Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H50 Digital Camera

Sony Updated: 2008-03-07 RSS
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H50 Digital Camera

Beauty is in the details, and this model captures them all. The DSC-H50 is a full-featured point-and-shoot with outstanding high-power zoom capability. It includes Smile Shutter™ technology which captures smile the moment they happen, as well as Face Detection technology to optimize focus, exposure and color for up to eight faces. Shoot detailed images with 9.1 megapixel resolution, and bring your subjects closer with the 15x optical zoom Carl Zeiss® lens. Intelligent Scene Recognition automatically selects your camera's settings based on detected lighting conditions, while Sony's Double Anti-Blur solution helps keep your images blur-free. The DSC-H50 completes the package with a 3.0" ClearPhoto LCD Plus™ display that lets you easily view your images and menu options. Also available in black.

Automatic Macro Shooting
Standard Auto Focus now covers the macro focus range, eliminating the need to manually change focus modes for close-up photography.

Advanced Sports Shooting mode
Advance Sports Shooting mode is ideal for shooting fast-moving subjects. Just choose Advanced Sports Shooting mode with the mode dial. The camera will then automatically use Auto Focus to analyze subject motion and predict the next move while the shutter button is halfway pressed. A high shutter speed (up to 1/4000 sec.) helps ensure you capture the moment clearly even if the subject is moving at high speed.

9.1 MP Super HAD™ CCD
More megapixels give you more detail and definition when you make big prints or crop in tight on your subject. The advanced Sony® Super HAD™ (Hole Accumulated Diode) CCD design allows more light to pass to each pixel, increasing sensitivity and reducing noise.

Carl Zeiss® 15X Optical Zoom Lens
15X optical zoom provides a superb ability to bring long-distance subjects up close — a significant advantage for situations where you can’t be near the action, such as sporting events or wildlife photography.

9-Point Auto Focus
Because an off-center subject can make your shot more interesting, a 9-point auto focus measures auto-focus at 9 precision points instead of 5 -- giving you greater creative freedom to compose your image.

3.0”1 Tilt-up Clear Photo LCD Plus™ Display
The large, bright tiltable 3.0”1 Clear Photo LCD Plus™ display (230K pixels) tilts up for comfortable low-angle shooting, and an anti-reflective coating provides for excellent visibility to help you compose, view, and share photos with superb clarity and color reproduction, even in bright sunlight.

15 MB7 Internal Memory
Even if you forget your flash memory card, you can get the shot because 15 MB7 internal memory lets you capture a limited number of shots with in-camera convenience, then easily transfer your shots to a PC or optional Memory Stick Duo™ media.

Memory Stick Duo™ Media Convenience
A built-in slot accepts optional Memory Stick Duo™ media or Memory Stick PRO Duo™ media -- the compact, high-capacity storage media that make it easily to upload photos to your PC and are compatible with millions of devices worldwide.

16:9 High-Resolution Mode
In addition to the standard 2-megapixel size, the convenient 16:9 aspect ratio shooting mode for HDTV3 display can now be shot in 6-megapixels, making it possible to obtain beautiful, high-definition prints with the same aspect ratio as HDTV.

Bracket Shooting Mode
In addition to standard exposure bracketing (±0.3EV/±0.7EV/±1.0EV), Bracket Shooting mode now includes settings for white balance and color modes. This function records three images with one shot, each with a different white balance or color mode applied, making it easy to capture the ambience and feeling of the original scene.

Burst Mode
You can fire off 100 shots automatically at .64-second intervals (at any resolution: VGA to full resolution mode) -- a great way to capture a child’s first steps or a pet’s best tricks.

Color Filter Kit
Five color filter effects -- including Red, Green, Blue, Warm, and Cool -- provide the same effects via in-camera image processing that are typically achieved with colored lens filters. Each effect provides increased creative control when shooting.

Color Mode “Real”
For users who want to retouch their images after shooting, Color Mode “Real” helps enable faithful color reproduction by minimizing in-camera image processing. The color modes available are Real, Normal, Vivid, Sepia, and Black & White.

Convenient Photo Modes
To adjust quickly for specific shooting situations, you can choose from several convenient photo modes, including Auto, Program Auto, and Scene Selections such as Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Landscape, Portrait, Snow, High Sensitivity, Smile Shutter, Advance Sports Shooting, Fireworks, and Beach environments.

Dynamic Range Optimization
Powered by the exclusive Sony BIONZ™ high-speed processing engine, Dynamic Range Optimization preserves image data in bright highlights and reveals more detail in shadows or backlit areas -- for great results even in difficult lighting conditions. New DRO Plus mode enhances optimization, analyzing each region of an image and performing additional image processing.

Electronic Color Viewfinder
In addition to the LCD screen, a built-in electronic color viewfinder lets you shoot in traditional camera style and save battery power by turning your LCD screen off.

Face Detection
Face Detection technology automatically controls flash, focus, exposure, and white balance to help reveal faces in shadows, make skin tones look more natural, reduce red-eye, and eliminates harsh facial glare.

Function Guide
This beginner-friendly function helps manage various functions and settings by displaying the description of chosen functions or settings on the LCD screen. The Function Guide can also be switched off.

High Sensitivity (ISO 3200) Mode
With high sensitivity of ISO 3200, you can shoot effectively in low light without flash to preserve the mood, while the Sony Clear RAW™ Noise Reduction system helps suppress the color noise that can degrade low-light shots.

