Sony HX9V vs OLYMPUS SZ-10

14MP CCD, 18x f3.1 / f4.4, 3" 460k, 720p mono, panorama mode
H70 contender
since the OLYMPUS SZ-10 is not available yet, here last years model the Olympus Mju 9010 in comparison with the Sony HX9V

Sony HX9V (left) vs Olympus Mju 9010 (right)
see for yourself

she sure is the biggest pocket zoom so far: 4.2"W x 2.6"H x 1.5"D (105.9mm x 67.3mm x 37.9mm)
The Samsung WB700 packs the same zoom in a nearly half the thickness  (99.5 x 59 x 21.7), has a 16MP CCD chip and the same 720p video mode

Olympus today unveils the full-featured SZ-10, a lightweight, super-slim camera that reinvents the ultra-zoom category. The Olympus SZ-10 will enable you to capture it all with its 18x ultra-zoom 28-504mm wide-angle lens, 3.0-inch high-resolution LCD and 720p HD video. Whether you’re taking portraits at a family gathering or telephoto action shots on the athletic field, this sleek and portable camera will enable you to chronicle all your adventures like a true travel journalist without the bulk. The SZ-10 comes packed with a variety of features that deliver a superior imaging experience far and wide:
New Magic Art Filters – make it possible to create special artistic effects in still images and movies directly in the camera;
HD Movie & HDMI® Control – HD video delivers a broadcast-quality movie experience when played back on an HDTV;
3D Photo Mode – captures two shots of a scene from two different angles to create still photos that can be viewed with the added excitement and realism of 3D;
Eye-Fi™ Card Compatibility – enables automatic wireless uploading of images to the website or PC of your choice; and
3.0-inch LCD– delivering 460,000 pixels of detailed resolution, this LCD is perfect for bright and easy image composition.

“To have ultra-zoom power, you previously had to carry around a bulky camera with a big telephoto lens,” says Jennifer Schmell, product manager, Olympus Imaging America Inc. “With an 18x wide-angle optical zoom in a super-slim body, the Olympus SZ-10 is ideal for anyone looking for versatility and zoom power to capture postcard-perfect shots every time.”

Ultra-Powerful Zoom in a Stylish Package
With an f2.8 (Wide) / f5.6 (Tele) wide-angle lens (28-504mm equivalent in 35mm photography), users can capture breathtaking landscapes and group shots. Whether capturing fast-action, life’s everyday snapshots or HD videos, this S-series camera provides the versatility to get the job done like never before.
Express Your Inner Artist with New Magic Filter Movie
The Olympus SZ-10 is equipped with in-camera Magic Art Filters that enable users to enhance and customize images as they’re being captured. Have more fun and get more flexibility without expensive and time-consuming computer software. Magic Filter Movie is a new feature that allows you to apply Magic Art Filters to your high-definition movies, taking them to a new level of artistic expression.

The Magic Art Filters for stills and HD movies include:
Pop Art -- enhance and saturate colors to create vivid, high-impact pictures that express the joyful, lighthearted feel of the Pop Art style of the 1960s;
Pin Hole -- reduce the peripheral brightness of an image as though it were shot through a pin hole, connecting the viewer intimately with the subject at the center;
Fish-Eye -- emulate the wide-angle of a fish-eye lens by taking extremely wide, hemispherical images and magnifying the center of the frame;
Soft Focus -- encloses the foreground of an image in gentle, pastel colors with a soft, elegant focus; similar to effects achieved in a studio;
Drawing -- turn your image into a sketch outline for children to color;
New! Watercolor -- transform your images with a finish like that of watercolor paintings;
New! Sparkle -- shoot photos with the luxurious feel of twinkling lights; and
Punk -- create two-tone images full of rock-and-roll spirit.

HD Videos and HDMI Control for a Home Theater Experience
The Olympus SZ-10 shoots gorgeous 720p HD video, so you’ll capture your memories in clear, crisp high-definition at the touch of a button. With HDMI Control, playback also is a breeze. Gone are the days of friends and family huddling around your camera’s tiny LCD to see the pictures and movies you just captured. Now, you’ll be the hit of the party or any family event when you proudly display your brilliant images and movies on high-definition televisions. Simply connect the camera to an HDTV with an optional HDMI™ cable. With HDMI Control, you can use your HDTV’s remote to control playback functions and navigate the camera’s menus from the comfort of your couch.

