Image quality
Image quality from the H3 can be
quite nice if you stick with ISOs 100 and 200, though that niceness is
marred by the lens' noticeable distortion, as well as some purple
fringing on high-contrast edges toward the edges of images.
We saw more noise than we would've liked at ISO 400. While images are still very usable and much of the noise is minimised during printing, there is a noticeable falloff in shadow detail and fine detail at ISO 400. Stepping up to ISO 800, noise increases only slightly, but there's more of a falloff in shadow and fine detail.
At ISO 1,600 noise becomes heavy and most shadow and fine detail is lost. The top sensitivity setting of ISO 3,200 yields extremely noisy images with completely blocked up shadows and fine details. For example, text which was crisp and clear at ISO 200 and below, becomes completely illegible at ISO 3,200. We suggest staying below ISO 1,600 when shooting with the H3 and sticking with ISO 100 or ISO 200 whenever possible.
Conclusion
If you want a long zoom lens in a camera
that's smaller, if not lighter, than most superzooms, Sony's DSC-H3 is
a decent choice. Since this is a new category, it's hard to draw
comparisons, but when Canon's PowerShot SX100 hits the market in this month, we should be able to get a better idea of how this Sony compares with the competition.
If you've discovered as we have that an EVF can come in handy
when shooting certain subjects, then you might want to check out one of
Sony's other superzooms, such as the
Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday
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