Sony DSC H50 Review

Sony DSC H50. Image courtesy of http://www.pcmag.com/

My company was in the market for a new camera and they asked one of our suppliers to deliver a Sony DCS H50 for us. I got to play around with the camera. While it was too bad that I wasn’t able to download the photos I took (don’t ask, long story), I managed to scribble enough thoughts and comments so that I can write this review.

Overview

The Sony DSC H50 has a 9.1 megapixel CCD sensor. According to Sony, their “revolutionary” sensor design allows more light to pass to each pixel, thereby theoretically “increasing sensitivity and reducing noise”. Sony has its own image processor (BIONZ) and this processor is utilized on this camera. According to the manual, their Bionz processor “delivers speed and precision.”

The H50 uses excellent glass for its optics: a Carl Zeiss zoom lens. There’s also a 3” tilt-screen LCD monitor at the back. Like the new crop of cameras in the market today, the H50 has image stabilization. The ISO range is from ISO 80 to 3200. Users are offered to shoot either fully automatic or fully manual, with a number of scene modes available that are found in almost all cameras in the market segment where the H50 is competing in. The camera also has a built-in 15mg memory.

For external storage, the H50 accepts Memory Stick Duo/PRO Duo only. No slot for SD, microSD or CF cards. The camera also has a proprietary Lithium-ion battery and the appropriate charger. The H50 “package” comes with a lens hood, a lens adapter ring a lens cap, a shoulder strap, a remote control unit, the usual A/V and USB cords plus a CD-ROM with Sony software and the manuals.

The camera has some “interesting” features incorporated into the camera, notably of which is Face and Smile Detection. Like with other cameras the H50 is competing with, the usual dynamic range optimization, variable noise reduction and intelligent scene recognition is present.

Form Factor and Build Quality

The H50 is a bridge cam so it “looks” like a small DSLR. While it may have the “look” of a DSLR, I personally think it doesn’t have the feel of one (similar to a few other bridge cams in the market). The body of the camera is built using the usual composite plastic used to build almost all digital camera bodies. Even if the H50 “looks” like a DSLR, it isn’t as “heavy” as one. However, the exterior finish has a “plastic” look to it. The camera is not overly large but not small: definitely not a camera to carry around inside a pants pocket.

Lens

The H50 has a very nice Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens. This lens offers a very good 15x optical zoom and has an aperture range of f/2.8 – 4.5. This lens is a fast lens and covers a range of 31-465mm.  However, this good lens is without its faults. On tests, there is visible barrel distortion. On wide-angle shots, straight lines curve out from the center of the image while on extreme telephoto shots, straight lines bend toward the center. However, this fault is not uncommon among lens that cover ranges from extremely wide-angle to extremely close-up. For “normal” shoots where extreme wide-angle or extreme tele-photo is not needed, barrel distortion isn’t an issue.

LCD and Viewfinder

According to the person who did the demo, HD50’s 3.0” LCD screen has a 230K pixel composition. The LCD offers good display in good light and in low light conditions. Under direct sunlight, users will have no problem looking at the images on screen i.e. the sun does not wash out the images making it harder for a user to compose scenes. In case the user has difficulty looking at the display, the LCD can be tilted for a better viewing angle.

As with all bridge cameras, the H50 has a viewfinder. Unlike DSLRs where an optical viewfinder is used, the H50 uses an electronic viewfinder (EVF). Cameras competing in the same segment all have electronic viewfinders. The image range covered by the viewfinder is around 90% of the scene. Unlike DSLRs where users can peer through the optical viewfinder even if the camera is off, users will not be able to view images on H50’s EVF if the camera is off. Image quality on the viewfinder is not as good as that of the LCD screen and there’s a bit of a noticeable lag when panning through a scene in trying to compose a shot. For users who wear glasses, a diopter adjustment is present.

Ergonomics and Design

The camera has a lot of features packed into a small body: there are buttons or controls everywhere. Users with small fingers might not have a difficult time locating and pressing buttons or controls but those who have large hands and/or long fingers will find the ergonomics of the H50 “challenging”. The back of the camera is dominated by the 3.0″ LCD screen and it very little room for the buttons/controls.

As the place for all the buttons or controls is relatively small (it is a small camera with lots of buttons after all), users could have the tendency to hit multiple buttons or controls when look at the viewfinder while fidgeting with the buttons or controls. Again, users with big hands will have a challenging time.

The handgrip is made from a rubber-like material but only provides decent grip. Sweaty hands might have a challenge in holding this camera. While the shape of the grip is good and is really suitable for users will small hands, users with large hands will have an “interesting” time holding the using this camera, especially during times when manual mode, shutter priority mode or aperture priority mode is used.

The camera’s zoom button lies directly under the thumb of the right hand. While Sony might have a bright idea for ease-of-use in placing the zoom button on that place, it won’t be surprising if users inadvertently zoom the lens without knowing it.

The H50 package comes with a lens hood. A lens hood is useful in certain shooting situations at it may prevent stray light from hitting the lens and is useful in protecting the front element of the lens from damage.

Performance and Ease of Use

The image quality produced by the H50 is not exceptional but is quite competitive to most (but not all) of the cameras in its class. Colors are fairly accurate but a bit soft, which is generally okay. The combination of the BIONZ processor and the Vario-Tessar lens produces very good exposures. However, the sharpening tool built into the camera’s OS/BIONZ processor has a tendency to overdo sharpening. Test images taken that were enlarged on the LCD screen shows signs of halo effects but if the images taken from this camera would not be used on a billboard but for ordinary 3R/5R sizes, the image produced will be quite sharp and respectably crisp.

