Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX9V First Impressions Review

Introduction

Design & Appearance

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The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX9V is neither repulsive nor terrible attractive. When taking in its various dials, buttons, and patches of grip surface, that it's a step above the standard point and shoot, so in that sense the design is quite successful: it advertises its wares with a mere look. But it lacks the sleek simplicity of the more stylish ultracompacts, as the sophistication of something like the Fuji X100.

Tour

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Ease of Use

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The Sony DSC-HX9V is not the simplest camera to use, at least as far as we could judge. Let's forget about the fact that the menus were in Japanese. We picked up two Panasonic cameras with Japanese menus and had no problem zipping around the menu, making exposure and white balance changes with the greatest of ease. The problem with the HX9V is that there are so many options, and Sony is so bogged down in its own terminologies that even the booth attendants had a hard time keeping things straight. Two different sub-menus just for white balance? Sure, we like options, but we like clarity even better. Of course, you can put the camera in iAuto mode and forget your troubles. There's also an iAuto+ mode that allows a few extra features to become auto-enabled. But when all is said, this is not a camera for beginners.

The menu interface is a bit confusing at first glance, and perhaps even at second and third glance. However, Sony is usually pretty good at maintaining an internal logic to their menu structures. Once you manage to get over the learning curve, you'll have no troubles.

Size & Handling

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The handling of the Sony DSC-HX9V is terrible. It's clearly the weakest part of the camera, and vexing enough to make you put it down, permanently. The problem is the scroll dial on the back, which is both tiny in its diameter and nearly flush against the surface. To make it even more difficult, the wheel also functions as a d-pad, which each of the cardinal directions functioning as the button for various features. So when you're trying to make EV or shutter speed adjustments by spinning the dial, it's very easy to accidentally push down on the dial, thereby bumping you out of the menu. In fact, it's nearly impossible not to do so.

The size of the camera makes it portable enough to fit in a large pocket or bag. It's easy to imagine Sony marketing this camera as the SLR shooter's alternative for simplicity and portability, while still offering some decent manual controls. It measures 4.25 x 2.375 x 1.375 inches (104.8 x 59. x 33.9mm) and weighs 8.6 oz (245g).

Auto Mode

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The Sony DSC-HX9V has two distinct auto modes, iAuto and iAuto+. The difference is not entirely clear to us at this point, but it seems to be that in the latter mode there are more features that the camera can automatically take advantage of, such as additional scene mode.

Movie Mode

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The Sony DSC-HX9V definitely puts movie recording at the front and center its feature set. The camera is capable of recording full 1080p (1920 x 1080 at 60 fps) using a proprietary format. Unfortunately, the nature of the format means that it's only compatible for playback with certain hardware and software. We sympathize with Sony on this one, though, because AVCHD only supports up to 1080i, and the joint creation of the AVCHD format must have been a logistical nightmare. It would have been years for the coalition to renovate it for 1080p, so Sony, Panasonic, and others have simply pushed on into their own formats.

The camera is also capable of AVCHD 1080/60i and lower resolutions.

Custom Image Presets

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The Sony DSC-HX9V has a huge number of image preset modes, including: High Sensitivity, Soft snap, Landscape, Twilight Portrait, Twilight, Gourmet, Beach, Snow, Fireworks / Pet, Soft Skin, Handheld Twilight, and Anti Motion Blur.

Drive/Burst Mode

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The camera can shoot a speedy 10 frames per second at the full resolution, but is only good for up to 10 pictures before it needs a quick cool-down.

Manual Controls

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The Sony DSC-HX9V is absolutely loaded with manual controls, and we'll do our best to walk through them all on this page. Unfortunately, the model on hand here at the CP+ Camera Show in Yokohama, Japan had Japanese menus only (unlike a lot of other cameras here).

Overall, the camera offers all the standard controls you'd expect, plus a lot of customization for special features like stabilization, Smile Shutter, and the like. While we appreciate their presence, the handling of these controls can be quite vexing. Read on for more details.

