Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H9 First Impressions Review

by Emily Raymond
Published on March 10, 2007

Navigation
Intro	Physical Tour
Components	Design/Layout
Modes	Control Options
Image Parameters	Connectivity/Extras
Overall Impressions	Conclusion
Specs	Photo Gallery

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H9 has an electronic color viewfinder that has a 0.2-inch window surrounded by a hard plastic eyecup. There isn’t anything to cushion the face and the tilting LCD screen is a much more tempting feature, so the viewfinder may not get much use. It would be good when shooting in the sunny outdoors or in other harsh lighting when the LCD may be too hard to see.

 

The viewfinder has 201,000 pixels, which is great resolution and gives smooth edges to subjects. The frame rate of the live preview isn’t as smooth; it looks a little choppy. For photographers that wear eyeglasses, they can customize the glass to fit their prescriptions. A plastic diopter dial sits on the left side of the viewfinder and is set a bit too far into the camera body. This makes it difficult to turn, but users won’t need to access this often unless their eyesight is really going downhill fast. The dial doesn’t click into place, but it has a fluid movement that goes from very blurry to very sharp instead. The range looked wide to me and my 20/20 eyes.

 

The Sony H9 has an EVF/LCD button to the lower right of the viewfinder. This changes the view from the LCD monitor to the viewfinder and vice versa. The view is exactly the same and 100 percent accurate, which is better than dicey optical viewfinders on other models.

 

One of the most distinctive features on the Sony H9 is the 3-inch Clear Photo LCD screen that folds out from the body and also tilts. Users must pry open the bottom portion of the screen first, and it requires a lot of force. Next, the top of the LCD can be pulled out. From here, the LCD can be pulled straight out and then tilted up or down 180 degrees. This allows photographers to shoot from above or below the screen and still get a nice big preview. A remote control comes with the H9 too, so users could potentially attach the camera on a tall tripod, tilt the screen down so it’s in view, and go sit on the couch and snap photos. Although, I’m sure there are other useful applications for this. However, the screen does not tilt from side to side like Canon’s vari-angle LCD monitors.

 

Despite the fact that the LCD tilts for a better view, the screen itself still has a wide viewing angle. Even if you don’t tilt it, you can still see what’s going on. Surprisingly, the LCD can be viewed from almost any angle: up and down and side to side. All around, the view looks great especially with the 230,000 pixels of resolution. The information on the display can be changed via the top of the LCD screen. Info can appear or disappear, and a histogram can be viewed as well.

 

The 3-inch screen is one of the features that the cheaper Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H7 does not have. Instead, it has a 2.5-inch LCD with 115,000 pixels. Not only is it smaller and has less resolution, but it doesn’t fold out and tilt.

 

The Sony H9’s LCD screen sounds perfect – and it almost is. Its only drawback was its attraction to grease. The screen seemed to soak up every finger print, which would then gleam in the lights and obstruct the view a bit.

 

The built-in flash unit on the Cyber-shot H9 automatically pops up when needed. The flash mode can be determined by pushing the right side of the multi-selector. The preproduction model at the show didn’t have labels on its selector, but they are present in press photos and it is expected that the final product will be properly labeled. The following modes are available from this control: Off, Auto, On, and On with Slow Sync. An explanation appears when the modes are cycled through. For instance, the Slow Sync mode is described as “keep subjects and distant backgrounds bright.” In the recording menu, there is also a red-eye reduction mode that can be turned on and off.

 

I couldn’t tell how even the flash was in the convention center, but I could tell that it was powerful. It illuminated people 20 ft away. The specs are not available regarding its reach, but this flash looks good. There is a flash adjustment on a +/- 2 scale that can be changed in the recording menu, and the flash sync can be set to the front or rear curtain in the setup menu. Colors don’t wash out and details remain on subjects.

 

The pop-up flash is located directly above the lens, which is the ideal placement. Overall, the H9’s flash looks good. The flash itself is impressive because of its power and ability to keep detail in images.

 

The 15x optical zoom lens is what qualifies the Sony H9 as a legitimate ultra-zoom digital camera. The Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens is solidly built from 13 elements in 8 groups including 4 aspheric elements and an ED lens to minimize distortion.

 

It measures 5.2-78mm, equivalent to 31-465mm in 35mm format. To move through this wide range, users can push the sunglasses-shaped plastic zoom control at the upper right corner of the back. The left half zooms out and the right half zooms in. The control itself is cheap feeling, and a metal control or at least a smoother plastic would have been nice. It is a little finicky; by tapping a side very lightly, I could zoom in and out to 16 different stops. That was at its best though, and it didn’t take much to jump a few focal lengths and get only 10 stops in the range.

 

When zooming in and out, a horizontal bar appeared at the upper left corner of the preview with a dot representing the currently selected focal length within the entire zoom range and an equivalent zoom power: for example, “1.8x.” When the lens moved, it made a tiny electronic noise that reminded me of the steady sound of fishing line being pulled from the reel. The optical zoom is functional in the movie mode, but the convention center was too noisy to hear that electronic noise. If it’s there, it’s on the quiet side.

 

If that isn’t enough zoom, there is some digital zoom available. There is 2x precision digital zoom, which degrades the image quality quickly. There is also Sony’s smart zoom that zooms on the image sensor and shrinks the image size to digitally zoom without deteriorating the quality. The specs also indicate that the camera can zoom up to 25x with a HD digital zoom feature, but that was not found on the preproduction model.

 

Like the other ultra-zoom Cyber-shots, the H9 has Sony’s Super SteadyShot optical image stabilization system. It works while shooting video and pictures – and it works noticeably well. It can only be turned on and off in the movie mode, but it has two modes when shooting still images: continuous and shooting only. The latter option saves some battery power by only activating when recording instead of during the live preview too.

 

Of note are a few accessories that come with the camera. A lens cap, strap, flower lens hood, and adapter ring are included in the package. The adapter ring allows wide and tele-converter lenses to be added. All in all, the 15x optical zoom lens works well with its long range and effective image stabilization system.