The Photo Times: Sony Cyber-shot HX50 review

Bigger zooms, smaller bodies: a compress camera marketplace continues to develop and Sony thinks it has a winning transport wizz regulation in a figure of a Cyber-shot HX50. With a 30x visual wizz congested into a comparatively compress body, a HX50 is like a precipitated superzoom camera. Does that make for a ideal compress – that dream camera that a masses will fasten onto – or is a wide-ranging wizz lens and high-resolution 20.4-megapixel sensor multiple simply perplexing to grasp too many within their given confines?

Zoom! Shake The Room

The HX50 is usually bashful of 4cm low that is an feat to spy deliberation a 24-720mm homogeneous focal length a 30x visual wizz lens offers. A integrate of years behind superzoom cameras 3 times a stretch offering adult a identical underline set. Yet during a same time it’s that lens that creates a HX50 incomparable than many competitors’ compacts. That competence sound obvious, yet a 30x wizz is a pushing force in a HX50 and if it’s wizz we wish afterwards you’ll have to compensate for that with a somewhat corpulent body. If not there are alternatives such as a Panasonic TZ40.

READ: Panasonic Lumix TZ40 review

There are dual approaches to looking during a HX50′s lens: point-and-shoot snappers who’re all about removing in on a movement will find a immeasurable wizz a pleasure yet might confront low-light limitations; since some-more modernized photographers might be left scratching their chins as to either a singular limit orifice operation and visual peculiarity concede are a scold fit for their needs.

To enhance on that second outlook somewhat more: wizz is one thing, yet limit orifice and visual stabilisation are dual other pivotal factors to consider. As a HX50 is tiny a limit orifice operation of f/3.5-6.3 – i.e. during 24mm f/3.5 is a maximum, dipping by a value of one and a dual thirds to f/6.3 during a 720mm homogeneous – is sincerely limiting and there’s not a splendid orifice environment of some-more modernized compress cameras during a wide-angle setting. We can cry, we can moan, yet this is customary of a compress camera of this stature.

If your mind boggles during a participation of such numbers afterwards don’t worry – a HX50 has all a programmed point-and-shoot modes that we could ever need where a camera will take control. However if conditions are low and a wizz is extended afterwards that series means rebate light can enter a camera and, therefore, low-light conditions can make it worse to snap a pointy shot, while a camera will be forced to pull a ISO attraction adult that formula in discontinued design quality. That’s a prolonged and brief of it.

On a visual design stabilisation front a HX50 puts a parasite in a box with a fat-tipped-Crayola pen. Optical stabilisation – that Sony calls Optical SteadyShot – moves a lens elements by little amounts to negate handshake in genuine time. As this is dealt with during a lens turn it assists in gripping a preview shot on a behind shade solid – an essential during longer focal lengths – yet also helps say best sharpness in a final shot. Sony’s OIS is a argent performer and an essential underline in a HX50.

The High End of Low

Sony’s position with a HX50 leans towards a high-end, notwithstanding a pattern that’s differently some-more customary of a customary compress such as a progressing HX20V model. The HX50′s inclusion of a earthy bearing remuneration dial and a multi-function hotshoe are a dual many stand-out features, yet do these realistically fit into a bigger design of who a camera is directed at? There’s no tender record capture, for example, and while a sustenance to supplement a viewfinder will be welcomed by some it’ll supplement a serve Â£279-379 to a already sizeable Â£330 cost tag, throwing a HX50′s seeking cost to good over that of even a HX300 superzoom. Better to have a hotshoe than not, yet either that’ll bond to a HX50′s aim user bottom is another matter.

READ: Sony Cyber-shot HX300 review

The HX50′s wizz is tranquil around a customary wizz toggle around a shiver button, that works excellent yet doesn’t supplement a refinement of a lens control ring, a la a Panasonic Lumix LF1 or something like a Olympus X-Z2, or step wizz control and a like. There is a singular Custom symbol that provides entrance to a singular programmable function, nonetheless usually ISO, white change and metering modes can be tranquil around here.

READ: Panasonic Lumix LF1 review

We’ve been regulating a HX50 for a series of weeks in a accumulation of conditions and have found a behind shade to reason adult well. Bright object can be a problem due to reflections, yet that’s a given with a infancy of compacts and if it’s a genuine regard afterwards there is a hotshoe appendage for an appendage viewfinder. Otherwise a behind LCD shade has a decent observation angle and a 3-inch stretch and 921k-dot fortitude adult to blemish – there’s not a some-more modernized touchscreen control or tilt-angle mechanism, yet we consider that both would increase a cost and a latter would start to bulk a HX50 out to Canon G15 proportions.

