Full Review

Bought this camera May 07, now it's December 07 and never failed me, the pictures are very good since I have gotten to know what the camera is capable of and adjust accordingly. This camera can be fully automatic or totally manual.

I was looking for a video camera with nightshot capability when I saw the DSC-H9. This particular model is a digital camera with video capability. It can accept up to a maximum of 8 gig high speed memory stick pro, has 15x optical zoom, Carl Zeiss Lens, optical image stabilization, face recognition, 3200 iso, wide 3 inch LCD screen and moderately priced. Zoom is 15x optical, equivalent to 465mm on a 35mm equivalent camera. Digital zoom if set to VGA mode is up to 76x or 2356 mm on a 35mm camera, really powerful.

Once you press the power button, this camera is ready to shoot in less than 3 seconds. Really fast! But flash will take a few more seconds before it's ready to fire.

Included is a lens hood which comes in 2 parts which I rarely use and a lens cap with strap. The cap is very easy to put on. When you turn on the camera, it pops out if you forget to remove it. I suggest you strap your lens cap or risk losing it.

You can preview pictures through the 3 inch screen without turning on the camera. There is this button beside the viewfinder with an arrow symbol, press this button and your lcd will light up without the camera lens moving and popping out your lens cap. To turn off, just press the power button.

Other features I loved is the big 3 inch LCD, powerful zoom, high ISO, shoot in total darkness with infrared nightshot and capability to shoot continuously at about 2 frames per second, unlike other digitals I used which only shoots 5 or 15 continuous, keep your finger on the shutter button and this one shoots up to 100 frames at a time. Great for shooting kids or pets, just shoot and pick the best.

with a 2 gig memory stick you can shoot over 600 shots at 8m or 1,000 at 3m pixels and over 10,000 in vga mode. I'd rather shoot at 8m and crop the parts that I like. Transfer is via USB or card reader to your PC. No need for any software to transfer pictures. Sony did provide some bundled software on CD which I have not used till this day. Other resolutions are 3:2 and 16:9. Pictures are jpeg and movies are mpeg format.

I suggest you get a high speed memory stick pro duo. There is the regular and the high speed, price difference is also big, performance between the two is also significant. There are also fakes, I got a fake pro duo for 1/3 the price, says high speed but can only go 15 shots before slowing down, shooting movies did not pose a problem with the fake, the original from Sony with 10 year warranty went all the way to 100 without a hitch.

Also carry a spare battery since the one provided goes to about 400 pictures on the averge. It also takes a long time to charge with the supplied charger, the good part is batteries don't get hot while charging and therefore should in theory last longer. From my experience, these batteries last longer if you do not totally discharge before charging, meaning, charge the batteries whenever you are able, even if it's only slightly drained.

The viewfinder has correction for people wearing glasses. There is no provision for an external flash or shoe. The flash is quite powerful, it illuminated people as far away as 20 feet but is a bit slow to recharge.

Flash automatically pops up when needed. Pictures are also great, very little shadow, some none at all using flash. Most of the time you do not need flash due to high ISO capability although pictures tend to get grainy at 400 to 3200 iso, grainy is a term used for films, in other words the picture tend to be noisy or full of dots, this is also true of films with the same iso ratings and is not the camera's fault.

The supplied lens hood is truly a big oversight by SONY. Flash pictures will have some shadow, wide angle shots have veginetting and auto focus illuminator will get blocked by the supplied lens hood. Use the lens hood only for outdoor bright sunny days, well, that's what lens hoods are for anyway, keep the sun out of the lens.

I bought a 2 gig memory stick and movies at 640 fine (30 fps) is about 25 min, 640 standard (17 fps) is about 1.5 hours, and 320 (8 fps) is about 6 hours but batteries don't last that long, 320 is great for emails, the picture is small, half the size of your monitor, clear enough but not as clear as the standard setting, there is a bit of distortion viewed at full screen. The video is surprisingly smooth at the 320 setting. You can buy an optional AC adapter if you intend to shoot long periods. Zoom only goes maximum of 15x when taking videos.

Audio was really clear and good, didn't get distorted even when I was near the loud speakers although I noticed slight hissing sound, could be from the loud speakers.

The maximum time you can have the shutter open is 30 seconds, was able to try it with full moon at F2.7 the scene was as bright as day. Without a full moon, the picture looked like it was taken at daybreak.

Zoom is very powerful, as advertised, the most powerful in it's class. If set to VGA mode, optical is still 15x but with smart digital zoom you can go as much as 76X (2356mm) with little distortions. There are 2 methods of digital zoom, precision and smart, precision will zoom up to 30x regardless, but image deteriorates, smart zoom enlarges digitally within the range where the image will not be distorted but not available if set to 8 meg pixel or 3:2.

It's best to just use smart zoom and let the camera decide but you can use precision zoom and you decide. I tried 8 meg pixel, 30x including digital zoom and it still looks ok to me. This will not work if you are set to Auto, but works with other settings like A, P etc.

The optical zoom works both for shooting photographs and movie mode. How much digital zoom will depend on how many megapixel picture you chose, 8m is 0, the closer you get to vga mode the more digital zoom you get.

Infrared Nightshot works great but only for short distances, around 10 to 15 feet, slightly green and as expected, grainy, in other words, picture is full of dots.

Color is very good, especially the reds, there is also a 1 push white balance option in the menu, but works only in the iso, p, s, a, m or movie mode, white balance is not available in the auto mode. In situations where you cannot get the colors right, select this and presto, your colors are fixed. P is program mode, s is shutter priority, a is aperture and m is manual.

Some effects are also built into the camera such as fisheye, cross screen for those night shot of lights that look like stars, make your subject colored but surroundings black and white, remove red eye, crop, blur things around your subject. These you use after you have taken the picture and you do it with the camera, not on your pc. The revised picture is then saved as another picture on the camera so the orignal is never touched.

I do hope Sony comes out with a firmware upgrade for fine or extra fine settings. Pictures taken at 8m is around 2 Meg, other camera brands go about 6 meg or more at that size, did sony compress the image too much? There is also no RAW format. I don't mind eating up my memory stick with a less compressed picture.

The trick with any camera, digital or film is use low ISO 80 or 100 if you want really sharp pictures. With this camera iso 400 shots were good, not too much grain but anything above is really bad. There are instances where you need the higher ISO setting, places where they do not allow flash to be used and you have to trade sharpness as against having no picture at all.

The indoor shots with some types of fluorescent lamps are sometimes bluish on the Auto setting, but not a problem since you can do a white balance and take the picture on some other settings such as P,S,A, or M.

Auto is great if you want to take the shot without thinking but most of the time, if place is poorly lit and you don't want to use flash, camera will tend to use a higher ISO to prevent camera shake, so pictures will not be very sharp.

For these I use a tripod if subject is not moving much, put the camera on S or A, set my ISO to 200 or less and take the shot. Image stabilizer is very good, I tried shots at 1/8 without a tripod and they are clear. Once you experiment, you will know what you and your camera are capable of.

Overall, I love the features, especially the powerful zoom. Very light in weight, has all the features I wanted in a camera, picture could be greatly improved with less compression, perhaps a firmware upgrade if that is possible.