Sony Camera Review
THE HOLIDAY SEASON is coming and memories are waiting to become captured! Get the facts and reviews of Sony digital and SLR cameras with full specs, and sample photos. A review for every persons personal camera preference: Sony SLTA33, Sony A55, Sony Cyber-shot H55, Sony Cyber-Shot HX100V, Sony Cyber-Shot TX10 16.2 MP, Sony Cyber-shot TX5 10.2 MP, Sony Cyber-Shot HX7V 16.2 MP plus much more!
Sony Cyber-shot Hx100V Review
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX55 16.2 MP Slim Digital Camera with 5x Optical Zoom and 3.3-Inch OLED touch screen (Black)
Amazon Price: $287.77 Buy Now
List Price: $349.99
Cyber-shot TX55 Model Highlights:
- 16.2-megapixel
- Full HD 1080/60i movies
- 3.3" OLED display
- "Exmor R" CMOS sensor
- 10 fps, Backlight Correction
- 3D still image
- 3D Sweep Panorama.
I had been pleased to get the opportunity to evaluate this point-and-shoot entry from Sony. I will be usually a Canon shooter and was interested in evaluating something from another manufacturer and this unit did not disappoint.
Image Quality
This naturally is what any camera evaluation must focus on - as if you don't take good pictures perhaps the most stylish and easy to use camera can come up short. I've taken a number of pictures in various settings from daylight to night. Images are generally sharp and with good contrast. Focus is usually pretty quick but not always accurate. I had been surprised that the camera in low light / auto setting is likely to not activate the flash, instead decresing shutter to just 1/30 second - which ends up in blurriness in pictures with moving kids. Once the flash did activate, it had been of limited strength and illuminated objects / people only quite near to the camera. For detailed analysis, I took comparison shots using this camera and both a dSLR and another point and shoot camera, both from Canon. I used to be surprised at how well this camera does with stationary subjects in low light - Sony has really done a great job there.
Sony Cyber-shot Hx100V Review
Top View
Form Factor
This is the very small camera. about 3/4 inch shorter than an apple iphone and just a bit thicker. It fits very comfortably in a pocket. The lens protector reveals the lens and flash when slid down and also turns the unit on. Buttons are few including an on/off switch plus a bit of an oddly designed zoom button which moves forwards and backwards to zoom in and out. The position of the buttons does make operating the zoom function with one hand a little awkward. Most functions including triggering movie recording are handled via touchscreen.
User Interface
This camera is clearly strongly influenced by the iPhone with touchscreen providing most of the functionality. As others have said, the touch screen is not as responsive just as one iPhone but it is successful enough. I did find myself attempting to "swipe" from screen to screen which regularly resulted in inadvertent opening of a menu item. I firmly believe in the principle that a UI must be self-explanatory without referral to manuals and for that reason used this camera without studying the manual (at least that is my excuse for not reading it). Many of the icons were not obvious for example the different quality settings for video, but overall I was able to self-teach the use of you over a few minutes.
LCD View
Memory Storage
I was a bit surprised the camera uses MICRO SD cards, not the greater standard SD cards. I have a bunch of SD cards for other cameras and after opening the therapy lamp on this one I needed to go shopping. I suppose I should have been happy that we could use a micro Sdcard which with an adapter works extremely well with an SD card reader as Sony would have used only the micro Thumb drive (this camera can use either). Anyone remember Betamax?
Battery
Battery charge was quite rapid - It charged fully in under 45 minutes for me. Battery life decreased with a segment after a few minutes of video and 30 approximately pictures, many with flash. It is a fact that a Li Ion cell doesn't demonstrate its full risk of several charge / discharge cycles this may well improve. Battery is rated at 630 mAh which is a pretty low number, however. I suspect that is another sacrifice (along with micro SD card use) to generate the camera as small as possible.