READ: Canon PowerShot G15 review

Elsewhere autofocus does a good pursuit of zipping into concentration with ease. When light is good a camera specifies a concentration area with a assenting immature rectangle, nonetheless in low light a vast dotted rectangle covers a infancy of a shade that lacks a pinpoint correctness we’d like. This is customary of stream Sony compress cameras.

Sony Cyber-shot HX50 examination – representation design during ISO 80 – click for 100 per cent crop

From a Multi AF, Center AF and Flexible Spot AF we opted for a user-controlled stretchable option. A press of a d-pad’s centre symbol opens adult a concentration indicate for repositioning by a infancy of a screen, save for a utmost edges. That same d-pad symbol also toggles between other pivotal settings – ISO, orifice and shutter, depending on a sharpened mode comparison – which, while useful for their adjustment, can turn a bother as additional pivotal presses are battled with to get behind to a concentration indicate adjustment.

Manual concentration is also probable where a behind d-pad is used to adjust a concentration distance. However a miss of a focus-distance measure, and a arrangement bar that merely shows a cursor between a head-and-shoulders idol and a towering idol isn’t as minute as it ought to be – again it’s that brew of high-end meets consumer that’s not pulled off to a fullest potential.

From a endless use of a HX50 there’s one aspect of a underline set that can be deliberate a resounding success: a battery life. The NP-BX1li-ion battery is a same as found in a Sony RX100, and in a HX50 it delivers a opening that copiousness of other compress camera manufacturers would do good to take note of.

READ: Sony Cyber-shot RX100 review

Then there’s a requisite Wi-Fi that any modern-day compress value a seeking cost adds to a underline set. Outside of Samsung we’ve not been too lustful of Wi-Fi doing in many cameras, yet a Sony intelligent device control – permitted after downloading a giveaway Play Memories mobile app – does a good job. Setup is minimal, a app auto-detects a camera and from there it’s a matter of seconds – and one cue – to use phone or inscription as a remote viewfinder and heat off shots that are a automatically pushed to from camera to device. Sharing within a app is also far-reaching open to a likes of Facebook, Twitter, Picasa and so onward – not sealed down like some competitors’ versions that try to pull use of particular manufacturers’ services. It’s not ideal as there are really few controls all in all, yet it’s a damn good whack during a Wi-Fi workings. No pointer of NFC (near margin communication) though, that feels some-more of an bauble given Sony’s joining to a record in a Xperia operation and beyond.

Image quality

The crux of what a camera is about in a finish is usually how good a ensuing images are. And in a box of a HX50 it’s a bit of a churned bag. Or, during least, it is contingent on expectations. As we keep entrance behind to, those after a indicate and fire with a large wizz will expected be happy with what a HX50 produces, since those lured in by a higher-spec facilities will find a 20.4-megapixel sensor – a same one as found in a Sony HX300 – to defect when it comes to a excellent details.

Sony Cyber-shot HX50 examination – representation design during ISO 320 – click for 100 per cent crop

All that fortitude on a tiny sensor stretch was always going to have a limits. Pair that adult with a lens that, notwithstanding a impressively tiny size, offers rebate considerable visual opening and a perfectionist user will need to be wakeful of a compromises. Small and pocketable comes during a cost.

The ISO 80-3200 customary operation – that expands to ISO 12,800 in a multi-shot aloft automobile mode – maintains peculiarity from ISO 80-400 with few qualms. The problem is that even during a bottom ISO attraction there’s a participation of design estimate artefacts in a fact areas. Viewed on this examination page during this scale and we won’t notice, indeed this well-exposed shot of a gull in Brighton has a possess heat – it’s all apparent fact and pointed white change that delivers copiousness during this scale. Not so during 100 per cent scale.

Sony Cyber-shot HX50 examination – representation design during ISO 80 – click for 100 per cent crop

Throughout a operation shots are riddled with estimate artefacts, while theme edges are mostly smeary as a outcome of a wide-ranging lens. Other lens issues come in a form of chromatic aberrations – those (in this instance) purple fringes that relapse over theme edges – that turn some-more distinguished towards a edges of an design as a focal length increases.

Just like a HX300, a HX50 does do a good pursuit of squeezing out a design sound via many of a ISO range, quite a aloft ISO settings where even an ISO 3200 maintains adequate colour to be passable. In-camera settings from sharpness, colour superfluity and sound rebate do offer combined control, yet as they can usually be set before to sharpened they make a deficiency of tender record constraint all a some-more prominent.

Sony Cyber-shot HX50 examination – representation design during ISO 800 – click for 100 per cent crop

The HX50′s shots aren’t bad by any means. For day to day snaps they broach aplenty, yet those with aloft expectations – or who occur to consider of a HX50 for a higher-end compress than it truly is – might find a formula to disappoint. It’s all about relating expectancy to formula – yet we do consider Sony should follow Canon and start to slip behind down a fortitude scale to a some-more gentle megapixel count where a odds of heightened peculiarity is increased.