A friend sent me a Sony HX90V 30x point and shoot camera to play around with. He said there's nothing wrong with carrying a 30x zoom "toy camera" since it fits nicely in a pocket.
The HX90V small sensor has a narrow dynamic range and tends to be rather "noisy", even at low ISO. These things, compared with the APS-C Sony mirrorless cameras.
Just for grins, I decided to see what would happen if I reduced the file sizes and to see if or where image quality might come close to the APS-C performance.
Here is what I found.
[As always, click on the following image and enlarge it to 100 percent to observe any differences]
The images down the center of the panel are 100 percent full resolution crops of their respective base images. The superiority of the APS-C system in terms of pure image quality is evident.
Looking at the downsized images at 100 percent (the images down the right side of the panel) show things have pretty much "evened out." The HX90V photos look pretty good. The only somewhat minor differences being in color rendition.
Which goes to show that a little 30x zoom point and shoot camera is just fine for sharing images across the internet.
And if you don't live or die by side by side comparisons with other systems, with proper care and handling the little HX90V Sony can turn out rather acceptable images, even for up to A3 size prints.
Sony HX90V image from
a walk around Mont Boron, Nice, France
