Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H3 review

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H3 Review

Reviewed by: Philip Ryan

Reviewed on: 4 October 2007

If you're reading this, then you probably already know that there are a lot of different kinds of cameras in the world. This year, we saw the birth of a new variation with the advent of superzooms that don't have electronic viewfinders, such as the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H3 we'll be reviewing here, which retails for around £200.

The upside is that the cameras can be smaller than their EVF-laden counterparts, and if you despise peering into a tiny hole at an LCD while framing your shots, then you'll welcome this evolution. 

Design
For a superzoom, the H3's small body design is definitely handy when trying to fit it in a bag or jacket pocket. It leaves few options for the button layout, though.

The menu design is intuitive, and it looks nice, too

Sony basically had to put the zoom rocker smack in the middle of where your thumb should naturally rest, which might seem good at first, but we ended up accidentally nudging it often when shooting, throwing off the zoom setting and messing up the framing of the shot. If Sony would've moved the shutter button a little to the left and the mode dial forward, the zoom rocker could've been moved farther right and given room for your thumb.

However, as the body design goes, that's the biggest flaw. The grip, though small, is effective -- curl your middle finger over the top of the grip, and the rest of your fingers fall nicely into place, though it does leave your pinky dangling, which always irks us. It seems as though camera makers have begun to despise the pinky finger. Most entry-level dSLRs and almost all superzooms have grips that can't fit a pinky.

Dominating the front of the camera is a Carl Zeiss-branded Vario-Tessar 10x optical 38-380mm equivalent, f/3.5-4.4 zoom lens, which feeds light to an 8.1-megapixel CCD sensor. Around back you'll find a 64mm (2.5-inch), 115,000-pixel LCD.