ALL ABOUT CAMERA LENSES

Fenway Park view from the Prudential center; using full zoom of Sony HX9v (added some sharpness, post-processed)

It's so great to have a focal range of (24 to 364); having such a focal range is so useful, especially for traveling and just everyday documentation/shooting, this little Sony HX9v has become my favorite, all around, take-everywhere-with me camera.

I have used other highly rated point and shoot cameras like the Sigma DP2s, Ricoh GRD III, Leica DLux (4,5) and Panansonic LX (3,4). I'm not a technical reviewer, but I do shoot a lot and I personally find the SONY having an edge over the other cameras—compared to the other compacts I mentioned, a. Sony covers an extensive focal range, b. I love Sony's Panoramic mode, c. I like Sony's "background blur" effect that actually works quite well.

And, above all, somehow, Sony has the fastest focus. I can shoot my kids on a swing (daytime) all day long without getting a single blurry pic. This was quite hard to achieve with the other point and shoot. Again, I need to mention that one issue I have with Sony is how SLOW it takes to change modes. Otherwise, it would have been one of the most responsive compacts I have used.

Image quality wise, it's impressive (for a small sensor size, compact). It's sharp when shooting up close; it's seemingly sharp when shooting landscape shots but if you zoom in at 100% you will see the workings of the image processor—some areas look good but some areas look downright ugly and overprocessed. That said, the overall image quality for web posting and small-medium prints will be fine.

…more thoughts to come later.

Straight out of camera JPEG.

It's so great to have a focal range of (24 to 364); having such a focal range is so useful, especially for traveling and just everyday documentation/shooting, this little Sony HX9v has become my favorite, all around, take-everywhere-with me camera.

I have used other highly rated point and shoot cameras like the Sigma DP2s, Ricoh GRD III, Leica DLux (4,5) and Panansonic LX (3,4). I'm not a technical reviewer, but I do shoot a lot and I personally find the SONY having an edge over the other cameras—compared to the other compacts I mentioned, a. Sony covers an extensive focal range, b. I love Sony's Panoramic mode, c. I like Sony's "background blur" effect that actually works quite well.

And, above all, somehow, Sony has the fastest focus. I can shoot my kids on a swing (daytime) all day long without getting a single blurry pic. This was quite hard to achieve with the other point and shoot. Again, I need to mention that one issue I have with Sony is how SLOW it takes to change modes. Otherwise, it would have been one of the most responsive compacts I have used.

Image quality wise, it's impressive (for a small sensor size, compact). It's sharp when shooting up close; it's seemingly sharp when shooting landscape shots but if you zoom in at 100% you will see the workings of the image processor—some areas look good but some areas look downright ugly and overprocessed. That said, the overall image quality for web posting and small-medium prints will be fine.

…more thoughts to come later.