Consumer Reviews

This camera has everything a person needs to take both close up macrophotography and telephoto shots. The value and pricing points are solid. I took it on a short vacation to Costa Rica and had not even taken practice shots until we arrived in country.

The camera is very light. I included some of the 100 or so shots I took in the sample gallery and they turned out excellent in terms of resolution and color balance. I mainly used it as a point and shoot and really did not have much time to play with all the creative options.

I cannot help but think that if a person had more time and creativity, they could come up with some great award winning shots.

I was especially impressed with the following camera features:
- The intelligent sensing option is very, very good, it recognized exactly what I wanted in terms of exposure.
- I used the panorama feature more than I expected. The people I showed the pictures to were amazed that a camera could even do this. Although not quiet as detailed as HD shots, most people will not even see the difference.
- The night architectural interior and exterior shots were done with very little setup or time, and yet the photos look like they were deliberate and careful.
- The battery was great and lasted the entire trip.

On the negative side, I think Sony could work on a protection cover for the main LCD screen, a person definately needs to apply a clear film protector to guard against damage. I think more detail to extreme weather and dust protection would put this in a class all by itself.

In closing Sony designers did a very beautiful job of putting together a camera that challenges Canon and Nikon $2,000 and $3,000 cameras and a fraction of the cost. I challenge you to go one step further and dust, water, sand, and drop proof this camera to put the icing on the cake of this well engineered and revolutionary camera.

After much deliberation, I bought this camera after trying to decide between the HX1 and the Canon SX1 and some others. The features that brought me over were the sweep panorama, 10 shots per second burst mode, and the other reviewers who seemed to say that the image quality between the HX1 and the SX1 were not that much different. Also, I got the HX1 for about $50 less probably (or more).

Now to just say where I am coming from, I’ve owned Sony DSC-H1 for the past 4 years, and that camera has been excellent and printed out great 4×6’s and 8×10’s. So I was just looking for a camera that would have HD video and also take at least as good pictures as the H1. The HX1 does the trick, let me tell you. (That “X” makes all the difference!) The color is really nice, the pictures come out very well even at high zooms.

Speaking of zoom, the 20x is amazing! It just keeps bringing objects closer and closer. Comparing them to my old H1 pictures, they are definitely better. Whether they are as good as the SX1 or other similar cameras, I cannot say. As to people who have been comparing this camera to a DSLR, this camera is not a DSLR! It will not take that kind of DSLR quality photo! Go buy a DSLR if you want that.

What this camera does do like a DSLR is have absolutely no shutter delay, (once it is focused) which is great for shooting sports games and such. The burst mode works excellent and really does take 10 a second, though it does take a bit to load them onto the memory card, about 15 seconds probably which doesn’t seem that long when you are actually shooting photos.
The panorama mode works as advertised, and can take some extremely wide shots with the “wide” panorama mode. The quality seems to be pretty good, though sometimes you can see the stitching. At the very least, it is a lot of fun to use.
The low light mode works well, though the pictures do tend to become a bit noisy, so I will not be making any poster size prints of those.

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I have had this camera for two days and have experimented with it by taking over 250 pictures using both automatic and manual setting. I read on CNET review that this camera’s photo quality is not that great. That is half true. The picture will not turn out sharp and clear if you always use automatic settings; however, manual mode with the correct settings will result in dslr-like photo quality. You really have to manually adjust the settings if you want to have good quality pics. If you don’t know what you’re doing, I suggest you stick with the auto mode.

Pros:

1.above average shutter lag but definitely faster than the compact and ultra compact P&S digicams
2.Manual settings is a big plus
3. Zoom can be extended up to 32x when shooting on 5 megapixel
4. Optical Stabilization works very well
5. Flash is extremely powerful. You can take pictures in VERY LOW LIGHT situations, and produce a bright crisp pics
6. 10 fps burst mode. There are options for 2, 3, and 5 FPS
7. Anti-blur is superb
8. Clear and crisp pictures when maxing out the zoom
9. Very light and portable
10. Good grip and excellent lens

Cons:

1. Macro is below average. My Panasonic tz3 and Sony T200 takes much better pics on macro mode
2. Lens cap is flimsy
3. Automatic ISO mode does not alway take good pictures
4. You have to wait for 16 seocnds to take another shot when using the 10 fps burst mode
5. LCD screen do not completely swivel
6. It doesn’t do my laundry

I have not tested the HD video so I can’t comment on it. Also, I am very much aware that this is not a dslr so I will not complain that it doesn’t take good pictures like the DSLR’r or as fast. To do so would be idiotic, stupid, and ignorant.

CONCLUSION: Get this camera if you know how to use the manual mode with the proper settings. You will be guaranteed to have excellent pictures. Stay away from this camera if you would only use the automatic mode as it would be such a waste of your hard earned money. I highly recommend Canon, Sony T series, and the newer Panasonic models for the photography-challenged.

