Consistently good performance in all lighting conditions

Before I have gained this camera, I have had the Nikon S9100 for a few days. This made the day very nice pictures, but bowed to strong artificial light to yellow staining and brightened pictures in dark places on (automatic!).
One reason for me to order the HX9. In the following, I will not repeat all of the other reviews, so I am speaking here only the important points for me.

1. Processing: which is pretty neat; the rubber for thumb, finger, and the projection to ensure a good grip. The display is excellent and everything else makes a very good impression. A small drawback: the flash is chal- motorized and wheeled in. It reminded me of my first IXUS - there the lightning was the first thing broke ... :-(

2. Resolution: 16 megapixels? Ha ha, because we all laugh about it sometimes and yes (!): At a 1: 1 view is left in dark areas quickly just a pile of slush pixels. Still images appear in a full-screen view on a 24 '' monitor always quite sharp !! Occasional exceptions recorded in images with maximum zoom or moving objects. In order not to waste space, I have switched the camera to 10MP. That's enough for home use and some creative photos :-)

3. Image Quality: Aside from the expectation of 16 megapixels, so you can say that the camera will take consistently good photos. In a direct comparison in my opinion, the Nikon S9100 in daylight shots while in the lead, but it takes the Sony automatic one in many other exposure situations the puzzle with the adjustment parameters. The Intelligent Auto and Superior Auto supply in many everyday situations without stress a good result. For more targeted adjustments to the situation a little more manual setting options are compared to the Nikon available.

4. Image stabilization: it is very reliable and enables blur-free photographs even at 16x zoom; my old Ricoh CX1 had to struggle more here; Nikon was the day like good; at dusk it was faster to shake, where the likes have not recently located at the tendency to lighten (due to longer exposure times).

5. Noise: Shooting in low light show especially in the lighter areas usual for noise Farbverschmierungen. Overall, the image noise is better than with the Nikon S9100 and at the Ricoh CX1. The Superior Auto can achieve even much better results by superimposing several images in some cases.

6. Operation, menu: Here I am a little spoiled by the Ricoh CX1, which in my opinion Europe a key for all important functions - to a fairly freely configurable key. The methods are also at the HX9, however, the amount of the selectable functions is lower. The ISO values ​​are immutable in the automatic programs.

7. Continuous: here the Ricoh CX1 is quite nice - it has, however, when shooting darker objects so their difficulties - that gets the HX9 better control. 10 frames per second are already quite fast - just stupid that the camera 10 images takes a break :-(

Conclusion: The camera might not make the most outstanding images, but they achieved in almost all situations a good performance and although no trial and error (kudos for automatic!). A few manual settings also allow experimentation.
All in all, I would Camera 4.5 star awarded if it were. Smooth five star would be if the 16 megapixels remain more choice but does not pause the burst mode after 10 images and the Macro mode would allow a bit more close to the object.