I bought this camera for the purpose of documenting my vacation to USA back in January. After using it intensively for weeks, I feel now I can actually write a proper review about it. I’m not a serious photographer, just a casual user who wants proper documentation of family vacation, so there will be no technical discussion in this writing.
Sony DSC-TX5 is a 10.2 MP pocket camera with compact body designed to be water-proof, shock-proof, dust-proof and temperature-proof. It has 4x optical zoom and 25mm wide angle Carl Zeiss® Vario-Tessar lens. This camera is powered by Exmor R™ CMOS sensor and BIONZ Image Processor. It has 3 physical buttons and 1 left-right dial. All other operations use the touch menu from its 3″ touch screen display with 230,000 dots.
Overall, I really love how compact and stylish this camera looks. Since it has front cover protecting its lens, I can easily put it in my pocket without further protection. Whenever I need to take photos, a simple slide-down gesture will open the cover and allow me to take my shots almost instantly.
Feature-wise, TX5 offers Intelligent Sweep Panorama, Handheld Twilight, Anti Motion Blur, Backlight Correction HDR and Anti-motion blur and the usual set of SCN selections (high sensitivity, soft snap, landscape, twilight portrait, twilight, gourmet, pet, beach, snow, fireworks, underwater and hi-speed shutter). I love the sweep panorama and used it frequently. The handheld twilight, I forgot to use it most of the time and stick with the Intelligent Auto Adjustment mode and got reasonably good results.
For most occasions, I like to set this camera to take 5 MP photos instead of 10 MP because I don’t really need 10 MP resolution when taking about random things I saw on the road. Unless the photographed object is something worth it, going 10 MP will only fill up my 8 GB memory card faster for photos that I might end up deleting them later.
The 4x optical zoom is decent, though I had encounter many occasions when I wished I have better optical zoom in my camera. Using the digital zoom is simply out of question since it produces results of unacceptable quality in my opinion.
For movie, TX5 can take video with 1280×720 resolution at 30 progressive frames per second. It’s decent but nothing special. The sound recording is rather soft, but still acceptable for personal use.
I really really love its compact and light form-factor. After few months of using this camera, I found myself never touched my old Canon PowerShot S3 IS anymore (due to its bulky size). To be fair, PowerShot S3 does have its own strengths, but the size made me hesitate to take it with me most of the time.
Overall, I like my new camera. Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX5 is a good pocket camera for its value. I will continue to use this as my primary digital camera.
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