Everything I wanted and needed in a camera
|
| Review Date: May 13, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Petra Springer, Middlefield, Ohio |
I am no expert when it comes to photography but enjoy taking good pictures of my family and friends. I have kids in sports and I like to take my own pictures for picture giving. I read many reviews (for hours) on various cameras and endet up with this one here. I first was going to get the DSC-H50 (one step up from the DSC-H20). When I went to the store to buy it, however, it was to large for my taste. It was to big to fit in a pants pocket and even for my small purse it was quite large. Here are the main reasons why this camera is awesome!
This camera here is not as compact as your typical slim camera (due to the 10x zoom), but it is small enough to fit in a purse or even a jacket/pants pocket if need be.
This camera has a burst mode so you can hold down the shutter and the camera will take numerous pictures, thus making it ideal for action shots. I took it to a Volleyball tournament and got unbelievable shots of my daughter serving and hitting! I cought her in mid air more then a few times...just what I had hoped for. I also took pictures at a track meet and got kids jumping hurdles...the pictures look almost like magazine shots!
This camera is extremely easy to use in the easy and auto adjust mode! It tells you everything on the screen. You can start shooting pretty much right away...it's that easy! The manual is good to have for reference and questions and if you really want to get to know your camera.
The zoom is great and plenty! I took pictures from the mezzanine onto the Volleyball courts and could get nice close up shots! 10x is plenty for me!
The battery life is also impressive, as long as you keep your screen on a regular bright setting. First I had it set to "bright" and the battery didn't do well. Then I set it to normal and it lasts a long time. I took about 150 shots and not a single bar was missing from the battery!
It has a rechargebale battery so you don't have to keep buying regular batteries. Also, it does say that you can get a international charger so the battery charger can be plugged in anywhere in the world. (Still have to get that myself). What a nice option.
The quality of the pictures is also great! I took a team photo and my daughter took it to a practice to show the others. They choose the picture to use in a frame as a gift to the coaches. It turned out so good and all I did was push a button!
When shooting pictures, it has a option for the file size you select. If you know you want to email pictures, or for example if you sell on eBay and want to download pictures onto the ebay site, you select the small file size and shoot pictures that way for working with them online. For pictures that you use for portraits for example, you choose a larger file (pixels I guess), and that way it does not distort the picture when you enlarge it. That is also extremely easy to figure out!
Last but not least...I plugged it into my pc with the supplied USB cord and retrieved the photos the same way I always did in the past. I have not yet added the picture cd that came with it, but my guess is that it will work very good. I also took the 2GB SD card to Wal mart and made nice prints (you have to purchase the pro duo stick seperate...look for the "Sony pro-Duo Stick" cost about $13-$15). The 2 GB is plenty for me, I think it holds about 400 pictures).
Great camera...I have not found a flaw yet!
|
Great Camera!! Best Value!!!
|
| Review Date: May 12, 2009 |
| Reviewer: TechGeek, Texas |
| I bought this camera for a two week trip I was about to take. I also purchased an extra extended battery and an 8GB memory card for the camera. The main reason I purchased the camera was for its ability to take pictures quickly. I looked through consumer reports and this one was one of the top rated cameras. The cost is very good for this quality camera. I could take a picture withing a couple of seconds after turning the camera on and I could take a picture again less than a second later. This camera also has great battery life. Even if you just use the included battery, you can still get around 3-400 pictures (assuming you are not using flash). The zoom on the camera is great. It is a 10x optical zoom and additional 7x digital zoom. This gives you the power of a 17x zoom. If you take your picture at 17x zoom, you can then zoom in on your picture another 8x under the "review your pictures" menu. This camera is also small enough to fit into a small over the shoulder camera bag. It fit into my old camera bag that I used to have a small Olympus camera in. I recommend this camera for ages 16 and up. It is a great camera that it comparable to any SLR camera. I think it is better than a SLR because it is so much smaller than any SLR you could purchase. |
Completely Impressed!
|
| Review Date: May 27, 2009 |
| Reviewer: A. Dade, St. Louis, MO, USA |
We went into Best Buy to buy the DSC T77 - it was horrible! We loved our little W50 and decided to stick with the CyberShot line. Thank goodness we found THIS camera.
I was more than happy to pay the additional cost when I saw all of the features.
Super steady shot - and excellent fast motion shots. Tons of neat settings to catch the perfect shot. The macro and close up capability is in amazing detail - as well as the zoom.
We took pictures at the zoo of Elephants super far away and zoomed in and got some amazing shots!
This camera is positively one of the best I've ever seen Sony put out for it's type. The smile detection function is AWESOME and it REALLY works and it works fast!
Also - you can edit peoples faces ON the camera to make it look like they were smiling! How cool is that?
Another thing - you can set priority face recognition so that it will focus on the person you want it to when you're shooting pictures - like the bride in a wedding party for example. You can set her face as a priority face and it will automatically focus on her.
