Santa Catarina Park, Madeira Photos

Sony DSCHX9VB Cyber-shot Digital Still Camera
16.8Megapixel, 16x Optical Zoom, 3 inch LCD

"For me, it is A Little Gem... you WILL be blown away by its HD movie (1080p/1920x1080 at 50fps!) with superb image stabilisation to cope with its 16x zoom and good stereo sound as well.

Superior Auto is also a delight - in difficult situations it will take multiple images and overlay them, even making 3200 ISO usable up to 10x8" prints. Then there is Background Defocus (the subject is sharp but all else is blurred), iPanorama where you opt which way you want to move the camera, press the shutter and swing and voila... HD panoramic pictures laced together in-camera!

You can review images simply by pressing the playback button (from camera off) after which a press of the shutter release immediately takes you to shoot mode.

The grip is good - rubber with tiny pimples which allow one-handedness with ease. In fact one-handed is almost an essential because when the camera decides it needs flash it pops up under your index finger!

There are plenty of Scene modes but one of the most outstanding is Handheld Twilight which again uses multiple overlaid images thus making high ISO acceptable."

Z.V. - Amazon.co.uk review, 30th March 2011