Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H3 'superzoom' camera

Some people want a camera that’s small enough to fit in a pocket, but they also want the features of a SLR. In other words, they want the impossible. Or do they? Enter the 'superzoom', which in the days of film would have been described as a 'bridge camera'. Sony DSC-H3 digital camera Sony's DSC-H3: bigger than a compact, …

[John Miles]

Nice camera - but wider zoom would be useful

I'm puzzled why this, like some other 'super zoom' cameras, extend the 3:1 (35-105mm) zoom range of basic compacts at the "long end" only e.g. 35-380mm. (The Panasonic FZ50 is another such example 35-420mm).

Possibly designing a short focus zoom lens is harder than an long focus one, but an effective zoom range of 28-280 or 25-250 mm would seem much more useful.

For the odd shot where one wants something just a bit longer than ~250mm one can always zoom the image by a 20-25% (and make use of those millions of pixels) without loosing too much resolution. But there is no 'post processing' way to get the part of the frame not included in a 35mm shot.

[James Pickett]

Nice, but...

This may be nit-picky for some users, but 0.5 frames/second for continuous mode is a bit disappointing. I have Canon and Kodak compacts, both over 2 years old, that can manage nearly 3 fps, and the Canon can fill the card at that speed! Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a lot to see here...

There's very little new here - almost all of these features have existed on other cameras of the Ultrazoom type for years. I have an Olympus C770-UZ, and though it's only 4.3MP, it does just about everything that this camera does - and I've had it for well over three years.

Personally, I wouldn't pay the "Sony Premium" for something that can be done just as well elsewhere.

[David Gosnell]

@ John Miles

I believe there are optical considerations for getting non-distorted wide-angle images, but more than anything I'm sure it's 90% sales pitch. Longer maximum zooms, more megapixels and higher ISO ratings are what sell cameras, not image quality or anything else that matters when you actually use them for real.

[Mage]

Viewfinder

You can't hold a LCD screen only camera steady.

If you need reading glasses a LCD screen is useless on a Camera.

Wider angle IS more expensive / harder than more Tele on a Zoom lens.

lack of manual / Fixed focus is a problem.

I'd like to do stop motion animation occasionally. You need manual white balance, manual focus and exposure lock. Otherwise when you move anything the colour balance/ brightness/contrast/focus jumps from frame to frame. On SD TV video camera I also only seem ever to find 2 out of 3 settings can be manual.

[Dirk Vandenheuvel]

Marketing gimmick

"Personally, I wouldn't pay the "Sony Premium" for something that can be done just as well elsewhere."

QFT.

Seems more like a super-marketing-zoom than a useful camera for that price.

[fishman]

Viewfinder

I have a Panasonic superzoom camera I bought a couple of years ago, and it has a LCD viewfinder along with a LCD screen. I use the viewfinder quite often outdoors when the sunlight makes the main LCD screen hard to see. The lack of an optical or LCD viewfinder is a non starter for me.

[James Pickett]

Viewfinder again

"The lack of an optical or LCD viewfinder is a non starter for me."

Agree entirely. The Panasonic TZ3, which would otherwise be on my shortlist, is a desirable competitor in all respects, with a wonderful 28-280mm zoom, but no viewfinder, no sale. Sorry.

[Andrew Peake]

yawn yawn

apart from adding more megapixels, there doesnt seem to be anything on offer that wasnt on offer 8 or so years ago on the DSC-F505V or the 707. Yes I know it's more compact but nothing much else is there.

[Andy Bright]

Olympus

Usually I go for the Olympus equivalents to this, my SP-560 has an 18X wide angle zoom (27-486MM equiv) - and with a $30 adapter supports a couple of telephoto lenses.

Because they've just released a new version it's about the same price as this one too.

Still the Sony seems a decent buy, $300 is pretty good and their image stabilisation is a touch better than Olympus. You can't use a tripod every time you want to grab a quick photo, so it is a decent feature.

[J]

Re: Viewfinder again

Yep, I've got a TZ3. Nice, but the lack of viewfinder is indeed annoying and makes shooting steadily harder, so think well before getting a camera without one. And it's also very noisy at ISO 400 equiv. already. If I have to shoot in darker conditions with it, I underexpose at "ISO 100" and do layer additions later. I only bought it to have a camera I can take with me everyday in my backpack without much concern, and for that it is quite good and cheap -- no carrying my K10D around all the time for sure. It even fits in the jeans back pocket (hard to sit down, though...).

[Roland]

Remember the FD-91?

Now that was a cool camera... http://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/FD91/FD91A.HTM

Nice optical zoom (14x!), nothing of that digital zoom stuff.

Still using it sometimes, to just see 'what's going on over there'. Always makes me smile, the ka-chunk of the floppy drive :-)

So in a way, Sony comes full circle, it seems...

[Matthew Smith]

Missing 2 important teatures

I got myself an Olympus C-300 (aka D-500) from Cash Converters (£30 well spent), and there were only 3 problems with it. Apart from it being a bit too small to hold comfortably and steadily in my ham fists (a problem which this Sony seems to address) the two great lacks were a manual focussing ring and a shoe for a flash. Without these essentials it just doesn't cut it as a tool for taking photographs, rather than snapshots.