Landscape: 3.87MB, Program, 1/400, f8, 125 ISO, 4.25-42.5mm at 4.25mm (25mm equiv) Recorded location in EXIF header: 45 1 59.29 S, 168 39 32.31 E Landscape: 4.31MB, Program, 1/200, f8, 125 ISO, 4.25-42.5mm at 4.25mm (25mm equiv) Recorded location in EXIF header: 45 2 1.63 S, 168 39 41.42 E Wildlife: 3.57MB, Program, 1/320, f13, 125 ISO, 4.25-42.5mm at 42.5mm (250mm equiv) Landscape: 4.03MB, Program, 1/250, f5.6, 200 ISO, 4.25-42.5mm at 42.5mm (250mm equiv) Portrait: 3.53MB, Manual, 1/1250, f5.6, 200 ISO, 4.25-42.5mm at 42.5mm (250mm equiv) Macro: 4.23MB, Program, 1/100, f3.5, 400 ISO, 4.25-42.5mm at 4.25mm (25mm equiv) Indoor: 4.12MB, Program, 1/100, f3.5, 400 ISO, 4.25-42.5mm at 4.25mm (25mm equiv) Indoor: 3.63MB, Program, 1/15, f3.5, 800 ISO, 4.25-42.5mm at 4.25mm (25mm equiv) Indoor: 3.99MB, Program, 1/25, f4, 1600 ISO, 4.25-42.5mm at 7mm (41mm equiv) Action: 4.26MB, Manual, 1/400, f5, 200 ISO, 4.25-42.5mm at 27mm (159mm equiv)

The sequence below was taken with the HX5’s Burst mode at a rate of 10fps, so the ten frames represent approximately one second of action. It’s possible to select slower rates of 5 or 2fps, but still only for 10 frames. All three speeds also tie the camera up for around 17 seconds while the images are written to the card, but it’s a small price to pay for capturing this speed at full resolution – a key advantage of the Sony over the competition.

Landscape: 2.81MB, iSweep Panorama, 1/1000, f3.5, 125 ISO, 4.25-42.5mm at 4.25mm (25mm equiv)

Another unique feature of the Sony HX1 is its Sweep Panorama mode which can grab a series of images as you turn the camera and automatically stitch them into a wide panoramic image. Here’s an example, showing a 180 degree sweep atop the Skyline Gondola balcony where we take our real-life resolution test photos.

It’s a doddle to create these images, with the camera guiding you through the sweep, and automatically making up for any wobbles as it stitches them together. It’s a fun and useful facility, that’s capable of impressive results with ease.

Landscape: 3.21MB, iSweep Panorama, 1/640, f3.5, 125 ISO, 4.25-42.5mm at 4.25mm (25mm equiv)

Here’s another example, this time taken at closer range. Impressively there were very few parallax errors here.

The following images were taken with a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX5. The Cyber-shot HX5 was set to 12M Fine JPEG quality, Auto White Balance and Multiple metering. Optical Image Stabilisation was enabled for all these handheld images.

The individual exposure mode, file sizes, shutter speeds, aperture, ISO and lens focal length are listed for each image.

The crops are taken from the original files, reproduced at 100% and saved in Adobe Photoshop CS4 as JPEGs with the Very High quality preset, while the resized images were made in Photoshop CS4 and saved with the default High quality preset.

The three crops are typically taken from far left, central and far right portions of each image.

Note: you may wish to open a number of galleries for direct comparison of detail and noise: Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10 / ZS7 sample images, Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35 / FZ38 sample images, Canon PowerShot SX20 IS sample images, Canon PowerShot SX200 IS sample images.