Sony DSC-HX300/B Voucher

Thomas N. Wheeler (Raleigh, NC) : Over the years as a serious amateur photographer I have owned and used extensively Nikon and Hasselblad film cameras and lenses and when digital cameras arrived I began with the Nikon Coolpix 900 and 950, then DSLR's including the Canon EOS 10D, and today I am using a Canon 5D Mark II equipped with L lenses (Canon's premium glass). The Sony HX300 is my first super zoom camera, and as such I spent several hours after receiving the camera from Amazon on March 14 thoroughly reading and studying both the Sony pdf manual and the Sony User's Guide in html format. This was time well spent as there are many useful features on the HX300 that are not found even on my much more expensive Canon 5D Mark II. During this study with both manuals, I tried each feature in the quiet of my living room making sure I understood exactly how the feature worked and what it did. Only then did I set out to explore the performance of the Sony HX300 under "real world" conditions and to compare it to the Canon 5D Mark II under controlled conditions.

Douglas W. McKeehen (Seattle) : A couple of things about me, and what I needed in a camera. First of all, while I have some basic understandings of how these kinds of cameras work, I am not a professional techie guy, and I usually have to look up every spec I read and usually end up not getting it entirely. I did do a lot of research, but the Camera Spec Snobs in some of the review sites just go to an extreme that will never, ever matter to me. Second, this camera was a replacement for my old bridge camera, a Sony DSC H-5 (12X optical, 7.2 megapixel). That camera served me well over the past 6 years, after thousands upon thousands of images. I bring this up because there have been a mountain of improvements on all technological fronts since then, which has resulted in an entirely and spectacularly different photographic experience I am having with this new camera after only a few days, and may explain my giddy five star love-fest I am having with this thing! I use my camera for everything from artistic photos to nature photography to family events, so I want a camera that shoots great, better than average pictures in a variety of circumstances over a specialized camera that takes outstanding pictures in limited circumstances.

PhotoGraphics (Arizona) : Recently, adding to my collection of little pocket cameras, I acquired an Olympus XZ-1 in an attempt to get better results than I've previously experienced with low-end pocket cameras and it does an admirable job while still remaining portable. The DSC-HX300 is not pocketable, it is what is known as a "bridge" camera. I've generally thought of bridge cameras (SLR-like with non-detachable zoom lenses) as a compromise ... almost as large and heavy as a real DSLR, lacking the versatility of swappable lenses, tiny sensor, mediocre lens and much too automated. But I do realize that all consumer-grade cameras just keep getting better and better and if you read on you will hopefully get some insight about the capabilities of the Sony HX300 and how it compares to state-of-the-art.