Extra large zoom and compact body Sony HX99 large zoom camera review

IT168 Comments More and more people around us only carry mobile phones or lightweight mirrorless products when traveling. However, due to the limitations of the performance of shooting tools, sometimes there are regrets. And if you choose professional photography equipment, portability is a big problem. Coupled with various shorter lenses, it is really difficult to choose.

For most ordinary users at this time, it would be great if they have a compact and portable compact camera with a large zoom function that they can easily grab and take pictures. The Sony large zoom card camera HX99 can meet this demand very well. Today, let us use the evaluation to understand the unique charm of this Sony HX99.

Introduction to appearance and functions

First of all, in terms of appearance, the design of the front part still maintains Sony's consistent concise style, with the eye-catching "SONY" product LOGO and "ZEISS" in the upper right corner. and "4K" and other marks, which can intuitively reflect some of the outstanding features of this product. An anti-slip handle is designed on the right side of the fuselage to increase the comfort of holding. The camera measures 102.0mm × 58.1mm × 35.5mm, which is smaller than Sony’s well-known Black Card RX100 series cameras.

By comparing it with the iPhone , city street sweeping and other shooting environments.

As for the lens, the Sony HX99 uses a large zoom Zeiss lens with an equivalent focal length of 24-720mm. The camera is equipped with its own optical anti-shake technology, which can protect shooting at the telephoto end. With the Sony Exmor R? CMOS sensor and the upgraded and more advanced BIONZ X? image processing system, it achieves a combination of large zoom and high image quality. The adjustment control ring on the lens feels good and has a clear sense of damping. Can be set to aperture adjustment or zoom.

The back of the fuselage still adopts the control mode of turntable + buttons. There are mode wheel, recording button, Fn key and menu key respectively. You can quickly turn the turntable and press up and down while shooting. The left and right will respectively correspond to the adjustment of screen display information conversion, exposure compensation, flash mode, and shooting mode.

Sony HX99 has an LCD screen that supports 180-degree folding. It has a good experience when shooting at special angles and taking selfies. The screen size is 3 inches with approximately 920,000 pixels, and the focus point can be selected by touch. , double-point magnification, but it does not support multi-touch and cannot be used to select menus or quickly browse photos.

As for the system menu, the Sony HX99 has a wide range of adjustable menu options. Since the Sony HX99 has professional-level controls, the adjustable parameters are not much different from those of professional SLRs.

Sony HX99 right side

Sony HX99 left side

Sony HX99 top

EVF electronic viewfinder

Flash

The layout on the top of the Sony HX99 is very compact. The EVF electronic viewfinder and flash are both hidden and can pop up by flipping the switch at the corresponding position. The viewfinder has about 640,000 pixels. Although many users will not use it frequently, the overall effect is good.

The power switch, zoom lever and function dial are arranged on the right shoulder, and can be adjusted for one-handed operation, which is very convenient.

The right side of the bottom of the camera indicates the product data, origin and other relevant information, while the left side is distributed with hidden battery and memory card slots, as well as an HDMI interface and a fixed bracket slot.

Sony HX99 is equipped with an NP-BX1 battery with a battery capacity of 1240mAh. The official battery life data is about 310 photos. In addition, it should be noted that unlike digital camera products, Sony HX99 uses Micro SD cards.

Introduction to function points

Sony HX99 is currently the smallest travel large-zoom card camera on the market that can shoot 4K videos. In addition to the newly added support for 4K video and RAW and proxy format file shooting, there are also three new functions: touch focus, eye control focus, and auxiliary zoom. These new function points can help us shoot better.

24-720mm ultra-large zoom

One of the selling points of Sony HX99 is the 24-720mm large zoom lens, which allows the shooting effect of wide-angle and telephoto ends in the same camera position. , to demonstrate the actual performance of this machine.

24mm focal length

70mm focal length

200mm focal length

400mm focal length

720mm focal length

< p> From the above sample pictures, we can see that the imaging effects of Sony HX99 at the wide-angle end and telephoto end have reached a good standard. Even at the telephoto end, the photos can still maintain sufficient sharpness and clarity. Overall, noise began to appear in the 400mm focal length samples and the image quality declined. The 720mm end can meet the needs of shooting in some special environments.

The anti-shake function has always been the strength of Sony cameras, and the Sony HX99 body is also equipped with optical anti-shake function. Through handheld shooting samples at the telephoto end, we can easily see the comparison of the effects of turning on optical image stabilization.

Generally, when we use the focal length to reach the 720mm end, the jitter during handheld shooting will make the shooting process extremely difficult, and it will be more difficult to control the location of the subject. For this reason, Sony HX99 has added a new function of auxiliary zoom compared to the previous generation. The auxiliary zoom function provides a more convenient viewing experience during telephoto shooting, which can greatly shorten the shooting time and difficulty, making it easier to capture wonderful moments.

Newly added raw format and proxy format

This time the Sony HX99 is equipped with RAW format and proxy format shooting, providing more space for the post-production of photos and videos.

RAW format is the preferred format for post-production modification and adjustment of photos. It can adjust color temperature, white balance and other aspects without quality loss, and it also has great advantages in adjusting picture curves.

The proxy format has a good effect on solving lags in 4K video editing. From the perspective of video post-processing, this format is also more tolerant of computer configuration requirements.

4K video recording function

Sony HX99 has also upgraded its video shooting function compared to the previous generation. The newly added 4K shooting function effectively reduces the impact of moiré and aliasing on video quality, so as to Get higher video quality. When the shooting format is 4K, Sony HX99 supports 25p 100M or 25p 60M 4K video shooting, and supports full pixel reading instead of pixel-merged 4K video.

Eye-controlled focusing function

Sony HX99 accurately recognizes eyes and focuses on them

Face focusing

Originally only existed in Sony flagships The product's eye-controlled focus function has also been added to the Sony HX99, which has such a compact body. After actual testing, just half-press the shutter, the Sony HX99 will automatically recognize the eyes of the person in the current shooting picture, and focus on it, and the recognition is accurate. The rate is very high, and if the focus continues, the face focus frame will appear. Therefore, when using Sony HX99 to shoot portraits, you can shoot with confidence and boldly without worrying about out of focus.

Sample Appreciation

After talking about so many product appearance and functional introductions, let us review this camera through the Sony HX99 shooting effect samples in different scenes. Have a basic understanding of the imaging effects.

Some of the above samples were taken in a dark light environment. Even when the sensitivity is adjusted to ISO800 or even ISO3200, the image quality is still good. This is due to the power of the BIONZ X image processing system. function, reducing the color noise of photos. The overall impression given by the sample is that the Sony HX99's imaging photos are clear and the picture has a sense of layering. The color is relatively bright, and the visual experience is very comfortable.

Evaluation summary

In general, as a camera customized for photography enthusiasts, the Sony HX99 not only meets the requirements of compact and portable appearance, ultra-long zoom and high The high-quality image functions are not inferior to most mirrorless cameras in terms of performance and professional control experience. Compared with the previous generation products, newly added touch focus, eye control focus, auxiliary zoom, 4K recording, Raw format recording and Functions such as proxy format also bring its cost performance to a higher level. It can basically meet the various needs of users for daily shooting. Its portability and rich functions also make it more widely applicable. In short, it is a highly recommended product for photography and travel enthusiasts.