Sony DSCHX5VB Cyber-shot Digital Camera – Black 3 inch LCD

E. A. Haselden

at 2:12 am

Now I am not going to talk too much about awesome picture quality and incredible video, but rather the emotional reason you need this camera. It is, after all, a compact and image quality will not surpass a DSLR but then an entry DSLR is about £800 and is like carrying a mini concrete block when you are negotiating around a sweltering foreign city. This Camera is a compact, and therefore we will look at it as one, you wouldn’t compare a ford focus to an Aston Martin would you…different leagues.

The DSLR carriers may look down their nose at this, but I can tell you, nothing has put a bigger smile on my girlfriend’s face, except me of course like this has…

BUILD: Feels sturdy and not quite as strong as the Panasonic TZ10 it still feels strong enough to suffer a drop. The battery door is a little flimsy, but that’s my only complaint.

STILLS: I would rate them as very good, not exceptional – The reason is that compacts have compact sensors and compact lenses, so you get a compact quality image, but don’t let that put you off… Unless you are intending to print your picture the size of a skyscraper, the quality is good for up to A3/2 before you will notice anything. The colours are nice and detail sharp. The lens has a really nice long 10x optical zoom… Pretty much all compacts produce the same quality.. so really there is nothing to really separate them… so lets move on…

MOVIES: I HATE AVCHD and although this camera produces both MP4 and AVCHD video files in FULL HD I must admit I favour the output quality of the AVCHD. What I hate about it is the lack of postproduction editing software out there that supports it. I am an AVID editor and this format causes more headaches, than happy faces. But to the domestic users reading this, you will be fine for recording video and playing back on big TV’s which this camera does easily. The software to use if you really want to get your hands dirty is Adobe Premier or Sony’s own Vegas software for AVCHD, which apparently just accepts the format straight away and off you go! You don’t get either bundled. but there is some fab software… more on that in a sec…

The quality of the Movies are faaaaaantastic! really good beautifully smooth images… HD to me is still like looking at a moving photograph, I love it and this camera really delivers. Sound is what you would expect from a camera this size.

FEATURES: Geo Tagging, put simply this camera will use GPS technology to pinpoint exactly where you are and which way you were facing when you took your shot or video. what a fab idea and with the brilliant Calendar software, which basically lays out all your media in to years, motnhs, day and even hours for easy browsing and the fact that it seems to just pic up all your photos from down the years too, suddenly your digital life is laid out before you… I spent two hours looking through this marvellous calendar and felt quite moved by this kind of self producing document of my life… wow… suddenly I was clicking 2002 and browsing the postage stamp size shots taken on my then breakthrough mobile phone.

Panoramic stitching… Well the day this camera arrived me and the GF took it to the park and this is the feature that really stood out. We had a real giggle creating all sorts of pics and playing with the different ways you could move the camera to create w-i-d-e panoramic shots. Basically you set the camera which way you want to sweep… then standing on the spot, you turn into the position of the start of the move and sweep the camera round, the camera takes a number of shots and then processes all the images to provide an incredible effect. It’s almost 3d when you look closely…! Love it.

God I love this little beauty and we’re about to drive around Europe with it, It’s a brilliant journal, a shooting marvel, a great fun little companion, that will not let you down. It might not produce billboard posters for you… but it will fit into those lovely little trips, and give you an edge not many other compacts can currently provide…

cheers.
Rating: 5 / 5

S. Mackenzie

at 4:19 am

I have owned this superb camera now for a few weeks. After much debate, and considering other cybershot models and even different brands, i decided to take the plunge a buy the HX-5V….And have not been dissapointed.