Photos taken from ISO 200 were grainy, with the graininess progressing with every ISO increment. Noise i.e. graininess on the images taken using ISO 200, 400 and 800 are fairly acceptable but the images taken under the IS0 1600 and ISO 3200 are real noisy. As the processor tries to compensate so that noise will be reduced for images taken using ISO 200 and above, the resulting photos have an unnatural digital look to it i.e. at times it looked like the photo was created using a computer software. The resulting photos are not really bad but don’t measure up to the other bridge cameras that lead the market in this class. Also, the resulting images don’t measure up to even entry level DSLRs as DSLRs have larger sensors, better processors and better processing algorithms.

Utilization of the camera’s controls takes some getting used to. Every time a user needs to change a setting on the camera, the OK button needs to be pressed almost each and every time when drilling down to various settings then going back to a point of origin. As the user progresses to use the controls, he/she will inadvertently find himself/herself using the four-way buttons of the camera. The process is unnervingly slow and continuously fidgeting with these controls to change settings and all takes a bit if dexterity. As the number of steps required to navigate the menu is not few, non-technical users might be better off using the Auto mode using the LCD and not the EVF at nearly each shooting opportunity

The H50 powers-up after three seconds, which is slow compared to segment-leading competitors and to almost all DSLRs currently in the market. However, it would only take the H50 roughly 0.25-0.30 seconds to focus on a subject that is at a correct angle under good lighting. Shutter lag is about 0.070 seconds or so which is pretty respectable and common with most of the cameras competing with the H50. An AutoFocus (AF) illuminator light is present and is usefully during shoots with dimly lit conditions. The AF offers a 9-area multi point AF. Under Auto mode, the camera chooses which point to focus on. However, the user can choose to selectively focus on a point. Doing so would require the user to set focusing to monitoring AF or to flexible AF. Flexible AF allows the user to specifically set the AF point. However, switching to flexible AF is a practice in patience as the setting is embedded deep inside system menus and locating the proper system menu item to set is a chore.

According to the person that did the demo, the burst mode of the H50 taken at full resolution (9megapixels) takes photos at 1.64 frames per second. However, actual test shows that the H50 can “only” take full resolution shots in burst mode at nearly half the rate i.e. around 0.7-1.0fps. During burst mode, the H50 applies all the focus, exposure and white balance settings for all succeeding photos even if the shootings for succeeding conditions photos become different. During burst mode, the LCD monitor experiences a brief blackout and additional lag after each shot, which is normal on almost all bridge cameras like H50. Panning shots on moving subjects becomes a guessing game as the user will need to guess where to aim the next shot.

In some models, the addition of a lens hood is a plus as a lens hood is usually pretty easy to attach. Not with the lens hood of the H50! Aside from being overly large, the hood comes in two parts, whereas most if not all lens hoods come only in one part. Attaching and removing the lens hood is a bit of an effort. A large ring adapter comes with the H50 package. This adapter (with a rotating ring up front) fits on the filter thread in front of the lens. This is the 1st part of the hood. The 2nd part is the actual petal hood that is attached to the front of the adaptor. To rotate the front rotating ring with the overly large petal hood in place, the user has to align every component of the hood assembly first and with the absence of alignment markers, the process will take practice and skill to master.

The built-in flash of the H50 performs generally well. Results a quite pleasing and color rendition is fairly accurate when flash is used as the primary illumination. As far our test results went, the recycle time ranges from good to very bad. In well lit shooting instances, the recycle time of the built-in flash is about 3-4 seconds (good). In real dark shooting situations, the recycle time of the built-in flash is about 15 seconds (very bad). As with almost all digital cameras, the H50 won’t allow users to capture another image until the flash has recycled. Using the lens hood during flash photography is not recommended as the result would be severely vignetted.

The H50 comes with Image Stabilization, similar to one competing brand on the bridge camera segment. The person that did the demo told us that the H50 uses a “double blur solution” that consists of an optical image stabilization using a built-in gyro that detects movement then sends signals corrections to the lens, then increases ISO sensitivity to increase shutter speed. Therefore, this solution theoretically negates any shooting mode where the user can set the ISO setting. Then again, I could be wrong.

The person also said that the Lithium-ion battery is good for 300 shots using the LCD, and for 330 shots using the viewfinder. However, since the Image Stabilization is always on the battery life will theoretically be less than 300 shots. As the gyro is always on and the sensors automatically ramps up ISO settings to compensate, this puts a heavy load on the battery life.

Conclusion

The Sony DSC H50 indeed looks and “sounds” good as it has all the bells and whistles that current technology can offer. The camera should produce good resolution, and should have good shutter response. The EVF is better than most and the LCD is quite pleasing to the eye. The availability of ISO settings is quite good and the feature list is very impressive with almost every new technology squeezed into a small frame. However, based on reviews and actual tests results made, the camera does has a number of drawbacks. The ergonomics and styling needs work and the image produced is above average in general, not “exceptional” as what the brochure stated. It doesn’t mean though that the H50 is not a good cam – it is.

For casual weekend shooters who go mostly on Auto mode and don’t mind ergonomics, this camera would be a very good candidate. For more discerning users, they might find the overall handling if the camera not much to their liking and the image quality not up to par with the leading models competing in the bridgecam segment.

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