3D Mode
Now you can add even more dimension to your photographs by shooting dynamic 3D photos in any mode from macro to landscape. Recreate a sense of depth like that of the original scene. Simply select the 3D Photo shooting mode, release the shutter for your first shot, slowly pan until the camera automatically takes a second image from a slightly different perspective. The 3D data is processed in-camera resulting in an .MPO file, the universal industry 3D format for easy display on 3D televisions or laptops.

Share Images Instantly with New Eye-Fi Card Compatibility
Ready to upload and share your party images live as they happen? The SZ-10 is compatible with an optional Eye-Fi SD card, adding Wi-Fi capability so you can automatically upload images to your computer as you take them. Be the life of the social media party by uploading your shots immediately.
Large High-Resolution LCD
The Olympus SZ-10 boasts a bright, high-resolution 3.0-inch LCD monitor with 460,000 pixels, which is ideal for viewing, composing and sharing all your favorite images and HD videos.

Cut Out the Blur with Dual Image Stabilization
Dual Image Stabilization combines two technologies – Mechanical Sensor-Shift Image Stabilization and Digital Image Stabilization – to provide one powerful anti-blur solution for capturing great images whether the photographer or the subject is moving. Olympus’ Mechanical Sensor-Shift Image Stabilization keeps images sharp by adjusting the internal image sensor to compensate for camera movement, even in low-light conditions when shutter speeds are slower. Additionally, Digital Image Stabilization freezes the action with high ISO sensitivity and fast shutter speeds to prevent blurry images often caused by a moving subject.

Broaden Your Horizons with In-Camera Panorama
The places you can take the Olympus SZ-10 —national parks, weddings, sporting events or city streets—are locations where you want to capture as much of the scene as you can. In-Camera Panorama mode makes it possible by capturing three images and stitching them together to create one amazing panoramic picture. Simply press the shutter button and slowly pan across the scene. The second and third images will be captured automatically and stitched together with the first image – resulting in one seamless panorama-size picture. To create the ultimate panorama, consumers can use the OLYMPUS [ib] Software to stitch up to 10 images together.

Easier Group Shots with Face Detection!
Wedding, team shots and family reunion photos have never been easier with Face Detection. The Olympus SZ-10 detects up to 16 faces within the frame and automatically focuses and optimizes exposure to capture sharp, brilliant portraits and group shots. Even more remarkable, the SZ-10 comes equipped with Beauty Mode. Designed to touch up the appearance of your subject’s skin as the photo is captured, enhancements that typically would necessitate retouching in a graphics editing program.

Lock Onto the Action with AF Tracking
AF Tracking technology locks focus on your fast-moving subject – everything from house cats to Siberian tigers – and continuously adjusts focus and brightness. This enables you to keep quick-moving and unpredictable subjects like kids and pets in focus for the perfect shot.

Easy Operation with Scene Modes and In-Camera Help Guide
The new S-series cameras have scene modes and enhanced In-Camera Help Guides that make digital photography simple and fun for users of all ages and skill levels. The scene modes include portrait to capture loved ones, landscape to show off the scenery and a fun fireworks mode. There’s even two newly designed “Pet Modes” for animal lovers, offering the ability to recognize the faces of a variety of breeds of both cats and dogs.

The In-Camera Help Guide displays a brief description of camera settings and features on the LCD enabling consumers to easily adjust ISO and white balance settings using the Program Auto mode. Additionally, Exposure Compensation enables users to preview and select various exposure effects on a live, multi-frame window on the LCD before snapping the shot. This smart feature enables users to see precisely what the image will look like when adjustments are made, ensuring they are capturing the exact image desired. Program Auto and Exposure Compensation are great modes that enable novice users to get results like the pros while learning about the effects of different photography techniques. Menus are available in various languages for convenient operation.

Intelligent Auto Thinks for You
Taking a moonlit stroll on the beach? Intelligent Auto Mode automatically identifies what you are shooting (i.e., Portrait, Night + Portrait, Landscape, Macro or Sports) and adjusts the camera’s settings to capture the best quality results. Amateurs can jump into this quick and hassle-free feature that does the thinking for them and produces incredible images.

Shadow Adjustment Technology
Shooting outdoors in bright daylight can be tricky because of the extreme contrast between dark shadowed areas and bright sunlight areas. While the human eye is capable of detecting the nuances between dark and light and all the details in between, image sensors traditionally have not been quite as sensitive. The Olympus SZ-10 addresses this challenge head-on with Shadow Adjustment Technology, which compensates for extreme contrast where the shadow areas are underexposed and lack visible detail. With this technology, users can preview and capture images that have the same contrast as seen with the naked eye.

