refund me under the premise that "the device is working properly". *sighs*

So for you smarter-than-me experts out there, am I stuck with this lame shot quality that makes my subjects look like a hologram? Is there a quick fix? Anyone want to trade me for a Canon?

[SmartWombat]

There's no EXIF information in the cropped image.
Can you say what the settings were?
ISO
Shutter speed
Aperture

[nicksmarto]

Thanks for the quick response!

[xystren]

It almost looks like JPG artifacts (caused by anti-aliasing) along the edges. Might want to check and make sure that your P. Quality setting is set for "Fine" rather than "Standard."

That would be the first thing I would check.