H50: Bridging The Gap (Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H50)

Member Name: Dan_Millard

Product:	Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H50
Date:	13/05/09 (127 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent zoom, great pictures, video function.

Disadvantages: No link to HDMI port.

Me and my partner decided that it was about time to buy a really good camera to capture all our special memories on. There was one slight problem: I wanted the quality of a Digital SLR, and she wanted the portability of a compact digital camera. So, we searched and we searched and we searched and couldn't find the perfect camera, so we settled on a compact Sony cybershot. Then, by chance, I stumble on to this bad boy and it seems that we have hit the jackpot! Exactly what we were looking for; excellent quality photographs but withour the bulkiness of a DSLR. We fell in love immediately and ordered it from Amazon.

Delivery was, as always with Amazon, prompt and efficient and I was tearing in to the box just a couple of days after placing the order. My first impression was 'Wow! This is a bit bigger than I expected!' I need to stress the word 'bit' in that sentence. It really isn't that much bigger than a compact digital camera, only quite a bit chunkier.

I gave the battery a quick charge and couldn't wait to give it a go. I inserted my Sony Pro Memory Stick Duo into the memory card slot and took a few sample shots. I viewed them on the screen and was very impressed. I must say that the screen is one of the best qualities of this camera. Very bright and colourful AND it can actually be removed from the body of the camera and TILT up or down, which is a very cool feature to show people when they come around. The practicality of this function is to make it easier to see what you are shooting if you need to hold the camera in the air for whatever reason (at a music concert, or if there is an object in the way).

The pictures are 9 megapixels, which may not seem a lot in today's digital camera market, but it is important to realise that megapixels are not everything. In fact, too many megapixels can start to weaken the qualirt of the image and cause interference. The quality of the Sony Bionz processor is very high and these photographs are truly stunning HD. It is quite a sight to view them on a 40" HD TV, you can really appreciate the quality. I like the ability to change the ratio of the photos to 16:9 as it means that the pictures fill the screen of a HDTV and my laptop, so if I wanted to use a picture as my background it wouldn't have any annoying black bars on either side.

For me, the major selling point of this camera is the optical zoom: 15x. Most compact cameras offer zooms of 3x, 5x is you're lucky. If you are on a safari and take a picture with a compact camera, the animal would look miles away. With the H50, you can really get up close to the action.

The H50 also offers a video function, which is standard on most compacts but non-existent on DSLRs.

Overall, the H50 is an excellent camera that attempts to bridge the gap between compact cameras and SLRs. It is for somebody who is a bit more serious about photography than your average Joe, but isn't quite ready to delve into the DSLR market quite yet.

Summary: Very good camera for those looking for something a bit more than your typical compact camera.

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