Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H50 (Black)

Sitting atop Sony's line of megazoom cameras is the 9-megapixel Cyber-shot DSC-H50. Its 15x f2.7-f8 31-465mm-equivalent lens, coupled with the company's SteadyShot optical image stabilization, lets you shoot far and somewhat wide. It's also built around a system of modes and options that make it as nice a point-and-shoot as it is a fully manual camera. However, while the H50 should satisfy those on the fence about moving up to a digital SLR, megazooms are also the gateway drug of cameras, likely to be quickly outgrown by budding hobbyists.

Slightly smaller than the average digital SLR, the H50 is fairly lightweight for its class at just under a pound, but it's obviously not compact enough to put in a pocket. It's available in black or silver with a mix of plastic and metal parts, and the strap attachment loops on each side of the camera swivel, letting the camera point straight down when around your neck. The large hand grip makes carrying it comfortable, though the lens puts a chunk of the weight out front, throwing the balance off a bit.

At the front of the grip sits the shutter button, followed by metering and burst/bracketing mode buttons, and the mode dial. Your thumb rests naturally on the zoom-rocker switch on back. Below the rocker is a context-sensitive Menu button, a Home button for full access to settings, and between them a wheel dial surrounding a directional pad and an OK button for navigating menus. The directional pad doubles as controls for flash, timer, macro, and display options, and the wheel dial lets you quickly change ISO, shutter speed, and aperture in manual mode.

The 3-inch tilting LCD is definitely a highlight of the H50, because it allows so much freedom when shooting subjects at both high and low angles. It also performs well in direct sunlight. A button at the top left of the screen, however, toggles between the LCD and EVF--a better option in bright sun and when using the long zoom sans tripod.

The only minor quibble I have with the design is the lens cap, which, like so many of the megazooms, flies off the second you turn the camera on (luckily there's a loop on the cap so you can string it to the camera body). Also, raw capture and a hot shoe are noticeably absent.

Dialing through the H50's various modes and exploring the accompanying shooting options reveals just how versatile this camera is. Point-and-shoot basics like scene modes with Sony's intelligent scene recognition, Smile Shutter, face detection, ISO boost for low-light shooting, and an oversimplified Easy mode are all available, letting you hand the camera over to anyone to take pictures.

Then there's the new Advanced Sports Shooting mode that uses predicative autofocus and high-shutter speed (up to 1/4,000 of a second) to freeze fast-moving subjects. Capturing soccer players in action proved no problem and combining it with the Burst mode churned out great results without worrying about adjusting a single setting. That said, anyone looking to break out of snapshot territory will be pleased with the amount of flexibility provided by the H50.

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 

1.7 

1.1 

0.7 

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H50

2.3 

1.8 

1.3 

0.7 

Olympus SP-570 UZ

3.3 

2.5 

1.8 

0.8 

Fujifilm FinePix S8000fd

3.1 

2.6 

2 

0.8 

Nikon Coolpix P80

2.9 

2.4 

1.4 

1.1 

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