We are in love with this camera and have absolutely NOTHING but good things to say about it!
Buy with confidence knowing you will love this camera. |
Best camera for its price!!
|
| Review Date: April 21, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Michael Pellegrino, Freehold, NJ |
| Hello all, this camera is the real deal for its price. It is very easy to use and since I'm new with all this camera stuff, I love the fact you get detail info on the little icons indicating what they do. This helps my learning process for this camera. Also when the time is right, and you understand the camera, you can shut this option off. The picture quality is next to amazing. Especially at night, all my other cameras could never take pictures like this does. The detail is so crisp and clear. I'm truly impressed with this HD camera. If you are on the fence jump off and get this camera. |
Great camera - 10X zoom and 720P video (w/zoom)
|
| Review Date: May 6, 2009 |
| Reviewer: R. Calderon, |
| What I like the most about this camera is the 10X zoom and the HD video. This is one of the few cameras that allow you to do OPTICAL zoom on the video (canon only do digital zoom while in video mode). The zoom is 38mm to 380mm (10X). Not that good for wide angle (38mm vs 24mm or 28mm in most P&S), but I prefer to have more zoom (380mm) than wide angle for short distance pics. Also the video format is MPEG4 which I believe is easy to manage and good in compression. Price is also perfect, got it for $230. Overall great camera!!! |
1st personally owned camera from Sony - Worthit!
|
| Review Date: June 24, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Renan O., Temecula, California |
I bought mine last week and it arrived 2 days ago. By the time i got the camera, I tested it immediately and had a couple of shots. This is my first personal camera and I am really enjoying it a lot. We had a lot of cameras before but my dad/mom owns it and most of them were Sony and I'm just borrowing. This is one of the best Sony's P&S camera in my opinion.
At first, I was planning to get a DSLR or just the DSC-H50 but I am not feeling the bulky cameras as of the moment. I travel a lot and I don't think I want to bring those bulky and heavy gadgets with me. So, I did some research for a good camera specifications (that are small enough) and I ended up choosing between the Canon SD960 and this one (DSC-H20). Both of them almost have the same specs but the Canon camera is a little bit more expensive than H20. Also, I'm looking for a camera with better optical zoom and Sony-H20 offers twice the zoom strength as the Canon model that I am aiming for.
What I like about it:
- The HD quality video that it can take PLUS you can zoom while recording.
- It's like a mini-dslr because you can switch it to Manual mode and you can adjust the aperture and shutter speed so you can do panning as well. A small camera that really works.. what can I say?
- I love doing Bokeh and Macro shots!!! A+++
- The features such as SCN, editing in camera etc.
- The built and grip! Eventhough the body is made out of plastic, you can feel that it's tough and you can hold it really tight.
- The smile shutter - works well for the Kids..
- Ofcourse, the optical zoom.
- The strong flash
What I don't like:
- No viewfinder
- Popping out of flash, if you're not aware/forgot that you're going take a shot with a flash on/auto.
- Lens cap - you tend to forget that it's there and may block the lens from popping out when you open your camera. It's a little bit annoying and it gives me the feeling that it might break my camera. Though it says that you should remove the cap and turn off your unit and turn it on again, before it works.
Well, overall it's a great small camera and very worthit for its price. The cons I listed are not pretty much of a big deal especially when you see the crisp brilliant photos that you can take with DSC-H20. I bet you're going to love it too and it's worthit worthit and worthit!
I bought the camera with the following stuffs: Sony 8gb mark 2 pro duo memory card, the sony pouch and a tripod.
[...] |
Sony H20 - Love it!
|
| Review Date: May 24, 2009 |
| Reviewer: E. Goldblatt, LA, CA |
| I usually write long reviews, but I think this will be short and sweet. This is one great camera! My long search for a P&S camera that takes great pic's and vid's is finally over (at least for now). I've taken several hundred pictures and videos, most have come out absolutely fantastic. My only issue at all is low light performance. However, if you play with the settings, even those issues are mitigated to some degree. We all have to remember the limitations of any P&S. Overall, I will say that the H20 is the best P&S that I have used in a long long time. Good job Sony! |
Great picture/video quality for the price!
|
| Review Date: June 17, 2009 |
| Reviewer: R. Diblasi, NJ down the shore |
I took my camera on vacation last week to Nashville for the CMA Music festival. I took pictures from a distance and the zoom was great! The video quality is amazing and in HD. When playing it back on the computer it looks like the singer was right in front of me when I was about 20 rows back. It was pretty simple to use, but just keep in mind the zoom button zooms very fast so touch it very gently to get a nice clear shot. I had to play around with that from time to time and sometimes the video started out blurry but then it readjusted itself. All in all, the lights flashing on stage did not effect the pictures. I am very happy with my purchase and how the pictures and videos turned out.
I also took some pictures of flowers close up and they came out so clear and crisp full of vibrant colors. I would highly recommend! |
|