TruePic™ III+ Image Processor Delivers Superior Quality and Performance
Whether you are globetrotting or attending a sporting event, the Olympus SZ-10 offers a 14-megapixel sensor, enabling consumers to achieve consistently sharp and vivid images when producing large-format prints or cropping/enlarging a portion of a photograph. Olympus developed its exclusive TruePic III+ Image Processor for the demanding performance of DSLRs and has migrated the technology to the S-series cameras for amazing image quality. Olympus’ enhanced TruePic III+ Image Processor produces crystal clear photos using all the pixel information for each photo to deliver exceptional clarity with more accurate colors, true-to-life flesh tones and faster processing speeds. TruePic III+ also captures crisp, clear photos at high ISO settings, which are traditionally associated with increasing noise or producing grainy photos.

OLYMPUS [ib] Software Makes it Even Easier to Share and Print Your Photos
All Olympus digital compact cameras now offer the new OLYMPUS [ib] photo organizing and editing software. It includes photography workflow, browsing, editing and unique photo organizing functions. You can organize photos by person with automatic face-recognition technology, by place with a map-tagging function, or by event. All information will be tagged in each photo’s data. You can then easily upload images to the integrated online service, [ib on the net], to share and backup photos, as well as order prints and photo merchandise. The name [ib] stands for image bridge, because the software is designed to create a bridge to help you get images from your camera to services where you can do more with your photos.

SD Compatibility
Olympus’ Spring 2011 digital compact cameras have SD compatibility for up to 32 gigabytes of capacity.

Availability
The SZ-10 will be available in March 2011. It will ship with a Lithium-Ion Battery, USB Cable, Wrist Strap, Quick Start Guide, Warranty Card, Instruction Manual, OLYMPUS [ib] and Olympus Viewer 2 Software.

U.S. Pricing
SZ-10 Estimated Street Price: $249.99 (U.S.)
Olympus SZ-10 specificationsSensor    • 1/2.3" Type CCD
• 14 million effective pixels
• Primary colour filter (RGB)
Image sizes    • 14M 4288 x 3216
• 8M 3264 x 2448
• 5M 2560 x 1920
• 3M 2048 x 1536
• 2M 1600 x 1200
• 1M 1280 x 960
• VGA 640 x 480
• 4288 x 2416 (16:9)
Movie clips    • 1280 x 720
• 640 x 480
• 320 x 240
Lens    • 18x optical zoom
• Focal length 5.0 -90mm
• Focal length (equiv. 35mm) 28 - 504mm
• Aperture 3.1 - 4.4
Image stabilization    Yes, Sensor-shift
Digital zoom     Yes 5x
Focus    • Contrast Detection
• Standard
• Macro
• Super-Macro
• Spot AF
• Face Detection AF
• AF Tracking
Focus distance    • Standard mode 0.1m (wide) / 1.6m (tele)
• Macro mode 0.1m - (wide) / 1.6m (tele)
• Super Macro mode Closest focusing distance: 1cm
ISO sensitivity    • Auto
• High Auto
• Manual ISO 80,100, 200, 400, 800, 1600
Exposure compensation    • +/- 2 EV
• 1/3 EV steps
Shuttter speed    1/2000 sec. –1/2 sec. (up to 4 sec. in Candle Scene mode)
Aperture    f3.1 (W) / f4.4 (T)
Modes    • Intelligent Auto
• Program Auto
• Sensor-shift Image Stabilization
• Panorama
• Magic mode
• 3D mode
• Scene Modes
• HD Movie
Magic Filter(Pop Art, Pinhole, Fisheye, Drawing, Soft Focus, Punk, Sparkle)
Scene modes     16
White balance    • Auto
• Daylight
• Overcast,
• Tungsten
• 3 Fluorescents
Self timer    • Yes, 2 or 12 seconds
• Pet auto-shutter
Flash    • Auto
• Red-eye reduction
• Fill-in
• Off
Flash Range    • Wide: 1.97ft (0.6m) – 23.3ft (7.1m) at ISO 1000
• Tele: 5.25ft (1.6m) – 16.4ft (5.0m) at ISO 1000
LCD monitor    • 3.0" / 7.6 cm LCD
• 460,000 dots
Connectivity    • DC input
• Combined A/V & USB output
• USB 2.0 compatible
• HDMI
Storage    • SD/SDHC/SDXC
• 59 MB internal memory
Power    Li-ion Rechargeable Battery (LI-50B)
Battery Life    220 Shots
Weight (no batt)     215g
Dimensions    4.2"W x 2.6"H x 1.5"D
(105.9mm x 67.3mm x 37.9mm)