Sony Cyber-shot HX200V Digital Camera Review

Image Quality

In a nutshell, the HX200V takes decent photos for a superzoom, but not the best that the genre offers. If you're looking at shots on your computer screen or making some small prints, they look great. Colors are accurate and lively (and adjustable, if you wish). The lens is sharp enough to render plenty of detail without much of the ugly color-fringing problems that can hamper long-reaching zooms. But on closer inspection, the shots don't always look so great. Megapixels are a double-edged sword, and they cause clarity problems here—it is unequivocally worse than last year's HX100V. That's what can happen when you cram over 18 million pixels onto a tiny, 1/2.3-inch point-and-shoot sensor. Sony goofed up.