Sony HX9V Going Back - It Royally Sucks

It's subjective. After 20+ years of shooting even as digital was emerging I have become used to certain things that are pretty standard it seems till 2011.

Everyone has a different eye of what "good" is IMO in a final product no matter the print size. I am looking for a small p&s with large optical zoom. So HX9V, Nikon S9100, Canon SX230 I think.

With this Sony I even overlooked the fact unless you buy a separate charger you have to charge the battery in camera tethered to a cable connecting to a charger block with AC prongs. I am assuming the Canon G12 has a charger with built in AC prongs you just plug in no cable and no having to charge in camera like all the prior "G" cameras. Not efficient if you want to keep shooting being stuck to a camera and what if you happen to loose power overnight or during the day while charging what have you.

So for me yes, Royally sucks bad Sony HX9V. If this Sony was a Royal it would be the Duke of Sucksbury.

For your personal choice not my call.

Tom Hogan is not a bad resource for camera reviews. He is mainly a Nikon guy, but Pro Photographers look for good cameras to complement their pro gear. I like reviews by photographers than make a living at photography IMO they give an honest in field review of narrowing down the current camera's etc.

This is just a starting point.

http://www.bythom.com/compactHQ1.htm

HarryBnBad said:

you guys have me all messed up. I'm very new to any and all of this.

So tell me, is the HX9v any good or what????? Mine is to arive tomorrow, on the 12th, now grant ya, all I did was earn points at sonyrewards dot com. It didn't cost me anything. But did I waste my points????????????????

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I forgot to add, though Tom Hogan is a Nikon guy I took from the P7000 review the G12 was better. It is close, or was close but the short of it is select what you need and go from there. What I complained about I needed and this camera and the Nikon s9100 do not have these options. Who knows maybe Sony makes certain p&s's for Nikon?

SamTruax said:

This doesn't make a difference...the value they have chosen is based on their own testing and is considered the 'best'. The compression technology is changing every year. You can't say the ratio is absurdly high if you don't have images at different ratios from this camera to compare.

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Actually I have to agree with iamphil. Both the noise reduction and the jpg compression are set to high with the HX9V.

I can set the jpg compression quality on my both my Canon cameras. The default is the middle setting, I set it to the best quality because I can see a slight difference in quality when zoomed in or cropping a picture. I'd rather have the best possible quality, even if I have to buy a larger memory card. I don't need RAW images, I just want a very good jpg image.

On my Canon SX10, 10 mp at the best quality setting, pictures average around 4.5mbytes.
On the HX9V, 16 mp pictures average around 2.3mbytes.

If the Caonon was 16mp, I'd expect an image size of around 7mbytes, or around 3 times the size of the Sony.

The heavy noise reduction on the Sony will improve the compression ratio, since there's less detail to compress, but the loss of detail is also due to the high compression ratio.

It's a shame, because if I could lower the noise reduction and increase the jpg compression quality, this would absolutly be the best travel zoom available.

I agree, lots of lost potential. Am waiting on a Canon G12 now.

ryan2007 said:

Here are the issues and well the deal breaker with the HX9V. You can not set file compression as it is automatic. You should be able to set the best JPEG file which is one function. The megapixel is separate. So I want 16 MP and the least amount of file compression or best JPEG.

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When I look at images from the HX9 (even at 100%), I don't see any sign of blocky compression artifacts caused by JPEG compression at all. Are you disappointed with the results, or are you just disappointed with the fact that there isn't a Good/Better/Best setting?

You say that the megapixel issue is a seperate one, but are you sure that you're not confusing the high level of noise reduction/in-camera processing with jpeg compression?

If you can post a sample to show where the problem is, it'd help clarify what you mean.

Not any more. Does not matter now. Just received return credit for the camera yesterday.

I have switched to the Canon G12 expected to arrive in a couple days. It was on sale for $399 over the weekend at Best Buy and I had a couple gift cards from last year I never used so the bottom line was $295 for a Canon G12. Even so at $399 that was a good deal.

I also liked the G12,but have not seen it under $500. The deal breaker there was the limited tele zoom at 140mm. I do wonder how the G12 image would compare if it were cropped 50% to correspond to the angle of a 280mm.
Moot for me also as I just added an OLY e-pl/2 to the quiver

My example was the size difference in the file sizes.

While I don't see the typical blocking that you would normally see in an over compress jpg file, the blurring of detail is much higher than the Canon cameras I own.

A good comparison is the quality setting when saving jpg images in Photoshop.

At the highest settings in Photoshop, there is little to no visible loss in quality.

As you lower the setting, you will state to see a loss in detail and a blurring of the image. Lower the setting even more, and you will eventually start to see the jpg blocking.

My guess is that Sony is targeting this camera more to the general public (people looking for a step up from their cell phone cameras), that don’t normally crop pictures and just have 4x6 print made. The higher compression ratio, and resulting smaller file size would be an advantage to the average user as it makes the images easier to upload or email.

