Sony HX1's Superzoom's Secret Sauce: Taking Lots of Pictures Really Fast

Sony's HX1 can do everything but make pancakes in the field it seems: Fast and easy panoramas, low-light anti-blurring, and don't forget 1080p video. But how does all that work?

The way the Sony rep explained it, the heart of all of the HX1's whizbang camera features (HD video aside), like iSCN Advance or the anti-handheld twilight mode (which gives you a clear shot in low light, where usually a handheld camera would give you a blurry mess) all use the same basic technology, just applied differently for each feature. They all take a burst of shots really quickly—and combine them or pick out the right shot to come up with a clear one.

The sweep panorama shooting process is surprisingly easy, the way it should be. You flip to panorama mode on the dial, and when you press the shutter down, a scrollbar pops up on the bottom that starts at the left and slides to the right as you swing the camera. On the camera, all of the results look really smooth, but we'll have to see one at full res before we're truly blown away.

At first shot, we like what we see, though we can't wait to do a full head-to-head against Canon's SX1 in the ultimate superzooming, 1080p video recording camera battle to the death.

PMA is an annual show where we get to see tomorrow's digital cameras—the ones that'll be populating pockets and purses for the rest of the year. We'll be here for the next couple of days.

Send an email to matt buchanan, the author of this post, at matt@gizmodo.com.