Compared to... Canon PowerShot S5 IS

Below you will find a studio comparison between the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H7 and the Canon PowerShot S5 IS at ISO 800.

• Sony DSC-H7: Aperture Priority mode, ISO 800, Default Image Parameters,
  Manual white balance, +0.70 EV compensation

• Canon PowerShot S5 IS : Aperture Priority mode, ISO 800, Default Image Parameters, Manual white balance, +0.67 EV compensation
   
• Lighting: Daylight simulation, >98% CRI

Sony DSC-H7	Canon S5 IS
ISO 800, 1/640 sec, F5.0	ISO 800, 1/400 sec, F5.0
1,868 KB JPEG	3,745 KB JPEG

It seems fairly obvious that pushing this sensor beyond ISO 400 produces diminishing returns, and again the main difference is in the amount of noise reduction being applied - though here the differences are minimal. In reality which you think is better is down to personal taste; I'm not impressed with Sony's excessive NR, but to be honest Canon's more hands-off approach is hardly paying dividends; there is a tiny amount of extra detail being retained, but it looks very noisy too.