Focus

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The Sony DSC-HX9V is capable of manual focus, which is a nice upgrade from a lot of point & shoot cameras, though certainly not unheard of in higher-end models. The interface is certainly not ideal, due to the frustrating scroll dial on the back of the cam. However, if you can get past that, you'll probably be able to appreciate the high-res 920K LCD, which makes manual focus adjustments far more accurate.

There are also plenty of AF metering options for auto focus: 9 points (Under Face Undetected), Center Weighted AF, Flexible Spot AF, Semi Manual, and Manual.

ISO

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The Sony DSC-HX9V has options for manually setting the ISO to Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, and 3200.

Aperture & Shutter Speed

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The camera allows for independent adjustment of aperture in both Program Auto and Manual modes. It has a maximum range of f/3 to f/8. As we've mentioned before, using the scroll wheel to make adjustments to the aperture was a nightmare. We made a mistake of hitting the run button between every incremental shift of the aperture, essentially tripling the time it should have taken to make aperture adjustments.

The shutter speed can be manually adjusted independent from the aperture when in Manual mode. It ranges from 1/1600 all the way down to 30 full seconds. In iAuto mode, it will range from 1/6000 to 2 seconds. In Program Auto, it will range from 1/1600 to 1 second.

White Balance

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The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX9V offers several white balance options: Auto (Intelligent), Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent 1 (White Fluorescent Lighting), Fluorescent 2 (Natural White Fluorescent Lighting), Fluorescent 3 (Day White Fluorescent Lighting), Incandescent, Flash, One Push, and White Balance Shift. That's a lot of fluorescent settings, sure, but Japanese homes, as well as other parts of the world, are more typically lit with fluorescent bulbs, unlike the incandescent lighting of North America.

Exposure & Metering

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The Sony DSC-HX9V allows you to manually shift the exposure compensation +/-2EV in 1/3EV increments. You can also set the metering for multipattern, center-weighted, or spot.

Image Stabilization

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The Sony DSC-HX9V features Optical SteadyShot. An optical system or a sensor-shifting system is the norm for this price range. Anything using on-chip stabilization is needlessly destroying image quality.

Picture Quality & Size Options

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The Sony DSC-HX9V shoots at a maximum of 16.2 megapixels (MP), which is in the 4:3 aspect ratio. Also in 4:3, you can choose 10MP, 5MP, and VGA. In the 16:9 aspect ratio, you can choose 12MP and 2MP. All pictures are in the JPEG format. You can lower the compression quality if you want to save card space.

Other Controls

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There are a boatload of special features on the Sony DSC-HX9V. Obviously, not every special feature is going to be useful to you, but most of these features are well past their first-generation iterations, so Sony has had some time to make refinements. We recommend you play around with them and decide which ones you like.

p. * Backlight Correction HDR – High Dynamic Range (HDR) shooting has become quite the rage in the past few years, and Sony throws its hat in with this feature that takes three images in succession and creates a composite that takes the best exposure levels for each area of the shot.

p. * Noise Reduction – There are two NR modes, Clear RAW and Slow Shutter. Don't get this confused with RAW photo files. The camera only shoots in JPEG. We're not quite sure why they named one of these settings "RAW."

p. * Smile Shutter – The Smile Shutter features works like it sounds it might. The camera is able to read basic facial expressions, and take a picture the moment one or two people in your picture are smiling. You can also set it to child or adult priority, depending on who's smile you think is more important.

p. * Blink Detection – Similar to Smile Shutter, the camera uses facial recognition to look for blinks. If you put the camera in Soft Shutter mode, it will take two photos, then discard the one with the blinking. If both photos contain blinking, the camera will alert you.

p. * Background Defocus – It's an attempt to mimic short depth of field shots you might be accustomed to from DLSRs with decent lenses. The Sony DSC-HX9V takes two shots, and analyzes the photos to determine what it foreground and what is background material. It then blurs the background. It helps if you have a lot of distance and contrast between your foreground subject and the background.

