Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H9
$899
Buy it at authorised dealers or visit www.sony.com.sg

There are some products that have people itching to grab them as soon as they are announced. Sony's Cyber-shot DSC-H9 is one such product.

The drool list:

15 times zoom instead of the regular 12 Three-inch, flip-up, 230K-pixel LCD Top shutter speed of 1/4,000 High sensitivity of up to ISO3200 NightShot. That's a Sony videocam signature now in a camera!

At its widest angle, the camera's 31mm is close to 28mm - the basic wide angle. Shooting at its maximum zoom of 465mm, I could see details not easily visible to the naked eye.

But there the wow factor ended for me.

To begin with, the camera rattled when I first picked it up. I discovered that this rattle was caused by the two hooks for the shoulder strap knocking against the hard plastic body.

Then there was the wheel dial and five-way control button - instead of having two ways of making a menu choice, the functions are split between the two and you have to remember which does what.

And while the H9 can shoot a subject in total darkness, it's all in shades of green. There is an obvious hot spot at wide angle. Focusing defaults to auto and getting a focus lock is sometimes impossible.

Also, the sensitivity in the NightShot mode can get cranked up to ISO6400, but the noise at this level simply overwhelmed me. But the feature is not a complete write-off: I could make out the weave on the fabric of a supermarket's reusable bag about 3m away in a dark bedroom on a handheld shot.

You can manually adjust speed, aperture and even focus. Curiously, the compression level is fixed. And every time you power up the camera, the LCD comes on - you can't override that either. Strangely, the small supplied battery is rated for only 280 shots. And to make matters worse, it takes 5.5 hours to give a fully-depleted battery a full charge.

As for performance, with the articulated screen, I could get a worm's-eye shot easily instead of needing to collapse my 100kg frame into a prone position. Sadly, the LCD can be adjusted on one axis only, which favours landscape shots. As a result, I couldn't even frame it for a self-portrait!

With reasonable lighting, shots are sharp with rich colours. Sony pulls good images out of the eight-megapixel 1/2.5-inch CCD, but there are limits to a small chip.

Noise starts showing as low as ISO400. The strong, fixed compression also means that details are compromised. There is occasional purple fringing. But as a testimony to the quality of Sony's SteadyShot and lens, a handheld indoor shot of my friend - taken at full-zoom - showed clearly the fabric and woven logo details on his T-shirt.

FINAL SAY

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H9 is a mixed bag. If you can live with its quirks, it can capture shots that other cameras simply cannot.