Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H50 (Black)

Reviewed by

Joshua Goldman

on 09/03/2008

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Switching to the Program, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, or Manual modes gives you control over the usual suspects as well as access to a bunch of other tweaks. You can select the amount of noise reduction applied to images and the intensity of the flash. Pick from five color modes such as Real or Vivid, or experiment with color filters (red, green, blue, warm, and cool). Adjust color saturation, contrast, and sharpness. A Bracket Shooting mode includes exposure, white balance, and warmer/cooler filter bracketing. There's Sony's infrared NightShot, too, if you want to get creative in the dark.

All feature loveliness aside, the H50's performance is a mixed bag. First, it's slow to start up--2.3 seconds to first shot--and shut down (which it does automatically after 3 minutes and there's no way to change it). Focusing and shooting under optimal conditions takes 0.7 second, and under dimmer conditions it jumps to 1.3 seconds, both of which are on the high side of average. The typical shot-to-shot time is decent at 1.8 seconds, but adding flash drives it up to a sluggish 3.2 seconds. The H50's burst rate is a little better than 1 frame per second. The zoom operates smoothly and unlike many competitors, you can zoom while shooting video.

While I like the range provided by the lens, the extremes exhibit noticeable barrel and pincushion distortion--and it doesn't even get as wide as most of its competitors, which now tend to start at 28mm equivalent. And, as is characteristic of these cameras, the H50 produced the occasional unusable fringe-filled shot and at about ISO 200 image detail begins to degrade steadily. On the bright side, it produces images with nicely saturated, accurate colors. Pictures are sharp below ISO 200, with even exposures even and good contrast.

There's a lot to like about the Cyber-shot DSC-H50--from its design to its shooting flexibility to its hardware features. Unfortunately its performance and the limitations of its lens might leave you wishing you'd just taken the financial plunge and gone with a dSLR.

Shooting speed (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Time to first shot

Typical shot-to-shot time

Shutter lag (dim)

Shutter lag (typical)

Canon PowerShot S5 IS

1.3

1.6

0.8

0.5

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ18

1.8