p. * GPS – Like a lot of cameras this year, the Sony DSC-HX9V records GPS data and attaches it to the EXIF data. You can use this data later for sorting and tagging.

p. * 3D – You can also create 3D images. The camera takes multiple photos to create a composite 3D image. Of course, because the LCD on the camera is plain old 2D, you need a 3D-enabled TV to determine the efficacy of the 3D effect. 3D is a huge buzz word for 2011 in cameras and camcorders, and we have yet to be impressed with the quality that consumer products are able to produce. The fact is that making a convincing 3D image is difficult, requiring tight focus, the right distance from the lens, and the right amount of shift between the left and right images. Don't expect much from the HX9V.

p. * Panorama – The panorama feature on the Sony DSC-HX9V is more advanced that similar cameras we've seen on the CP+ show floor, so far. You can determine how wide of an angle you'd like the pictures to be, rather than being forced into a fixed setting. Image sizes are as follow: 7152 x 1080 (204 deg), 4912 x 1080 (140 deg), 4912 x 1920 (149 deg), 3424 x 1920 (104 deg). There's also an option to create 3D panoramas.

LCD

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The Sony DSC-HX9V has an excellent 3-inch screen with a 921,000-pixel resolution. That's the kind of sharpness that really helps when trying to make manual focus decisions. Sony also reports a deeper black level and contrast that previous versions, which should help with exposure decisions.

Flash

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The flash on the Sony DSC-HX9V pops up from the top. You can set it to Auto, off, or slow sync. There's also a red-eye reduction. In auto ISO, it has a range of approximately 0.82 to 18.2 feet.

A cool feature that the Sony DSC-HX9V offers is called Natural Flash. It takes a photo without the flash as a reference shot, and uses it to correct colors on the shot taken with the flash.

Lens & Sensor

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The Sony DSC-HX9V uses an f/3.3 - f/5.9 Sony G lens with a 16x zoom. The 35mm equiv. focal length is 24 - 384mm (25 - 400mm in 16:9 aspect ratio). There are no filter threads for attachments, but you can usually find some sort of third party work around if you really want to make it happen.

The camera features a back-illuminated Exmor R CMOS sensor measuring 1/2.3 inches, with an RGB primary color filter and BIONZ processor. The sensor has a gross pixel count of 16.8MP, and an effective count of 16.2MP. In some internet forums, we've actually heard people refer to this as a potential downgrade, presumably because the increase in pixel count meant a shrinking of the pixel pitch, potentially creating more noise. However, we have some faith in the back-illumination's ability to reduce noise and increase sensitivity. We'll have to wait for full testing before the matter can be settled.

Jacks, Ports & Plugs

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In the usual Sony fashion, there's a proprietary connection rather than a standard and easily replaceable cable. The "Multi Use Terminal" is located on the bottom, and it's used for USB and AV connections. Also on the bottom is a hinged door that flips open to reveal the battery and media card slots. A mini HDMI port is on the side.

Battery

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The battery that ships with the Sony DSC-HX9V is the NP-BG1, a rechargeable 3.6V Li-ion. The specs do not state how many shots the battery is good for.

Memory

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The Sony DSC-HX9V uses SD, SDHC, and SDXC cards.

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Conclusion

The Cyber-shot DSC-HX9V ($349 MSRP) is Sony's high-end entry into the compact market, sitting just below the beefier HX100V ultrazoom. As such, the list of special features goes on for days. They really managed to pack it all in here: features that sound useful, innovative, and clever (along with the occasional dud like 3D, which we remain extremely skeptical about). That said, the core camera interface is crippled by a terrible scroll dial on the back of the camera, which makes simple things like adjusting aperture and shutter speed an utter slog. We wish it weren't so, because we really want to give our recommendation to this camera. We're even willing to consider the fact that this might just be a problem with the floor model at the CP+ camera show (but we don't think so).

Sample Photos

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Specs

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