I did buy the HX9V, because the small size, excellent video, and some of the other features. Even with the excessive noise reduction and compression, the pictures are still good enough for my normal usage of 4x6 or 8x10 prints, viewing online, although I think I’ll be a bit limited on extreme crops.

FYI: If there was visible jpg blocking in the photos on the HX9V, I won't have even considered the camera.

ryan2007 said:

Not any more. Does not matter now. Just received return credit for the camera yesterday.

I have switched to the Canon G12 expected to arrive in a couple days. It was on sale for $399 over the weekend at Best Buy and I had a couple gift cards from last year I never used so the bottom line was $295 for a Canon G12. Even so at $399 that was a good deal.

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I am not sure if it applies to G12, but I know that Canon has removed the "superfine" settings from some cameras. They had superfine, fine and normal. Now, superfine is gone.

You still have RAW with G12, so this may not be an issue.

sorinx said:

I am not sure if it applies to G12, but I know that Canon has removed the "superfine" settings from some cameras. They had superfine, fine and normal. Now, superfine is gone.

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I always set my Canon cameras to superfine, as I could usually see a small difference between fine and superfine.

The HX9V on the otherhand seems to be set to the equivelent of normal or slightless worse, which is it's biggest fault.

nutzo said:

sorinx said:

I am not sure if it applies to G12, but I know that Canon has removed the "superfine" settings from some cameras. They had superfine, fine and normal. Now, superfine is gone.

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I always set my Canon cameras to superfine, as I could usually see a small difference between fine and superfine.

The HX9V on the otherhand seems to be set to the equivelent of normal or slightless worse, which is it's biggest fault.

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You must have an old canon. G12 does not have superfine.

I am quite sure that no current model of canon P&S has.

sorinx said:

You must have an old canon. G12 does not have superfine.

I am quite sure that no current model of canon P&S has.

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My most current Canon is the SX10, which is a couple years old. Guess that's a long time in camera years

I knew my cell phone had a camera in it. I took a picture and it was awful, as expected. As I learned the phone I discovered, much to my delight, that the thing will take 2 megapixel pictures that are lightly compressed and don't look half bad.

And the thing has video, too.

From now on I'm leaving my big, heavy and ridiculously expensive DSLR rig home, choosing instead to shoot with my cell phone camera. It's freaking wonderful and I'm having a blast with it.

I have taken many pictures of flowers and my cats and my car in the driveway and they're all wonderful. And with the 4gB micro SD card, I can take maybe a zillion pictures before I fill up the card. I can shoot for the rest of my life without ever filling up the card, and that's factoring in that I have yet to delete an image, and have no intentions of ever deleting an image.

Technology is wonderful, isn't it?

you have learned the secret:
want what you have
and dont want what you dont have

cheers

harry cannoli said:

I knew my cell phone had a camera in it. I took a picture and it was awful, as expected. As I learned the phone I discovered, much to my delight, that the thing will take 2 megapixel pictures that are lightly compressed and don't look half bad.

And the thing has video, too.

From now on I'm leaving my big, heavy and ridiculously expensive DSLR rig home, choosing instead to shoot with my cell phone camera. It's freaking wonderful and I'm having a blast with it.

I have taken many pictures of flowers and my cats and my car in the driveway and they're all wonderful. And with the 4gB micro SD card, I can take maybe a zillion pictures before I fill up the card. I can shoot for the rest of my life without ever filling up the card, and that's factoring in that I have yet to delete an image, and have no intentions of ever deleting an image.

Technology is wonderful, isn't it?

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That was funny!!!!!

I remember getting a camera phone several years ago and everyone was getting blurry pictures. It didn't take long for me to figure out what the problem was! When you pressed the shutter button it didn't snap for another two seconds and was still taking the picture for another second. So, from that point on, I would take a picture and stay frozen for ten seconds and always got great results.

I take a lot of pictures with my cell phone and am pleased with the pictures.

harry cannoli said:

I knew my cell phone had a camera in it. I took a picture and it was awful, as expected. As I learned the phone I discovered, much to my delight, that the thing will take 2 megapixel pictures that are lightly compressed and don't look half bad.

And the thing has video, too.

From now on I'm leaving my big, heavy and ridiculously expensive DSLR rig home, choosing instead to shoot with my cell phone camera. It's freaking wonderful and I'm having a blast with it.

I have taken many pictures of flowers and my cats and my car in the driveway and they're all wonderful. And with the 4gB micro SD card, I can take maybe a zillion pictures before I fill up the card. I can shoot for the rest of my life without ever filling up the card, and that's factoring in that I have yet to delete an image, and have no intentions of ever deleting an image.

Technology is wonderful, isn't it?

Click to expand...

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