HDTV Compatibility3
High-resolution images can be enjoyed in all their beauty simply by connecting the camera directly to a Sony BRAVIA® HDTV or other compatible HDTV3. This provides an excellent alternative to viewing photos as prints or on a computer monitor, and is ideal for users who want to share photos in the comfort of their living room. Optional HD solutions include a Cyber-shot® cradle/charger with component cable output, or component cable directly to your HDTV.

In-Camera Retouching
Add creative effects to photos after you shoot using any of 10 retouching functions, including: Trimming, Red-Eye adjustment, Soft Focus filter, Unsharp Mask, Cross filter, Partial Color filter, Fish-eye filter, Retro, Radial Blur and Happy Face. The Happy Face effect uses photo retouching to put a smile on faces, with smile levels adjustable from 1 to 5.

Intelligent Scene Recognition Mode
Intelligent Scene Recognition mode automatically detects 5 different types of scenes and selects the appropriate camera setting: Backlight, Backlight Portrait, Twilight, Twilight Portrait, and Twilight using a Tripod. Intelligent Scene Recognition has two different modes, advanced and auto. Advanced mode takes one with the standard automatic settings and the other with optimized settings. Auto mode takes a single shot, utilizing the camera's optimal settings.

MPEG Movie VX Fine Mode
Capture VGA (640 x 480) audio/video clips at a high frame rate (up to 30 frames per second7), with the length of your video limited only by the capacity of your media. The maximum length of time you can shoot continuously is about 10 minutes. Plus, optical zoom is available during movie recording.

Multi-Resizing Function
Resize your photos in-camera for virtually any purpose! Any size picture images can be resized to widescreen 16:9 and 2 MP resolution for display on an HDTV. Conversely, high resolution, widescreen 16:9 images or any size picture can be resized to 4:3 size with VGA (640x480) resolution -- perfect for sharing with friends and family via e-mail (internet connection required).

NightShot® Infrared System
Sony’s NightShot® Infrared System lets you shoot photos in near-dark or totally dark (0 lux) conditions without using a flash, so you can capture creative night scenes that lie beyond the power of conventional cameras.

“PhotoTV HD”9
PhotoTV HD compatibility9 allows the camera to be connected to a PhotoTV HD-capable Sony BRAVIA™ HDTV via the optional HD output adaptor, for highly detailed, high-definition color images displayed in unprecedented realism and full HD quality.

PHOTOMUSIC
Expanding the HD Slide Show with Music feature, PHOTOMUSIC combines images with music to produce fun and entertaining slide shows. The five standard visual effects (Simple, Basic, Nostalgic, Active and Stylish) have been supplemented with Face1: Basic, Face2: Nostalgic and Face3: Stylish for a total of eight effects. Additionally, the number of music tracks stored in the camera memory has been doubled from four to eight, and music playback time has been extended from three to five minutes per track. More personalized slide shows are also possible by transferring music from a PC to the camera.

Picture Motion Browser Software
Supplied software makes it easier to upload, organize, and search photos on your PC. When shooting photos using your camera and an optional GPS unit, the software even provides a convenient map view function that lets you sort photos by location and display their origin on a world map.

Remote Control Function
In both shooting and play mode, you can use a supplied remote control unit to control basic camera functions -- including zoom, menu settings, etc. -- so you can put yourself in the picture when shooting with a tripod or sit back and enjoy the show when you share images on your home TV screen.

Smart Zoom® Feature8
The Sony Smart Zoom® feature8 intelligently “crops into” the central portion of interest in your photo, helping avoid the image degradation of other digital zooms.

Smile Shutter Technology5
Smile Shutter™ technology captures smiles the moment they happen. The mode can be set to capture when your subject laughs, smiles or even grins, and like Face Detection is able to differentiate children and adults to set priority.

Sony Double Anti-Blur Solution
The combination of Super SteadyShot® optical image stabilization and high ISO sensitivity helps compensate for shaky hands, minimizes blur, and allow flash-free shooting to preserve the mood.

Stamina® Battery Power
Provides extended battery life and shooting capacity when using a fully charged Lithium Ion battery-- enough to cover a long weekend or a whole vacation.

Super SteadyShot® Optical Image Stabilization
Super SteadyShot® Image Stabilization compensates for shaky hands and minimizes blur with a built-in gyro that detects camera movement and sends correcting signals to a stabilization lens -- so there’s no need to crop in on your shot to reduce blur.

Variable Noise Reduction (NR Level Setting)
To allow greater control over NR, three NR Level Settings are available -- High, Low and Standard — allowing you to select the optimal setting depending on the scene and individual tastes. For example, applying high NR helps obtain smoothly textured images for portraits or dark scenes, while the low setting is helps reduce noise without sacrificing resolution, making it especially useful for landscapes, detailed subjects, and contoured surfaces.

Wheel Dial for Manual Exposure Modes
For more creative freedom, a simple wheel-dial control lets you quickly change camera settings in manual modes (shutter speed priority, aperture priority, manual exposure) and also control ISO sensitivity, focus area, and exposure value. In play mode, the wheel dial provides a quick way to view your next or previous shot.

Easy Image Management
To help you find the right image among many, Date View and Favorites have been added to the standard Folder View. Date View displays a calendar view, while Favorites shows only user selected images. Furthermore, you can filter photos by face types such as portrait, child, baby, and smile.

High Contrast and Low Chromatic Aberration
The ED lens used is manufactured from super low-dispersion glass, which drastically reduces chromatic aberration. This yields sharp, high contrast images and decreases color fringing, especially on the edges of images shot with telephoto lenses.