Digital Trends

Sony CyberShot DSC-H3

December 9th, 2007 | by David Elrich

Features and Design

Available in black or silver, the Sony Cybershot DSC-H3 is an extremely compact, stealthy-looking digicam; we had the black version for this review. It measures 4.18 x 2.68 x 1.9 (WHD, in inches) and tips the scales at close to 14 ounces fully loaded. You can slip this into a jacket pocket with ease—as long as you don’t have the supplied lens hood attached. Personally I think it looks rather ridiculous—like a blunderbuss--and went about my business with it off. It doesn’t have a built-in lens cover so there is the possibility of losing the cap but what can you do? Panasonic wins this round with its built-in lens cover.

The front is dominated by the 10x Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens with a 35mm equivalent of 38-380mm. You get more on the long end compared to the TZ3 (28-280mm) but personally, the Panasonic’s 28mm setting is a winner for me. You may think I’m crazy which is why I always suggest you actually try cameras for yourself in the showroom. That extra telephoto may be just your cup of Red Bull. Also on the front of the camera is an AF Illuminator light, a mic and a few decals. The H3 has a grip on the right side. When you hold it, your finger naturally curls into position above the shutter and your thumb rests on the rear wide/tele switch. There’s a raised notch that keeps the thumb in position. Overall the camera seemed a little small for my hand but it might be just fine for yours—again that hands-on tryout is a must.

The top is fairly clean with a large knurled mode dial, shutter and power key. There’s also a potent pop-up flash that automatically opens if the light is too dim. It can be readily defeated with the flash adjustments on the four-way controller. The mode dial has a good assortment: full auto, program, manual, movie, access to four scene modes along with dedicated settings for landscape, twilight portrait, sports, soft snap for portraits and High Sensitivity to shoot in available light (ISO hits 3200). Although the Panasonic has many more scene modes it does not have aperture and shutter speed adjustments as does the H3. Even so the H3 is hardly D-SLR like since there are only two aperture settings (f/3.5 and f/8) but there are a wide range of shutter speeds (30 to 1/2000th of a second). Aperture- and shutter-priority are nowhere to be found but even this level of control is most welcome and a big leg up from the TZ3.

The back is very clean with “only” a 2.5-inch LCD rated at 115K pixels. Even though this is a low figure, the screen holds up well in bright light although it does smear indoors as you move quickly from one scene to the other. Still there seems like a lot of real estate on the back for a larger screen. Panasonic’s 3-inch LCD seems positively enormous by comparison. Above the screen is a playback key to review your shots. To the right is the wide/tele toggle switch that’s nicely placed; it also enlarges images during playback. Other controls include Menu, Home and a four-way controller with central set button. Menu gets you to the specific menus for the mode dial settings while Home opens a variation of Xross bar GUI found on the PS3 and other Sony gear. The four-points of the control ring give access to display options (grid lines, histogram), flash, self timer and macro.

A compartment on the right side has inputs for an optional DC-in adaptor and the supplied hydra-headed USB/video out. This camera offers HD video out so you can watch your images on a HDTV (this cable is optional). On the bottom is the compartment for the battery and Memory Stick Duo slot.

The camera comes with everything you need to get started. It has 31MB of internal to grab a few shots but definitely buy a one or two-gig high-speed Pro Duo card. You get all the basic straps and cables, the lens hood, lens cap and—my favorite—a piece of string to connect the cap to the camera. It also comes with Picture Motion Browser Ver. 2.1 software and USB driver on a CD-ROM.

After charging the battery and loading a 2GB Pro Duo card, it was time to start shooting…

Image Courtesy of Sony