Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20

Manual Controls

A full  manual mode is on offer by turning the mode dial to M. The user can then set the shutter speed and aperture directly using the 4-way control. This will be welcomed by photographers who want to take more control of the shooting process; having manual controls allows for more creative freedom.
 

Focus

There are nine  focus points and three different focus modes: center weighted, spot and a semi-manual mode where the user sets the approximate focus distance and the camera refines it from there. There is no full manual focus mode on offer, but there is facial recognition, which can recognise, focus on and expose for up to eight faces in the frame. 

ISO

The ISO range is from 80 up to 3200; a decent range that allows for shooting in everything from bright daylight to almost total darkness.
 

White Balance

The usual suspects are offered for setting white balance, with a full auto mode, 11 presets and a one-push set mode that uses a white or grey object to judge the white balance.
 

Metering

The H20 uses a muti-pattern measuring system to judge the appropriate settings for shooting a screen, but does not include the usual center weighted and spot metering modes.
 

Shutter Speed

The shutter speed ranges from 1 second down to 1/2000 of a second in the program auto mode, or 2 seconds in the Easy mode.
 

Aperture

Sony quotes the aperture range as being f/3.5 to f/8.0 at the widest zoom point, but doesn't specify what happens to it at the other end of the zoom range.
 

Image Stabilization

The H20 has the ubiquitous SteadyShot optical image stabilization, but Sony also claims that the wide ISO range of the camera will help take sharper photos, and the modes are apparently designed to take this into effect. 

Picture Quality & Size Options

Five different options are offered for image size, ranging from the maximum 10.1 megapixel size down to 2 megapixels. There are no options for different image compression levels, but there are fine and standard quality settings for video recordings.
 

Picture Effects

Several image editing tools are provided, including the ability to turn images to black and white, a fisheye filter and an unsharp mask filter. We find it hard to see who would use these; you would get better quality and more flexibility using an image editing program on a PC or Mac.