**** The Bottom Line ****

This is a very good and versatile point-and-shoot camera. If you are just interested in taking good pictures under a variety of shooting conditions then this camera delivers. However, the video format that lacks support of many video organizing and editing programs leaves me disappointed. Video has become such an important part of what we’ve come to expect from cameras and it would have been nice to have as many uploading, editing, and viewing options as possible. I wish that this Cyber-shot camera were much better in that department.

**** Picture Quality ****

If taking great pictures is the thing that’s the most important for you in a camera, then this little shooter will not disappoint. The pictures are very vivid and sharp. The 16-megapixel sensor will allow you to capture images that will be easy to view even on the largest monitors. The 2.4F lens delivers bright pictures that are as distortion-free as one could expect from this sort of camera.

**** Build Quality ****

This is a very well built and sturdy looking camera. It is slightly larger than the current crop of Canon Powershots. Nonetheless it is still not very bulky and it’s very convenient for taking with you anywhere you go.

**** Ease of Use ****

Considering the complexity and versatility of things that you can do with this camera, the user interface is not too bad. However, it is still not overly intuitive, and you will have to dig deep within various menus if you are interested in taking the full advantage of all the options that this camera offers.

**** Video ****

The vide quality is very good. However, if you want to record video at the highest quality (full HD 1080/60i) you’ll have to do so in AVCHD format. This is a video format used by Sony and Panasonic, and hardly anyone else. When viewing videos on HDTV directly from a camera or from a hard drive the results can be stunning. I made a short video of my neighborhood right at the time that the school bus was passing by. The video was incredibly sharp and vivid, and I felt like it was shot in some tony suburb. However, this video format is not very friendly with most of the picture/video management software, including most troublingly iPhoto and Picasa. Overall this video format is incompatible with most of Mac software. I was only able to play it with programs like VLC or Adobe Premiere, but even then the interlacing artifacts were very noticeable and distracting. The description of this camera claims that these video files can be edited in iMovie, but I have not been able to import AVCHD files into either iMovie 2009 or 2011. On Windows systems the situation is much better. Several standard Windows video players (including Windows Media Player) support AVCHD natively and play these files without any annoying interlacing artifacts. The same holds for video editing programs.

The other format that this camera supports is mp4. This format allows you to shoot videos in a progressive 30p mode, but you sacrifice the resolution – these videos are not recorded in full HD format. One of the main advantages

**** Connections and File Transfer ***

The camera connects to the computer and the charger through a proprietary USB cord. This is not so much of a problem for transferring photos and videos (since you can in most cases do it directly from the memory card), but it is an issue when it comes to charging your camera. I am all too familiar with how easy it is to misplace one of these cords, and since it is nonstandard you cannot avail of any of your other USB cords. This is especially annoying when you travel, as you have to remember to bring a separate USB cord for each one of your devices.

**** Preset Shooting Modes ****

This camera has many preset shooting modes that are convenient for all sorts of shooting conditions: low light, landscape, lots of motion, soft backgrounds, beach, fireworks, etc. Because of so many various options all of them had to get a separate menu. One shooting mode that I was really impressed with was the background correction HDR. This mode allows you to take pictures of situations that have a very high contrast between well lit and underlit parts. From what I gathered HDR in this camera was accomplished with three shots in rapid succession at various exposure settings. I’ve been able to take really nice photographs of a dark room with large bright windows.

One feature that I was really looking forward to is the Background Defocus. This feature aims to emulate the shallow depth of field that makes the DSLR photographs so dramatic. Unfortunately, this feature only works with taking pictures of faces, presumably because it relies on facial recognition to distinguish the foreground from the background.

**** Some Other Observations ****

* The 3D features work OK. Only one of the three different 3D settings allows you to view 3D pictures directly on your camera, while for the other two you need to attach the camera to a 3D enabled TV or monitor. IMHO, 3D is more of a gimmick than a really well implemented feature.
* The panorama feature is really neat. You just sweep the camera across the landscape that you want to turn into a panorama, and the camera stitches the photos automatically. Turning photos into panoramas can be very tricky and oftentimes requires very sophisticated software. This camera takes away all of that difficulty. The price you pay, though, is that the panorama shots will be lower resolution than the highest quality pictures. They will essentially be the same resolution as the HD video.
* Face recognition works great, and the camera locks onto faces very quickly.
* Various timer options give you plenty of choices. My favorite timer option relies on face recognition – the camera will wait until it recognizes a face (or two) and then take the picture within two seconds.
* The shooting speed is very impressive. I can take pictures even faster than with my Canon DSLR camera. Point and shoot cameras have really come a long way in this department.
* The 7X zoom is very effective. This is one of the largest zooms in this camera category and it certainly delivers on high expectations.

Overall, this is a very good camera, especially at its price. My rating would be 4.5 stars, but since Amazon only deals in full-star ratings I’ll give it 5.