Having previously owned a Cybershot DSC-W55 for the last 4 years, i wanted to upgrade to something a bit newer and when i saw this camera (with its impressive features), i took a test-drive and was very impressed with it. Pictures in low light are superb, the automatic ISO (in easy mode) works a treat, the sony G lens is awesome with 10xoptical zoom. The HX-5V is very user friendly and like my old W55, the menu is simple and straightfoward so no worries there. An 8GB card gives you approx 1660 pics with 10.2 megapixels. It also boasts a BURST feature, which allows you to take up to 10 pics in just over a second. This is very useful for capturing fast moving objects, though a few of the pics were slightly blurred, this may have been my fault for not using the correct settings!! The 2 main features of this camera that stand out are the Intellegent Sweep panarama (which is an upgrade on all previous sony sweep panarama camera’s), i have used this feature with moving cars & people in the background and the results are fab, crystal clear pics with no blur. The 2nd is the AVC-HD video. It records superbly, allowing you to zoom in and out and again, adjusts automatically to your filming envioriment. I use this feature to film live bands and the sound quality, as well as video, is excellent. Video playback on a normal standard definition tv is very good, but on a high-def its excellent!! A 8gb pro-duo stick gives 85 mins of recording time, however im not sure if this can be increased with a larger sized one? The 3″ screen is the best iv’e ever seen, the playback quality of both pictures and video is excellent (you even have stereo speakers for video playback listening!) The GPS feature does drain your battery so turn it off (in the menu) when your not using it. Included cables, charger etc are good and the software is spot on, i love the PMB as it self-orginises everything for you and again, is very simple and clear to use.

The camera is perfectly sized and weighted, and although is a little bigger than previous cybershots, it still fits snuggly into the LCS-CST camera case. Go for the black/silver as apposed to the gold, the fingerprint smudges on the body really show up and i was forever cleaning it…….

Overall, SONY have made a cracker here, it is a little more expensive than other cybershots, but this is the closest your get to SLR quality, only this one fits in your pocket!!!!!! I am very happy with the HX-5V, 5 Star.
Rating: 5 / 5

Tomska

at 6:56 am

I’ve been quite excited about the release of this camera for some time. I needed a good pocketable back-up to my DSLR, preferably with HD video and had done a fair bit of research. Of course, when choosing a camera this small you have to make compromises: I knew that the HX5 offered little in the way of manual control, and that the image quality would not be anywhere near the same level as my Nikon D80. But the trade-off was 1080p HD video with very good image stabilisation; the nifty sweep panorama function; excellent low light capability and all in a very small package. So I took the plunge and bought the HX5.

The video is indeed very high quality, and the image stabilisation makes for considerably less jerky clips than you would usually expect from a compact camera, however it does suffer from fairly severe barrel distortion at the widest setting (which is the default), and the sound isn’t great. If you zoom in a little you can lose the barrel distortion, however.

The low light capability of this camera is indeed impressive – the “Hand Held Twilight” mode takes excellent indoor shots without a flash, and if you are predominantly after a handy camera to take photos of friends etc, this really does the job well. The HDR mode is nice too.

The panorama function is amazingly clever and I think this will become a defining feature. The image quality of this function is necessarily a bit poor, but it still does a brilliant job of stitching to make a pretty much flawless panorama that would otherwise need a fair amount of post-processing using Autopano or similar.

But the real deal-breaker for me – and the reason I have returned my HX5 – is image quality. Over a couple of weeks I took loads of photographs using all the different modes and I can’t say I would want to keep a single one of them. I like to take landscape photographs and due to the small sensor and excessive noise reduction employed by the HX5, I found it impossible to get sharp pictures: a lot of the detail was blurry and indistinct. Foliage comes out looking particularly mushy. I knew image quality would be a compromise I would have to make for the HX5, but the results were really disappointing for a 300 quid camera.

So if you are after a party camera with some great tricks and are not too concerned about smearing at low ISO settings, then this may well be the camera for you. Certainly there is nothing else out there with this impressive feature set, so two stars for that. However, if you need your outdoor photographs to appear sharp at full-screen size then you will probably need to look elsewhere: perhaps the Canon S90 or the Panasonic TZ7 or LX3. Of course you need to make compromises whatever compact camera you choose, but I’m afraid the poor image quality of this camera was a compromise too far for me, so back it goes…

Rating: 2 / 5