I was in need of a new camera a few weeks back, since my mom wanted hers back, and there was no other way for me to finish my 365 Challenge at the time, so I went looking around. My eventual decision was the Sony DSC H3, and I’ve been pretty happy with it thus far. First, I’ll detail how I came to this decision.
I’m the kind of person that over-uses gadgets, and runs down the battery once or twice in a day. I needed to have rechargeable batteries, which weeded what would have been my first choice of camera, the Canon PowerShot SX100IS. I really liked the SX100IS because of the nifty scroll-wheel control, which made changing exposure and aperture size a breeze, and a lot faster than it is on any Sony point and shoot. Also, a reason I was looking at these goliath cameras, and not something that’s particularly easy to stick in your pocket is because I need full manual mode; I’m trying to get the closest I can to DSLR without spending another $200, plus whatever the lens costs.
Down to the nitty-gritty: this camera’s got some amazing (to me, at least) features that I’ve not come in contact with before, and that I am very happy with.
SteadyShot: Weird, cool, and borderline impossible. I move, and the image on the screen moves with me, but smoothly. It’s disorienting to say the least, but very, very cool.
Stuff detection: so, face detection may not be too impressive. It is to me, when you’ve got a party of people in a dimly lit room, have to use flash, and every person’s face was detected, and red-eye reduced as much as possible. You can even go in, and touch-up red eye in photos you’ve already taken ON the camera itself. You can also do things like selective coloring and selective focus, things that are even difficult for a beginner photoshop user to do.
HD Output: Neat to have, not really useful. The camera didn’t come with the HDMI cable, but it is really nice to know that I can plug it into my TV and have a slideshow of full-res photos along with music that my camera’s made up automatically (it even comes with music).
Internal memory: Ever take your camera somewhere and realize as soon as you want to take a picture that you forgot your memory stick? Yeah. That’s why some internal memory is nice in those emergency situations.
2.5″ Screen: Self-explanatory. The pictures look beautiful on that screen, I think maybe nicer than in real life.
BRK+-1.0EV: If you know what this is, you don’t think it’s really impressive. If you don’t, you don’t care. Either way, I love being able to do
HDR shots.
Macro is incredible. This thing can focus on things touching the lens; I bet is has special software to make sure it doesn’t focus on its own lens! (however impossible that may be)
So that’s all well and good, I’ve told you exactly what the Amazon product page has. Well, here’s what I’ve found out about it that has been a little inconvenient for me.
Charging is hard. First of all, it won’t charge through USB, which is a really nice feature some cameras have. Then, you can’t just plug the camera into a wall, it diverts the power use from the battery to the DC, and overlooks charging. So, to charge the battery, you have to take it out of the camera, and put it in a little wall charger that came with the camera. But, as if that isn’t bad enough, when you plug the camera into your computer to move images over, it drains the battery really incredibly fast. I’ve left it in for five minutes and ended up with a dead camera before. I’m so paranoid about battery draining that I take out the battery when I’m not using the camera.
For manual exposure, Sony’s controls have always been a bit bad. And they still really suck. It’s like, “Oh, I need to shorten the exposure for outdoor conditions. *clickclickclickclickclickclickclick* Ok, now where’s that lizard?” Now, most users probably won’t care about manual exposure, and I should probably stop being stuck up and trust the camera occasionally, but it is still a major deterrent for me.
Lenscaps suck. And the current solutions for that
kinda suck, too. Now, all cameras have one of those (or no lens cover), but someone really needs to come up with something better. This isn’t a valid complaint, but it’s an annoyance with all cameras.
Won’t balance on its side.
Won’t make toast
If you actually read this, I commend you. Or thank you. Because this was one of, if not the, suckiest gadget review of all time. 
Oh, and Flickr says it takes pretty pictures.
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