Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1/H 10MP "Exmor R" CMOS Digital Camera with 3-inch Touch-Screen LCD (Grey)
by Sony
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX1/H 10MP "Exmor R" CMOS Digital Camera with 3-inch Touch-Screen LCD (Grey)
Customer Review: Slightly better at low light but terrible with good light
Summary: 2 Stars
As an owner of a smattering of point and shoot cameras and high end DSLR's, I can be more picky than most about cameras.
I own an old 6MP Sony T9 slim camera from 4 years or so back and this looked like a promising upgrade for a slim pocketable camera. HD MP4 video, 4x zoom, almost twice the MP, touch screen and this new touted Exmor R sensor.
The T9 isn't a great camera, in fact it's one of the worst at image quality of all of my cameras, and it's memory stick duo format is constantly a hassle.
Unfortunately this new TX1 still uses Memory Stick Duo, and is somehow just as bad in terms of image quality as the old T9. It's better in low light but still very grainy, however it's worse in good bright light. Set manually to the lowest ISO (125) and placed on a tripod, the T9 produces shots with more detail and dynamic range while the TX1 has a grainy soft and blown highlight look to everything. This is with the best possible conditions, and in my opinion the shots from this camera are completely unacceptable. That means it only gets worse from there. Handheld shots in the automatic modes have much more noise and grain in them, even in full daylight. Trees in the distance look like water paintings. Neither camera is good with contrasty scenes, but all I want out of a small pocket camera is acceptable images to resize and post on facebook and so on.
The TX1 will do, but for the price the quality is terrible. Cut the price in half and I might think about keeping it but this is all about style over design.
It does have some neat features like a high speed burst mode, an anti shake mode that takes multiple exposures and combines and aligns in camera, face detection and so on. It also has one of the best touchscreen interfaces I've used on a camera, it's not in the way and it's easy and quick to use. Just double tapping on where you want the camera to focus is very nice as well. The zoom slider is probably the worst physical part on this camera, not very sensitive, and then when you finally get it to zoom, it shoots quickly from the wide end to the telephoto end which means you are always overzooming and having to back off, which is frustrating when all you want is to frame the image.
If this is going to be your only small camera I would choose something else probably from Canon or Panasonic, it will be a slightly larger camera but the jump in quality will be very noticeable.
I'm going to return it and keep the T9 for the pocket slim camera that I don't care about, and use the SD870is and LX-3 as my other smaller cameras. Unless the price on this really drops, or you just have to have this for the style and don't care about camera-phone quality pictures from a dedicated camera I would stay away from this model.
Customer Review: Had High Hopes - Defective Product
Summary: 2 Stars
Hi folks: I am the director of photography for a television series. We have been using Sony professional broadcast studio equipment for 20 years without failures and I could not be happier. We recently purchased this camera for "behind the scenes" snaps at our location shootings. Please note: this camera was not purchased from Amazon, but instead, a local retailer serving professional photographers in Los Angeles.
I had high hopes for this camera but alas, the images I got were not that impressive, excepting the panorama which was strikingly good and the camera malfunctioned very quickly needing repair. I found the menus a bit confusing and not intuitive even though I am an iPhone junkie and very tech savvy. What if I dont WANT smile trigger? Admittidly, I probably needed to spend more quality time learning all of the functions but I bought the camera for super fast point and shoot in a variety of lighting conditions.
In any event, two weeks after purchase (and one actual location use), the zoom function of the camera malfunctioned and started engaging automaticly regardless of mode. The only way to stop the camera from zooming in, is to turn it off. I reported the problem 32 days after buying so I was out of luck with the retailer. Sony said they would repair the camera but that means shipping, waiting, and considerable trouble. And, when directed to the service website to make a repair request, that malfunctioned too. It could be just some bad luck today but I'm not happy at all.
Moral of the story: check the zoom function before you buy if possible. If not, make sure you check it before your 30 day return option expires
Customer Review: Sorry Sony!
Summary: 2 Stars
I usually love Sony products, but I'm no fan of their new TX1. When I first saw this new camera, I thought this could me my next love, but we had a very short honeymoon - about 3 hours - then the ugly separation ensued!
I'll be brief and to the point - the video was pretty good, but the pictures were actually horrible. Instead of there being reduced noise as promised in news and reviews, there seems to be more (see my other reviews for most of the other cameras I've tried), even in bright light. I'm pretty tech savvy and went through ALL of the setting, trying everything possible to get good consistent pictures, but to no avail! We set the camera to various ISO settings to try and minimize the noise, but no good. It just is not good for viewing on the big screen, it most likely be OK for 4 by 6 printing but I did not try to print my samples. I have a media computer hooked up to my HDTV and the pictures just look terrible!
I mentioned above that the video was good and this is true - and I knew this going in - but why did Sony remove the stereo recording? If the pictures and other features where good, the lack of stereo would have been OK, but WOW what a disappointment all around.
This is just my opinion! I wish these camera makers would actually improve with subsequent models - I just don't get it! Sorry Sony. Oh and one more thing, don't tell me to just get a DSLR or it's just a P &S - I know that already! I just want the cameras to live up to their billing! By the way, I have the Panasonic ZS3 and it BLOWS the Sony away.
Customer Review: Not Happy
Summary: 2 Stars
Still image and print quality are very important to me. My 5 year old Sony that finally broke was 7 mp and had much better still image quality. I could take a picture and zoom in and it would be super clear for editing and cropping. This one is always blurry, nomatter the mode. It is extremely frustrating. Also, I usually back up movies and pics to DVD to watch later and it was super annoying that your computer has to be new to watch the videos. You can upgrade your video card, but that is expensive and doesn't even work that well. The videos do look good though.