Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX1

With so many options out there, it can become a daunting task to pick a good superzoom that’s priced right. Sony manages to enamor us with its new superzoom offering - the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX1, with really good performance, and a plethora of features, but a slightly hefty pricetag.

To begin with, the DSC-HX1 is on the tinier side at 115 x 83 x 92 mm, but it weighs quite a bit at 544 grams. In spite of that it doesn’t feel too heavy, thanks to the fact that the weight’s evenly distributed, making those high-zoom, handheld shots where you need maximum stability, no hassle at all. While the handgrip’s good - its covered in textured rubber, and is decently sized - it could have been better, since the lower side of it doesn’t protrude enough, so your little and ring finger don’t get the ideal amount of rest.

The body’s made of slightly textured, tough, black plastic and a shiny black plastic finish lens exterior that gives it a slick, yet classy look. The top side’s loaded with buttons - the shutter, focus, burst mode, power buttons and a mode dial, along with a small preview and cancel button. The facing side has the menu and delete buttons, along side a scroll and navigation D-pad. Beside it rests 3-inch, 230,400 pixel movable LCD screen that swivels on one axis, and is great for those oddball shots.

The DSC-HX1 leaves little to complain about where build quality is concerned, and is both sturdy, well-designed and boasts of great looks.

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The DSC-HX1 features a 9.1 megapixel CMOS sensor, and a whopping 20x zoom lens that allows for 28mm wide-angle shots too. The zoom is accompanied by decent mechanical image stabilization, that allows for full zoom shots without a tripod, provided you have pretty stable hands and your shot doesn’t require low shutter speed. The image quality on the other hand is a little iffy, and not up to the mark for the camera’s price range. Pictures taken were slightly low on detail. Color reproduction and auto-white balance, on the other hand, were spot on.

For those who really want a bang for their buck though, the camera features 1080p video recording at 30 FPS. Videos recorded weren’t at par with high-end digital video cameras, but they were decent enough for high-res web videos.

The HX1’s ISO sensitivity starts off at 125 (at which it’s pretty much artifact free) and goes all the way up to 3200. Shots produced beyond 200 ISO were high on artifacts though. In spite of that, the camera features a really good hand-held twilight mode, that allows good low-light shots.

One of the most awesome features is the camera’s Sweep Panorama mode, which - as the name suggests - allows you to take continuous panoramic shots by pressing the shutter once and moving the camera horizontally. While this works much better than the normal stitch based panoramic shots most cameras have, it’s somewhat unusable in low light since the low shutter speed causes shots to become really blurry. Regardless, this mode is easy to use and produces some really great results!

Besides this, the camera has all your standard auto-modes Scene, Easy mode (for auto-detect scene mode that gels well with the novice photographer), and an anti-blur mode. For those who need more control, the HX1 also features easy-to-configure manual modes that go well with the easy-to-use, well-designed and simple interface.

At Rs. 29,990 MRP, the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX1 may be on the steeper side, but it surely offers a good deal for the large sum; namely - a plethora of features, 20x optical zoom, a great panorama mode, awesome twilight hand-help mode and great manual functionality. If you can live with the average image quality and ISO performance, the DSC-HX1 undoubtedly makes a good buy.

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