Rating

I am no expert when it comes to photography but delight in taking excellent pictures of my family and friends. I have kids in sports and I like to take my own pictures for picture giving. I read many reviews (for hours) on various cameras and endet up with this one here. I first was going to get the DSC-H50 (one step up from the DSC-H20). When I went to the store to buy it, but, it was to large for my taste. It was to huge to fit in a pants pocket and even for my small purse it was quite large. Here are the main reasons why this camera is awesome!

This camera here is not as compact as your typical slim camera (due to the 10x zoom), but it is small enough to fit in a purse or even a jacket/pants pocket if need be.

This camera has a burst mode so you can hold down the shutter and the camera will take numerous pictures, thus making it ideal for action shots. I took it to a Volleyball tournament and got unbelievable shots of my daughter serving and hitting! I cought her in mid air more then a few times…just what I had hoped for. I also took pictures at a track meet and got kids jumping hurdles…the pictures look nearly like magazine shots!

This camera is extremely simple to use in the simple and auto adjust mode! It tells you everything on the screen. You can start shooting pretty much straight away…it’s that simple! The manual is excellent to have for reference and questions and if you really want to get to know your camera.

The zoom is fantastic and plenty! I took pictures from the mezzanine onto the Volleyball courts and could get nice close up shots! 10x is plenty for me!

The battery life is also impressive, as long as you keep your screen on a regular bright setting. First I had it set to “bright” and the battery didn’t do well. Then I set it to normal and it lasts a long time. I took about 150 shots and not a single bar was missing from the battery!

It has a rechargebale battery so you don’t have to keep buying regular batteries. Also, it does say that you can get a international charger so the battery charger can be plugged in anywhere in the world. (Still have to get that myself). What a nice option.

The quality of the pictures is also fantastic! I took a team photo and my daughter took it to a practice to show the others. They choose the picture to use in a frame as a gift to the coaches. It turned out so excellent and all I did was push a button!

When shooting pictures, it has a option for the file size you select. If you know you want to email pictures, or for example if you sell on eBay and want to download pictures onto the ebay site, you select the small file size and shoot pictures that way for working with them online. For pictures that you use for portraits for example, you choose a larger file (pixels I guess), and that way it does not distort the picture when you enlarge it. That is also extremely simple to figure out!

Last but not least…I plugged it into my pc with the supplied USB cord and retrieved the photos the same way I always did in the past. I have not yet added the picture cd that came with it, but my guess is that it will work very excellent. I also took the 2GB SD card to Wal mart and made nice prints (you have to buy the pro duo stick seperate…look for the “Sony pro-Duo Stick” cost about $13-$15). The 2 GB is plenty for me, I reckon it holds about 400 pictures).

Fantastic camera…I have not found a flaw yet!

Rating

I usually write long reviews, but I reckon this will be small and sweet. This is one fantastic camera! My long search for a P&S camera that takes fantastic pic’s and vid’s is finally over (at least for now). I’ve taken several hundred pictures and videos, most have come out absolutely fantastic. My only issue at all is low light performance. But, if you play with the settings, even those issues are mitigated to some degree. We all have to remember the limitations of any P&S. Overall, I will say that the H20 is the best P&S that I have used in a long long time. Excellent job Sony!

Rating

I bought mine last week and it arrived 2 days ago. By the time i got the camera, I tested it immediately and had a couple of shots. This is my first personal camera and I am really enjoying it a lot. We had a lot of cameras before but my dad/mom owns it and most of them were Sony and I’m just borrowing. This is one of the best Sony’s P&S camera in my opinion.

At first, I was plotting to get a DSLR or just the DSC-H50 but I am not feeling the bulky cameras as of the moment. I travel a lot and I don’t reckon I want to bring those bulky and heavy gadgets with me. So, I did some research for a excellent camera specifications (that are small enough) and I finished up choosing between the Canon SD960 and this one (DSC-H20). Both of them nearly have the same specs but the Canon camera is a small bit more expensive than H20. Also, I’m looking for a camera with better optical zoom and Sony-H20 offers twice the zoom strength as the Canon model that I am aiming for.

What I like about it:

- The HD quality video that it can take PLUS you can zoom while recording.

- It’s like a mini-dslr because you can switch it to Manual mode and you can adjust the aperture and shutter speed so you can do panning as well. A small camera that really works.. what can I say?

- I like doing Bokeh and Macro shots!!! A+++

- The features such as SCN, editing in camera etc.

- The built and grip! Eventhough the body is made out of plastic, you can feel that it’s tough and you can hold it really tight.

- The smile shutter – works well for the Kids..

- Ofcourse, the optical zoom.

- The strong flash

What I don’t like:

- No viewfinder

- Popping out of flash, if you’re not aware/forgot that you’re going take a shot with a flash on/auto.

- Lens cap – you tend to forget that it’s there and may block the lens from popping out when you open your camera. It’s a small bit annoying and it gives me the feeling that it might break my camera. Though it says that you should remove the cap and turn off your unit and turn it on again, before it works.

Well, overall it’s a fantastic small camera and very worthit for its price. The cons I listed are not pretty much of a huge deal especially when you see the crisp brilliant photos that you can take with DSC-H20. I bet you’re going to like it too and it’s worthit worthit and worthit!

I bought the camera with the following stuffs: Sony 8gb mark 2 pro duo memory card, the sony pouch and a tripod.

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Rating

I took my camera on vacation last week to Nashville for the CMA Music festival. I took pictures from a distance and the zoom was fantastic! The video quality is incredible and in HD. When playing it back on the computer it looks like the singer was right in front of me when I was about 20 rows back. It was pretty simple to use, but just keep in mind the zoom button zooms very quick so touch it very gently to get a nice clear shot. I had to play around with that from time to time and sometimes the video started out blurry but then it readjusted itself. All in all, the lights flashing on stage did not effect the pictures. I am very pleased with my buy and how the pictures and videos turned out.

I also took some pictures of flowers close up and they came out so clear and crisp full of vibrant colors. I would highly recommend!