I just returned this week from spending 15 days in Europe & on one of the
DCL Med cruises. I had bought a new 16 GB Compact Flash card for my Canon Rebel XT & was also bringing my old Powershot but at the very last minute (like 2 days before we left) I got the bug to buy a new compact point & shoot. I wanted something smaller, lighter & faster than my old Powershot & something that would hold a bigger SD card (my old Powershot was limited to 2 GB plus it used AA batteries). I ended up purchasing a bundle deal at Best Buy on a Sony Cybershot DSC-H70. The deal included a spare battery, charger, a 4 GB SD card (although I bought a faster 16 GB card too that is what I used) plus a nice case that fit on a belt for about $313 incl. tax (since it was a last minute purchase I felt $300 was my limit). NOTE that I had priced cameras out online & Best Buy had the best price on this camera as it was on sale online and when I went into the store it WAS NOT on sale but they will "price match" their online prices. If you shop at Best Buy always check their prices online first as they're not always the same as in the store.)
Anyway, I found it SOOO convenient & easy to use being on my belt that I never even took my DSLR out ONCE!!
I chose this particular camera for several reasons. The
biggest reason was that it has a 10x zoom starating at 25 mm. Most compact cameras don't offer any where close to that much of zoom and that was super important to me since my normal lens on my DSLR is a 18-200 mm. The 2nd reason I chose this one was because it also had a "panoramic" option which lets you automatically take a panoramic shot without having to stitch photos together. I wanted this for our visits to places like the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, the Coliseum and the Pantheon etc. I didn't necessarily think that I needed 16 megapixels but that's what it has. It also does 1080 HD video (but we didn't use that at all). It is very user friendly & for not having used it before got along really good figuring it out on the fly.
I have been uploading pictures to Facebook the past couple of days & so far I am VERY impressed with the picture quality. I have found that I needed to do
very little in the way of color corrections (something I always seemed to need to do with my DSLR shots if I used it on automatic). I was a little disappointed in how it handled the fireworks & Spectromagic parade at
Disneyland Paris
but for the most part I had very few "misses" as it also has image stabilization. We toured a lot of places that did not allow you to use a flash & this camera was a real champ in low light interiors like Notre Dame. I just left the flash off the whole time so I wouldn't forget. I took approx. 1,700 pictures and still had room for more on the 16 GB card. I did find that using the panoramic feature a lot seemed to eat up the battery life faster & I was realllly glad I had the spare battery (since I sometimes took almost 200 shots / day) but I got some really cool pics with that panoramic option. The 10x zoom was especially nice to have too.
As a die-hard Canon fan I can honestly say I am very pleased with my first Sony experience.
I didn't miss having that DSLR hanging around my neck all day at all.
I will comtinue to use my DSLR at sporting events because there is no delay but doubt that I'll ever carry it again for just general use. For this trip, bringing the DSLR took up a big chunk of my carry-on allowance as we were very limited with our international flights and had I known I wouldn't even take it out ONCE I would've left it home in a heartbeat.
I haven't really started uploading them to a share site yet but so here's a small sampling of the pics I took on this trip. The colors are vibrant & true for the most part & I haven't done anything to them yet.
This one is from the Pirate Night deck party & I was watching from up on deck 10, near the back of where everything was going on. So this shows the power of the zoom plus the low light & image stabilization quality.