Good to average speed for a consumer camera.

The Sony DSC-H5's performance ranges from quite fast to just average, though its flash recycling is markedly slow. Start-up time is reasonable considering the long lens, but not fast. Shutter lag at wide angle zoom settings is quite good, at telephoto zoom it's on the slow sided of average, but "prefocus" times (half-pressing and holding down the shutter button before the final exposure) are blazingly fast, with a shutter delay of only 0.011 second. Shot-to-shot cycle times are a little better than average these days, at about 1.6 seconds for large/fine JPEGs, and the camera captures frames continuously at this rate. Continuous-mode speed is on the slower side, at a bit over one frame/second, for up to five shots in succession. That said though, Multiburst mode captures 16 frames at up to 30 frames per second (0.33 second cycle time), albeit at a 576 x 768 resolution. The flash is quite slow to recycle at 17 seconds after a full-power shot, however. Connected to a computer, download speeds are exceptionally fast, so you won't feel a need for a separate card reader. Bottom line, the DSC-H5 is responsive enough for most family photo opportunities, but its standard continuous shooting mode is a bit slow for sports or wiggly kids, and shutter response at maximum telephoto is a little laggardly. Those issues aside, overall performance is pretty good.

Battery
Short battery life with standard AA alkaline cells, but much better life with NiMH rechargeables.

The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H5 uses two AA batteries for power, and a pair of NiMH batteries and a charger are included with the camera. Though runtimes are increased with the NiMH batteries over alkalines, I strongly recommend picking up a spare set and keeping them freshly charged and on-hand for extended outings. (See our battery shootout page for information on actual measured capacities of various NiMH brands and capacity markings.)

The table above shows the number of shots the camera is capable of (on either a fresh set of disposable batteries or a fully-charged rechargeable battery as appropriate), based on CIPA battery-life and/or manufacturer standard test conditions.

(Interested readers can find an English translation of the CIPA DC-002 standards document here. (180K PDF document))

Storage
The DSC-H5 accepts Memory Stick Duo cards, though no card is included; 32MB RAM is built into the camera.

We strongly recommend buying at least a 512MB card, preferably a 1GB one, to give yourself extra space for extended outings.