The Sony Cyber-shot H9 may have an extra Megapixel over the Panasonic FZ8, but this doesn't result in perceptively greater detail in this result. On the next page our studio charts reveal the H9 has a slight edge in resolving power, but as seen here, you're unlikely to notice it in real life.

While the middle row of crops from the H9 and FZ8 show similar degrees of detail though, the first and third rows reveal some of the issues facing the Sony. In the first row, coloured fringing is clearly visible on the mountain ridge and snow patches from the Sony crop and our results show this also affects the H9 when zoomed-in or with a smaller aperture. To be fair, the Sony H9's lens range is both slightly wider and longer than the Panasonic's, but there's clearly some compromise as a result.

The third row of crops also show the H9 resolves far less fine detail in the foliage areas than the FZ8, even at a slightly lower sensitivity of 80 ISO. This is due to higher compression and greater noise reduction, neither of which are adjustable on the H9.

So even at its lowest sensitivity under the best conditions, the Sony H9 images have several worrying issues. If you like to view results on-screen at 100% or make large prints, the H9's results can disappoint. For more samples, visit our Sony H9 Gallery. For more results and analysis, click onto our resolution results page.