There is little doubt that
a long zoom with a good stabilizer combined with a camera
that offers a big resolution is a winning combination, and
Sony's DSC-H5 is a good example of this.
The Sony DSC-H5 fills a market niche between the 6-megapixel,
Canon PowerShot S3IS, and the 8-megapixel Panasonic DMC-FZ30,
both of which also feature 12X stabilized zooms, both spectacularly
successful cameras whose zooms cover the same focal length
range, equivalent to a 36 - 432 mm (35 to 420 for the FZ30).
Indeed, that focal length
range is attractive to most users, starting at a very practical
wide angle that is ideal for photos of groups, architecture,
or indoors, and extending to a powerful telephoto, made useable
by the stabilizer.
At the wide end of the zoom, the Carl Zeiss optics of the
H5 are effectively free of distortion, and only photos of
subjects a short distance away from the lens show any trace
of barrel distortion, while at the telephoto end of the zoom,
the image is consistently distortion-free.
Aperture: f4, shutter speed: 1/1000 sec., 80 ISO.
Interestingly, when it comes to
chromatic aberration — purple fringing — the H5,
with its 7.2-megapixel CCD, seems to be less sensitive than
the H2 and its 6-megapixel CCD. Although it should be pointed
out that the phenomenon is light with the H2.
Inversely, the H5's higher
resolution seems to make it a bit more prone to noise than
the H2. Although at 80 ISO and with plenty of light the H5
yields images that are effectively noise-free, images captured
under cloudy conditions will show a very slight bit of grain
in dark areas of the frame, at 80 ISO. But by the same token,
increasing sensitivity, noise seems slow to increase, making
images captured at up to 200 ISO not much different from those
captured at 80 or 100 ISO.
At 400 ISO, noise can be found
in dark areas of the frame, but is not noticeable in areas
that benefited from direct sunlight. At 800 and 1000 ISO ISO,
however, noise is easily visible, and colours are flatter,
and sometimes slightly off and less contrasted, while detail
is less distinct.
The H5 is generally quick to respond to the shutter release,
as long as it has autofocused. Still, the AF is best set to
the centre position if speed is important, as when the camera
is set to pick out the focus using the Multi-point AF, it
can be noticeably slower.
Like the H2, the H5 can only
save images in JPEG, and only offers two compression levels:
Fine and Standard. And, just like the H2, when set to the
highest image quality, Fine, the H5 applies a compression
that falls between 6.5:1 and 8:1, depending on the complexity
of the subject.
In turn, this compression level produces results that are
remarkably similar, softening some of the details, but never
causing any compression artefacts.
Aperture: f4.0, shutter
speed: 1/250 sec., 80 ISO
Again, like the H2, the H5 has the
advantage of having a powerful built-in flash that has little
trouble lighting up a large room, and which offers the advantage
of having an effective control over its output, allowing it
to be used for a wide range of subjects.
Aperture: f3.5, shutter
speed: 1/15 sec., 80 ISO.
On the image quality side,
the differences are harder to detect. As noted above, the
H5 appears to be very slightly more prone to noise at the
lowest sensitivity, but seems less prone to it up to 200 ISO.
Similarly, although some photos captured at the wide end of
the lens reveal a small chromatic aberration, it appears to
be a bit less than what we had observed with the H2.
And, all things considered, it would appear that the H5 simply
adds to the choices the consumer has, with no compromise in
terms of quality.
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