Sony Cyber-shot HX100V

Two years after releasing the very good HX1, Sony has updated its bridge camera. The HX100V has a new Exmor R sensor, a huge 30x zoom lens and a built-in GPS. Even better still—a multifunction control ring around the lens makes good use of the two-handed SLR-style control typical to this kind of camera. Finally, like the rest of Sony's range, the HX100V has switched to SD cards, which are more widely available than Sony's previously preferred MemorySticks. On paper, this camera ticks all the right boxes so let's find out if it lives up to expectations.

Handling

Since the HX1 was released two years ago, other manufacturers have launched dozens of bridge cameras ... although their overall quality varies considerably. Sony is now back in the game with the HX100V, which has been treated to a new and improved build and finish. All of the battery, connections and memory card compartments open and close with no wobbles, and the camera's controls are all well-positioned. Obviously, the plastic rear face still has a somewhat cheap look and feel to it, but the camera is generally pleasant to handle.


On the back of the camera there's the same nice VGA screen found in all the brand's high-end compacts. It therefore has the same strengths (a definition and contrast that make it really nice to use) and the same weaknesses (inaccurate colour reproduction and an irregular gamma). Plus the screen is much nicer to use than the built-in viewfinder, which is small, of approximative quality, and plagued with noise and strong rainbow effects.

The manual control ring around the lens is a classic Sony feature—even though it hasn't been seen since the F717 released in 2002! By default, this is set to control the zoom, but it does take a bit of getting used to, as fast movements of the ring are reproduced with a slight delay while the motors zoom the lens to the focal length required. The control ring can, however, also be set to control manual focusing. Note that there's a second zoom control around the shutter-release button, so you can choose to use whichever you prefer.

It's a bit of a shame that Sony doesn't allow you to allocate a custom function to this control ring, as you can with the Canon S95. In fact, users who prefer to zoom using the controls around the shutter-release button and who are happy enough using the camera's autofocus won't really have any use for the manual ring. We think it would be more practical and more versatile if it could be used to adjust the exposure or the aperture in manual mode, for example.

That said, the exposure settings are easily accessible via the rear control wheel, which allows precision adjustment. It's therefore possible to change the camera's settings fairly quickly, making the HX100V a very practical camera.

Responsiveness

Like many bridge cameras, the HX100V is quite slow to start up, since deploying a 30x zoom lens obviously takes time. You have to wait around three seconds between pressing the 'on' button and taking the first photo.

Once it's up and running, the HX100V does pretty well, with a particularly fast autofocus, except for in very low light, and a reasonable photo-to-photo turnaround time of just under two seconds. For day-to-day use, the start-up time could get annoying for picky users, but that's the only real glitch.

As usual with BSI CMOS sensors, the burst mode is very good, shooting 10 frames in under one second. That said, the camera remains out of action for quite a long time while it digests all those snaps. It's therefore probably only suitable for use now and again.

Picture Quality

The internal electronics of the HX100V hold no real surprises, as it seems to have exactly the same image processing system as we've already seen in the HX7V and HX9V compacts.


The Jpeg shots therefore have a distinct 'processed' look to them, with heavy smoothing to remove noise in areas of solid colour and accentuation of more detailed zones. The HX cameras therefore take shots that are ready to use straight away with practically no post-editing required. They are of impeccable quality up to 800 ISO and even 1600 ISO. That's great for users who just want to point and shoot, but it makes the lack of RAW mode in the HX100V even more surprising, as this model is clearly aimed at a more advanced users who could well be interested in post-editing the RAW results.

The lens in this camera is all new. In wide angle it behaves fairly typically, with shots that are sharp in the middle but a little fuzzier towards the edges. With the HX100V, 8" x 10" prints look great and can be cropped with decent results. However, you still have to wonder what exactly the point of those 16 Megapixels is, since the lens has a lower resolution than the sensor.


At 200 mm (see above), this camera proved pleasantly surprising. While in many models quality is lost a little when you start to zoom, the HX100V actually gets better as you zoom in on a subject, and is equally as good as the HX9V. The middle of the frame is better than the edges, but finer detail is still very much present. It's actually at the maximum focal length that it gives its best results: at 810 mm, if you have a steady enough hand or use a high speed setting, you'll find the image is really very accurate over the whole field. Chromatic aberration is a problem at this setting though and, once again, a RAW mode would have made a nice touch for advanced users to edit out the aberration.

Video

Like the HX9V, the HX100V has a very high-quality video mode, recording 1080p video at 50 frames per second and a bitrate of 28 Mbps. Interestingly though, this information was nowhere to be seen in Sony's product information sheet, and we only found it by browsing though the internal menus. Note that you'll need a high-capacity memory card and a powerful computer to work with videos like these, especially for editing, but the quality is unquestionably good.


The sound doesn't disappoint either, with a clearly audible stereo effect and a clear distinction between individual noises. It does, however, pick up a few breathing noises.