For the intermediate to advanced photography enthusiasts, this is an excellent second camera. It is light, portable, and have so many manual settings which would allow you to create amazing photo quality

I have had this camera for a few weeks now and like it very much. I am not going to write a technical review, because those that would understand it can interpret the data for themselves. This is a simple review for a single camera that can be used by the advanced photographer and still hand it over to you wife or kids and still get a great picture. This is truly a family camera.
Let me say that it never stops to amaze me how far technology has come. Having said that lets look at some of the less known feature.

1- In camera editing. You can change a frown to a smile, a blur to a sharp image. Mix back and white with some color elements in the same picture and shoot with a fish eye lens effect if you want and you don’t need the lens. All this and much more and it’s easy to use.

2- Ten pictures a second. If you have owned a digital camera, you know how slow it can be between pictures when you are trying to catch you granddaughter running about. In low light it takes multiple pictures and combines the best elements of each to give you one good image. In portrait mode it will give you a warning on the screen if the person blinks when the shutter is snapped or will take two picture when set and keep the best one. It will wait to take the picture until someone smiles and much more. The results are stunning the technology amazing.

3- Wide angle to telephoto with a small camera body and lens.

4- Scene selection works like a charm. Backlight, front light, no light, portrait or landscape it sees and selects the best setting and fill flash if needed. The amature can get excellent results in the worst of conditions. Want to do it yourself, switch to manual mode.

Hope this peaks your interest. I could go on for pages, but this is a great camera at a great price. I would recommend it and I have owned some of the best. This camera is fun and it allows you to focus on your subject and forget about the tech stuff.

OK, some additional information. I just returned from a trip to Europe and took over 700 pictures. I have to say as a point and shoot camera, it has given me some of the best pictures I have ever taken.

LOW Light – Again, no tech speak. I found some carved statues in a dark corner of a cathedral. It was so dark I almost walked past them if not for a flash light glimmer from a tour guide. With no flash allowed, I set the camera to low light, steady hand held mode and shot the picture. In this mode the camera shoots 5 fast pictures and the internal processor makes a composite picture from the 5 shots. The results are astounding! The pictures are rendered with natural light and are as clear and sharp as day. I used this feature over and over again with outstanding and dynamic results every time.

Pan Pictures – Given the wide street pictures and tall cathedrals it is very hard to compose pictures with a standard lens and not cut off buildings and towers. The 270 degree pan mode gave me incredible pictures of street scenes and buildings that would have been lost in the translation of single images. Please not that there is some distortion as you pan across the scene in some applications, but the effect is not objectionable and in some cases added to the dynamics of the photo.

In short, this is the best camera I have ever owned for this kind of work providing professional results with little or no effort. Buy one and have a ball…

I was looking for a camera as an upgrade from my Canon S3 IS. I did quite a bit of research (read lots of review and looked at photos from the reviewers/users). This camera wasn’t even on my radar until I read a review/top 5 list on [...]. After reading their review, I came to amazon’s customer reviews and read them all, then looked at all the customer photos. Afterwards I went to my local Best Buy to get a hands-on “feel”. The camera felt sturdy in my hands and the grip was deep enough for my long fingers. I then tested out the zoom and macro – 2 features I use extensively…I was pleased with both.

3 days after I got the camera I used it for a 3-day camping trip. I was impressed with the zoom and macro capabilities. There were only a few occasions when I couldn’t get the lens to focus on a subject: once was a flower that was blowing in the breeze (have the same problem with the S3 IS) another time, while staying on the trail, the zoom was too much to focus where I wanted and the brush kept me from being able to go over and shoot macro.

With that being said, the 10-shots per second is fun to use, but those 10-20 sec. (when writing to the disc) does feel like an eternity…especially when you want to keep shooting a wildlife subject. Indoor shots (outside of automatic setting) take forever, though I did get a really cool low light photo of the inside of our RV with just the rope lights on (had my elbows resting on the table).

Putting the camera in Intelligent Auto Adjustment mode helps. I was standing in the kitchen at home and pointed the camera down a dark hallway and got a phenomenal shot, I also used that setting in my niece’s hospital room as it always looks like twilight time in there (my brother-in-law was impressed with the photos I was able to take).

As for battery life, I always use the viewfinder (except for some macro shots) so that does help give more time. I love seeing how much time is left on the battery – I tried it with the LCD first, made a mental note of remaining time, then switched to viewfinder and gained about 10 min.

If you’re looking for a new digital camera, do your homework online and get a list together, then I highly recommend going to a store and trying out the different cameras you’re looking at first. Check out how the camera feels in your hand, try out the zoom/macro modes and take some test shots. Then you can go back online and order your camera (if you can wait that long :)).