Width Comparison
Extra Features
I was looking forward to the panorama feature as Sony's TV ads showing that appear to indicate the camera will be taking a series of high-resolution pictures and seamlessly splicing them together in your case. If you have ever done that job manually in Photoshop, it is a hassle (though there are now a number of software choices for that). In any case, the output using this camera is normally a 4608x3456 image, therefore i thought a panorama could be, say, 12,000x3456 - but that is not the case. The panorama shot eventually ends up being 4912x1080 so while it's panoramic side to side it is a lot less information there than I had been hoping for - in reality the panorama shot is 5.3 MP (in comparison with 16 MP for any regular picture). It lets you do at least allow wider shots to be completed, though I favor Canon's solution to this - after panorama sequence is selected a ghost image of the first shot allows easy arranging of the second shot etc and the camera won't change settings between shots so that they are easy to splice together down the road.
Overall, I am very pleased with this camera sufficient reason for its small size and convenience I plan to use it a lot.
The Sony Cyber-shot TX55 Gets - 5/5 Squids!
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A55 (Sony) DSLR 16.2MP Review
Descriptive
Sony A55
Sony A55 DSLR Model Highlights:
- 16.2MP
- Translucent Mirror Technology
- Quick AF Full HD Movie
- GPS tagging
- Live View with Phase detection
- 10 fps
- 15-point auto focus
- 18-55mm zoom lens included
This camera is just about the best compact DSLR rolling around in its segment right now. Here's my summary:
Pros:
(1). Very quickly and accurate AF. It's of the same quality and sometimes better than my Nikon D90!
(2). Image quality from ISO 100-800 is a useful one as my Nikon D90 and is as good or superior to anything near or in its segment! Images above ISO 800 are still very decent and competitive with anything featuring its class.
(3). Images from the kit lens are sharp and vibrant.
(4). EVF is accurate, detailed, and offers all the info. you may need
(5). Excellent quality HD (1080i) video.....much better than most DSLR's in its class. Low light capability is excellent.
(6). Best Live Look at any DSLR around....w/very fast AF.
(7). Excellent tilting LCD screen....vibrant and hi-res.
(8). Light little body.....easy to travel with.
(9). Tremendous value.....beats anything in their class (best bang-for-buck)
(10). Received dpreview.com's coveted Gold Star award!
LCD View
Cons:
(1). Relatively short life cycle of battery
(2). HD video restricted to 9 min. with Steady Shot on (but 29 min. from it off). 3rd-party lenses with lens OIS is often a work-around.
(3). Limited manual controls with video.
(4). Camera might be too small for users with big hands (be sure you handle it personally if possible)
The Sony A55 DSLR Gets 4.5/5 Squids!
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H55 (Sony Cyber-shot) 14.1MP Review
Descriptive
Sony H55
Sony Cyber-shot H55 Model Highlights:
- 14.1-megapixel
- 3.0" LCD
- 10x optical zoom
- Sweep Panorama Mode
- Optical SteadyShot
- iAuto mode
- 720p MP4 HD movie mode
- Self Portrait Timer
Having owned many pro-level cameras in the past, it was difficult for me to identify a solid and versatile point-and-shoot. This camera has everything I became looking for and just much more.
Pros:
I am impressed considering the variety of control the H55 gives me. Panoramic imaging integrated (its nice to determine the results right away rather than just eyeballing it).
Image quality - wow @ 14MP, the pictures are gorgeous. Color accuracy is excellent with good lighting.
The camera handles quite nicely and is also very easy to navigate.
The wide angle lens is fantastic at this price. As a pro I'd personally have spent around 200 on the lens alone.
Excellent range on zoom. I became quite happily surprised.
Life cycle of battery seems much more adequate compared to the W330 I previously purchased and returned.
TOP View
LCD View
Cons:
The flash is far from balanced and seems too hot to use for fill. I'm new on this camera and I'm utilized to pro-level equipment, so I believe I'm expecting an excessive amount of here. That, or I recently don't yet have the hang of it. Color accuracy stops working at lower light levels. Since I didn't have a real meter when camping, I couldn't tell at which precise number breakdown actually starts to occur. I would guess around 4 lux is all about as good as it gets. Beyond around that, it gets pretty noisy. I'll try out some night shooting after i have it on a tripod. However won't get my hopes up. Doesn't apparently allow you to manually close the lens. Not a dealbreaker, but it would seem a relatively simple feature to supply.
The Sony Cyber-shot H55 Gets 4/5 Squids!
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