Sony Cyber-shot H5 and H2 First Impressions Review

Viewfinder
The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5 and H2 have electronic viewfinders that sit in large barrels on the left edge of the camera. A Finder/LCD button is located just right of the viewfinder; it switches the display from the LCD monitor to the viewfinder. The viewfinder display is garnered through the lens and broadcast to the 0.3-inch window inside the eyecup. The eyecup is plastic and not incredibly comfortable, but does its job in shading the viewfinder for better viewing in bright light. The viewfinder’s 115K pixel resolution looked good and the information on the LCD is identical to that on the viewfinder.

LCD Screen
The ultra zoom digital cameras are now acquiring ultra large LCD screens. The Sony H5 has a 3-inch monitor and the H2’s is 2 inches. The H5’s monitor has 230,000 pixels and provides nice, clear images. The H2’s 2-inch screen has 85,000 pixels and is much less sexy. Sony uses its Clear Photo LCD Plus technology to provide wide viewing angles and great resolution. The Sony Cyber-shot H1 had a 2.5-inch screen, but it only had 115,000 pixels of resolution, so it’s nice to see the resolution doubled on the Sony H5. The LCD has a backlight function that can be activated in the setup menu; this enhances the contrast dramatically and is great for bright, sunny days. Beware of the glare on sunny days though; the LCD displays a red streaky glare in bright lighe. Don’t fret too much; this doesn’t record in pictures.

Flash
The Sony ultra zooms both have a pop-up flash with a Sony logo on front. There is no button to pop up the flash; users must instead select a flash mode with the top portion of the multi-selector. Once the shutter release button is pushed halfway, the flash pops up.

The previous H1 had a few flash controls for red-eye reduction, but doesn’t come close to what is offered by the new H-series digital cameras. Not only can the red-eye reduction be activated in the setup menu, but the flash sync can be set to light at the front or rear curtains of the shutter. The flash level can be adjusted in the recording menu with its +/- 2 range. Normally, the flash reaches from 0.98 - 29.53 ft (according to preliminary specs and using the ultra sensitive ISO 1000). When the multi-selector is pushed on the top, the settings cycle through auto, on and off. Overall, the flash looked quite impressive and didn’t blow out subjects.

Zoom Lens
One of the major criticisms of the first H1 was that it had a generic zoom lens instead of the branded Carl Zeiss lens that most other Cyber-shots have. The H1 had a focal length of 36-432 mm (equivalent), as do the new lenses. The lenses on the H5 and H2, however, are Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar branded. The 12x zoom lenses have many of the same specs as the old lens though. It offers maximum apertures of f/2.8 in wide and f/3.7 in telephoto. The lens sits in a large lens barrel that is threaded at the end for conversion lenses. Users can screw these on and inform the camera of their presence via the setup menu.

The lens, constructed of 11 elements in 9 groups with dispersion and aspherical components, extends in a single segment and reaches from 6-72 mm. It is controlled with the zoom toggle in the top right corner of the back. When users tap lightly on the toggle, there are
about 24 stops in the 12x zoom range; this is quite good and shows that the control is sensitive and smooth. This is a big improvement over the H1, which had a choppy control that had much less flexibility with focal lengths.

The Sony H5 and H2 have Super SteadyShot image stabilization systems. They are activated with the designated button atop the camera. The button is a far reach for the fingers, so placement isn’t the greatest – but it’s nice that the image stabilization is available. There are two image stabilization modes – Shooting and Continuous – in the setup menu. The Continuous takes a little more battery power than the Shooting option. The image stabilization worked pretty well, but didn’t eliminate all the bumps and jumps of even regular handling.