Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H20

Great handling rather than a fist full of features make this super-zoom a good choice

There was a time when Sony’s design department used to make some common-sense mistakes with cameras. I remember once reviewing a model – one of the first bridge cameras that the company made – and despairing that someone had given it a rounded bottom. Looks lovely, but if you try and balance it on a wall to take a picture you’re not going to do well.

This was all a long time ago, however, and the electronics giant has learned a lot since then about what goes into making a well-designed camera. This is no more evident than in Sony’s latest super-zoom compact, the DSC-H20, which feels nice in the hand as soon as you get it out of the box.

Unlike some cameras in this category, the H20 is not packed with so many features that it has a mode for everything. This is more of a case of keeping things simple. A rubberized grip for the right hand makes it easy to keep hold of and a three-inch screen is ample compensation for the lack of optical viewfinder. The H20’s controls comprise a four-way ‘joypad’ (whose keys double up as flash-mode, macro, self-timer and display-mode controls) and buttons for engaging playback mode, deleting pictures and accessing the camera’s main menu. These are etched in easy-to-see white-on-black and are separated enough to allow operation with even the biggest of thumbs.

The H20’s 10x zoom lens has plenty of reach at the telephoto end, but at the wide end its 35mm-equivalent focal length of 38mm is not really wide enough for landscape and architectural use. The lens is quickly zoomed through it’s range with a handy switch around the shutter release control on the top plate of the camera. Here you’ll also find a power on/off control, a smile mode button and the main exposure mode dial. This latter control lets you select from Manual, Program, Intelligent Program, Easy, Movie, and a number of subject-based scene modes (Fireworks, Food, etc.)

We found ourselves using the H20 in Program and Intelligent Program modes most often. Manual offers some control over aperture and shutter speed, but with only two apertures available (f/2.8 and f/8, neither of which seem to blur the background of a portrait), this has limited appeal. Easy mode strips away all but a couple of user-adjustable options, making it a good option when asking a child/grandparent/tourist to take your picture in the street.

In fact, ease of use is high up on the H20’s list of priorities, so much so that initially you could be forgiven thinking the camera is lacking in some way. It isn’t though, and after a while you appreciate the way the device has been put together. Scroll through the various menu options and a plain-English explanation of what each will do appears in large, friendly letters. It’s rather like having Terry Wogan whispering photographic advice calmly in your ear. We also like that the camera even explains why options aren’t available, instead of just greying them out. For instance, try and engage spot metering while face detection is on and the H20 helpfully tells you that these two features can’t be used at the same time.

In Intelligent Program mode, the H20 will pick a subject-based mode depending on what it thinks you are trying to photograph, and I have admit that this technology is spookily accurate. The camera even flicked over into portrait mode when aimed at an oil painting in  an art gallery, and started tracking the painted subject’s face with it’s face-recognition technology. Optical Steady Shot and auto ISO are also activated if the camera thinks either is needed.

From here you can take things to the next level of automation with ‘Intelligent Auto Plus’ mode. In tricky lighting conditions this takes two shots to make sure you get the picture you want, varying parameters like ISO and shutter speed. And then we have smile mode, of course, which negates your need to actually press the shutter button at all. Instead the H20 monitors the faces of your subjects and fires when it detects they are happy enough. It’s possible to prioritize adult or children’s faces too.

With all of this high-tech wizardry it’s a shame Sony had to resort to a separate plastic lens cap to cover the lens rather than a built-in one. This is a pain, and is just begging to be lost (in fact, we did loose the lens cap of our sample camera – apologies to Sony!). Other downsides include Sony's insistence on sticking with MemoryStick storage media, which is more expensive than SD but offers no advantages. We’d also like to see easier access to ISO and exposure compensation adjustment.

When it comes to performance, our only real criticism of the H20 is its speed. The camera is a little pedestrian when powering up, and there’s a hefty lag time between the shutter button being pressed and the image being captured. Things are better in the picture quality department though, and the camera turns in good results in most situations. Colours are punchy without being unrealistic and noise is well controlled up to ISO400. Past this level blotchy grain creeps into shadow areas, though this doesn’t make pictures unusable until after ISO800.

The camera’s Carl Zeiss branded lens is decent too, showing no evidence of fringing, and little distortion even at the so-called wide end. Flash performance is good from the camera’s built-in unit: there’s enough power here for most situations, and the H20 made an especially good job of fill-in flash in sunny, outdoor locations. Battery life is excellent, with well over 250 shots from a single charge.

We enjoyed our time with the Sony H20. It’s a camera that doesn’t go overboard with a ton of features, but does have enough to make it an effective picture-taking machine in most situations. Handling is the H20’s strong point though, and it’s great to see a manufacturer putting this as a priority. This is a solidly built camera, well-designed that feels good in the hand and is easy to use. With a wider angle lens we’d have no hesitation in awarding the H20 our Editor’s Choice, but as it is we still think it a Best Buy. Thoroughly recommended.

Final Verdict A great value camera with enough features to cope with a variety of subjects. But the main strength of the H20 is it’s handling, which is first rate. OVERALL

Ian Farrell is a journalist and photographer from Cambridge. He enjoys shooting street and travel photography using both digital and film cameras, and is currently developing a taste for portraiture and medium format.