COMPACT CAMERA WITH FINE IMAGE QUALITY

THE advent of digital cameras in smartphones has changed the way we capture photos. In fact, the only digital cameras that people tote around these days are DSLRs and system cameras, whereas the casual models are almost extinct.

However, Sony thinks that there may still be some legs left in this particular niche market with the introduction of the Sony Cyber-shot HX99, touted to be the most compact travel camera in the world with an extreme zoom range of 24-720mm.

Cyber-shot HX99 features include ZEISS Vario-Sonnar T 24-720mm High Magnification Zoom lens, 4K movie shooting capability, a powerful BIONZ X image processing engine with a front-end LSI, an extremely fast auto focus, Eye autofocus and 10 fps shooting.

Optical image stabilisation will go a long way in minimising camera shake and blur that tend to be the bane of handheld and telephoto shooting. Apart from that, the Zoom Assist function also enables the shutterbug to zoom in more accurately even when shooting objects that are extremely far away.

The powerful BIONZ X processing engine paves the way for the capture of stunning 4K video with full pixel readout sans any form of pixel binning. If you like to shoot high-frame rate high definition video at up to 120fps, the Cyber-shot HX99 is also more capable of doing it. Other features that make the HX99 perfect for travel are the inclusion of Touch Focus and Touch Shutter functionality, apart from the Touch Pad function that enables smooth focus point shifting while taking advantage of the retractable OLED Tru-Finder.

Shooting selfies is easy with the 180-degree tiltable LCD screen. While the asking price of US$449.99 may be a bit steep for an ordinary digital camera, it offers far better image quality than the best smartphone cameras, straddling the middle ground between cost and capability.