Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20 is another great camera in the company's 2009 point-and-shoot lineup. It seems as if Sony took its equally excellent W290 compact camera and expanded it into a megazoom. It has a new menu system that makes operation easier, a pleasing combination of shooting features, and some valuable extras such as 720p HD-quality movie capture with use of its 10x zoom lens. It also looks cool, performs fast for its class, and takes very good photos. There are a couple minor design issues, but nothing that keeps this from being a quality compact megazoom.

The black H20 is chunky and heavy, especially in comparison to Panasonic's ZS3 or ZS1 megazooms, and they have wider, longer lenses. You can't really stick the H20 in your back pocket; it's more of a jacket pocket/small bag camera. Despite this, though, the design for the H20 is quite good, mainly because it's really comfortable to use. Controls are all well laid-out and big enough to make operation easy. The Mode dial on top sits in easy reach of your thumb and isn't overcrowded with icons. Also on top is the power button, shutter release with zoom ring, and a Smile Shutter button that tells the camera to keep shooting pictures as long as the subject is smiling and there's space on the Memory Stick.

Gone from this model is Sony's confusing Home and Menu buttons setup from previous models. That relied on the user remembering which to press to access context-sensitive shooting controls and which got you to the menu for all settings. Now there's just one Menu button giving you access to shooting controls as well as a selection for seeing all settings. What's also nice is the camera's ability to warn you about adjusting certain settings. For example, if you set the H20 to spot meter light, you won't be able to turn on Face Detection. The H20 tells you onscreen that Face Detection is not available because of Spot metering being selected. Cameras from other vendors generally make you guess what needs to be shut off in order to turn on a blacked-out option.

There are two things worth mentioning that hurt the overall package. One, unlike a majority of the cameras in the compact megazoom category, the lens is protected by a physical cap instead of a mechanical cover. If you forget to remove it before powering up, the camera stalls out and you have to remove the cover and turn the camera off and on again. Two, while the current trend is to have a wide-angle lens, the H20 is particularly narrow at a 35mm-equivalent 38mm. If you frequently find yourself taking pictures of large groups of people in confined spaces, this probably won't be a good fit.

Though it does have a Manual mode, a majority of the H20's shooting options are geared for getting the best pictures with the least amount of setting fiddling. Program Auto handles shutter speed and aperture, but gives you access to ISO, exposure, white balance, focus, and metering among other things. Then there's Sony's Intelligent Auto that picks from eight scene types (branded iSCN) and turns on face detection and image stabilization. Sony's iSCN can be set to Auto or Advanced, the difference being that in difficult lighting the camera will automatically take two shots with different settings so you have a better chance of getting a usable photo. A SCN mode lets you select from 10 scene situations that are less commonly used, such as Fireworks, Beach, and Gourmet for food pictures. Also in there is an Advanced Sports option for keeping moving subjects in focus, which worked well in my tests. An Easy mode takes away all but a couple basic shooting options--perfect if you're handing the camera off to someone for a couple quick shots. Lastly, if you want to shoot video, the camera does have a Movie mode capable of 720p HD-quality video, and you get full use of the optical zoom while recording.

Performance in megazooms is usually fairly slow, but Sony managed to get the H20 faster than other cameras in its class in most respects. Its start-up time is 1.5 seconds (assuming you remember to take the lens cap off). In bright light, shot-to-shot times averaged 2.1 seconds and only extended to 2.8 seconds with the flash in use. Shutter lag was reasonable at 0.4 second in well-lit conditions and 0.7 second in dim lighting. For continuous shooting, the camera manages 1.7 frames per second.