Sony Cyber-shot DSC-TX5

Opinion: I love it, it's full of functions and modes and stuff...
But does it really go underwater ? I mean it looks fragile and the front panel has already moved a little since I have it (20 months or so)..

Colossus with clay feet

Opinion: Bought this camera for it's pocketability, wide-angle lens and waterproof abilities. It's for family outings in the canoe, at the beach, pool, splash-park and whenever pocketabiilty is desired. It excels in that capacity. This camera is incredibly fun and versatile.

Pros:
- small, light (easily slips in front pants pocket)
- zoom range (25mm equivalent wide end is nice)
- simplicity of controls (easy for camera neophytes)
- touch screen works well, great for selecting focus point
- HHT (Hand-Held Twilight) mode is fantastic for low-light
- pretty decent high ISO photos for a pocketable camera
- 10 frames/sec at full resolution!
- water, dust, shock resistance
- Auto (Intelligent Auto Adjustment) just works well
- iSweep Panorama is great fun and easy to use
- Backlight Correction HDR works as advertised
- screen is easy to view outdoors
- takes SD cards (about time Sony!)

Cons:
- Manual should better explain HHT and AMB (Anti-Motion Blur) modes and their differences (HHT is awesome, AMB is too noisy for my liking so far, time will tell if I find a use for it).
- faster (larger-aperture) lens would be nice, especially at telephoto end
- not a lot of camera to grab onto (I inadvertently touch the touch screen and change settings or else accidentally capture stray fingers in the photo at wide angles because of a lack of places to put my fingers!)
- doesn't retain settings after turns off
- Why doesn't it have 1080 movies like the TX-7?
- Why doesn't the wrist strap have a slider to cinch it tight around the wrist? Come on Sony, if this is meant to take in water or used in hazardous environments then the wrist strap should be made to cinch it tightly to my wrist.
- cannot force the flash to be on (fill-flash in bright light) in Intelligent Auto mode. Seriously, how hard would it have been to have On/Auto/Off settings here?
- silly, proprietary cables (not that I care, I remove the card from the camera)
- no RAW mode or aperture/shutter speed controls (although given the role of the camera I don't miss them, this just mentioned so that others are aware of this limitation)
- fairly heavy-handed noise-reduction with no ability to reduce it
- too easy to put the battery in backwards (why not make it flat at one end and rounded at the other, bad design)
- shiny surface and large touch-screen loves to be covered in fingerprints
- picture quality is great for viewing on screen or prints up to about 8x10. Obviously if you're serious about larger prints then you can intelligently make up your own mind where this camera fits into your toolkit.

Don't worry about my seemingly long list of cons here. Most are fairly irrelevant but I threw them out there for completeness. I would like a faster lens, but I realize it's difficult/impossible with the zoom range and small body. The ability to fine-tune the noise reduction and to have flash ON in Intelligent Auto mode bother me and could likely be fixed with a firmware update (whether Sony wants to is another matter).

My only serious concern is the lack of places to grab hold of the camera. When I'm standing still holding the camera in front of me to take a photo I'm getting proficient at holding it without getting fingers in the way of the lens or touching the touch screen. But this camera begs to be used for other activities where this can be more difficult. For example today I was biking with my family. I was attempting to take pictures of the others riding their bikes while still riding my own. Many times I unintentionally tapped the screen changing settings while doing this. I can see this camera being popular with people doing all manner of athletic endeavors and this could be a source of frustration.

Maybe a future design could have a button to disable the touch screen so you can grip the camera tightly in your hand, including the touch screen, once your settings have been entered. The nearest thing to that which this camera now has is the ability to make the operation buttons disappear (touch near the left side of the screen and swipe left). This will limit the ability to change settings inadvertently, but still wherever you touch on the screen will change the focus point which is often not desired as you don't want to accidentally focus on the background rather than the subject.

Opinion: My wife bought one earlier today, and not least its macro capacity, is fairly stunning. It will replace her old Olympus 725SW, which compared to this little wonder, feels pretty old and feeble!

The few pictures we've taken with it proves it to be capable of really nice sharp pictures, even in fairly bad lighting conditions!

Opinion: The TX5 is my 5th digital camera. (see my review of Olympus 8010). This is a great little camera. Start-up time is quick & auto focus is quick. Photos are clean & bright & good to A3 size. The CMOS sensor has very low noise levels at high ISO settings. The menu’s are easy to see & navigate it’s small & light so easily fits in my pocket. High speed blows my mind. The 8010 goes click 1001, click 1001, click 1001, the TX5 goes click, click, click, click, click, click, 1001 & the shots are all great. Indoor flash shots are better than 8010. Another great point is not having to set macro focus every time you need to get close, the camera does it automatically. Not sure about the PMB software yet, but anything is better than what Olympus offers.

Opinion: I got that after I returned the Olympus 8010, which was a really horrible camera. I nearly gave up (again!) on small sensor cameras, but then I gave the tiny Sony a spin and I love it! it is as small as it is just barely holdable, but then it slips in any pocket.
image quality is acceptable, but again for its size I'd say it is pretty good. I miss some rudimental manual adjustements, but then such a camera is not really made for that. the surface is a bit too slippery, but I stuck on a bit of invisible shield body armor, now it is much better to grip.

the interface works much better than expected, there are some nice features like when you hold the camera for shooting and rest your thumb in the upper right corner of the display, most of the text information disappears to give an uncluttered view, nice! the menues even look nice compare that to the horror olympus is offering.

the sweeping panorama function works great and unbelievable fast. Smile detection is such a silly stupid function, I really hope every camera gets that soon, can't live without that anymore. high iso is better than what most small sensor cameras offer.

it is the best fun camera I ever bought, it'll replace my Ricoh GRD3 as my daily camera for a while.