Sony Cybershot DSC-HX400V REVIEW I just purchased this Sony 7-16-2018. I had read about the great zooming, It Is truly amazing! I mean amazing! But no one really talked about macro much. I have a little Canon Power shot SX710HS that takes the best macro pics and 30x zoom but I wanted more, so I bought a friends used Nikon P600, the zoom is great, and I got good photos on sunny days but the barrel started to stick, plus macro wasn't as good as my Canon. So I got this Sony 400, I took this Sony out of the box and used Auto for all the flower pics in bright sun on the river bend and for the most part they were all great, but I couldn't get focused up close on some of them. I don't know what ISO 200, 800, Aperture etc means, when do I use those settings? I need to learn that stuff, So I used auto. One problem I had with this Sony, as soon as you turn the camera on, it wants you to set the date, I'm not sure if it's just me but it won't set and stay so I have to hit cancel everytime I turn the camera on. When I press cancel, it goes to a screen "go to www.sony.net/pm for playmemories software". So I have to press two things before I can even begin to photograph. So let's get to MACRO, my Canon I can zoom to a bee on a flower and see pollen on it's legs and it is in focus. I can take a photo of just the bee, I've tried and tried to get that close on this camera but it loses focus each time. I got ants on a leaf (see photo) but it won't let me zoom into the ant. I turned the ring on the camera and it would show me the ants up close on the monitor but then it didn't capture the photo that way. Today was partly cloudy, I got great photos of a squirrel in the tree but not of birds on a feeder. I took from across the yard to behind a tree 4 feet away from the feeders. Being in the correct setting would've helped I'm sure. Not having a portable charger I thought would be no big deal, well it is! Having to plug the entire camera into the wall outlet especially with such a short charger cord is ridiculous and takes a lot longer than a portable charger. I will have to see if there's a charger I can buy and get an extra battery. If there is I suggest you buy one also. The Nikon 600 you can edit photos right on the camera, I haven't found that on this Sony yet. Oh the volume for the shutter, The Sony 400 kept showing function is disabled when trying to turn the shutter sound down. I did an online chat with Sony and he kept saying to record a video and I could then change the volume, it took 20 min for him to understand I just wanted to change the shutter volume, he finally said there's not a volume, it's either on or off. Ok so ISweep Panorama onscreen instructions say move the camera left or right or up/down. I kept trying the up and and it didn't work. First you have to go to menu, to the camera icon and scroll down to Panorama direction and set the way you want . Now on to Handheld Twilight setting, it's better than what I expected from reviews. I wish I could post more than 2 photos here to show you. Haven't tried night photos yet. And lastly, don't do what I did by just going to auto and start taking photos because there is actually a wonderful camera guide in the camera (that I just now found) that tells you tips and what setting to use for different lighting and where to find the setting in the controls. So turn the camera on, go into a shooting mode, press the ? button on the bottom right side and then menu and the onscreen help comes up. There's apparently a lot packed in this camera but it will take a beginner like me awhile to learn it. But my suggestion is go for it! 4 stars only because it's my 2nd day to use it and had problems with not getting the up close like I wanted. Maybe the instructions will help me with that now that I know they are there in the camera

Usually I used to carry some of my DSLR bodies and lenses for small trips or occasional events. This camera replaces all of that in a simple design, weight and performance for the money. The quality of the photos is excellent due to the Carl Zeiss lens (not included in other model from the competition). That gives this camera the advantage and performance needed for a great picture. Outdoor photography: SUPER (for the average photographer). Of course, if I was going to capture some cheetah hunt on some African safari I will have use something else like an A7 or similar but for the all day, semi pro, to have the advantage of carrying only the necessary equipment, feeling free, this camera is a great choice. Ok, indoor: that is a 50/50 answer and I explain: you first need to understand that if you are not going to be the weeding photographer or sport photographer for the event, you only need to catch that especial moment as the spectator for the event. The quality of the photos in manual mode (the one I use 99% of the time) depending on the illumination inside the dome (if it is a sport stadium) or a basketball court, will depend on when to change from Manual to Superior Auto. I used this camera on a religious event and I was able to catch from one side of the coliseum to the other side of the coliseum (about a 100 feet’s) with good quality, very good pictures. The video was of a very acceptable quality for the distance, lens, camera body (I was asking so much but filled the expectation). It is very easy to transfer photos and video using the Wi-Fi connection (moving photos to your phone; first you need to install in you phone the Play Memories App from the App Store – it is free). For the average photographer and for the money this camera brings all she/he will need. As said before, if you are covering the event and like greater quality pictures you should look to a different camera like a DLSR in the range of $900.00 or more and some quality lens (about $2,000) and the gear and so on. If you only want to have a great photo, carry a small bag and also enjoy the party, this is the camera, you won’t regret it. Be sure to by a spare battery. The first one lasted about 4 hours a lot of pictures with 4 clips of a bout 7 minutes each. Then change the battery for the other remaining 2 hours of the event I was covering. As said, great pictures for up load in a PC, Internet, print, also print to a big 8 x 11 without loosing quality. Great camera!

I have been using a friends camera (the 300 model) for a few years and loved it. While at tournaments (only time I've used it so far), my friend noticed that it was slow to take pictures. There seemed to be an unusually long lag time between taking one picture and the camera being ready to snap the next photo. This is using the automatic feature. When I took it for USA Games tournament, I got to use it for the first time. I noticed that when taking distance photos, it struggled to focus (the 300 model did an OUTSTANDING job with focus). Then, when I got where it would take the telephoto shot, it wouldn't focus for the next shots, etc. I found the only way to get it to focus again was to power off the camera and turn it back on. I missed a number of precious photos of my athletes receiving their awards or performing in their events because of this focus problem. Taking camera back in case it is a lemon. Since the 300 model didn't have any issues, it is surprising that the 400 and newer model would have these difficulties. Love the adjustable back viewing screen -- one of the major selling points for this camera. I had been also looking at the Canon T5i or Nikon 5300, which also have adjustable screens, but neither got near by budget of $500 -- even for Black Friday sales (only the T6 model hit $500, but doesn't have adjustable screen). I recommend getting a camera with the adjustable back viewer. It is so handy when you need to take pictures over other peoples's heads or down low -- like when taking pics of little kids. I'm hoping the focus issue can be corrected. I loved the quality of photos from the 300 model and was hoping for similar performance with the newer model. The 300 model took excellent distance photos, that when you zoomed in on the computer, didn't become pixelated and made it seem like you were a lot closer. I take sporting photos and often take photos from across football fields. The quality of zoom made that 100+ yard distance look like the photo was taken less than 10 yards away.

This is a phenomenal camera for the price. I bought this as a second camera for my wife to use while on safari. She's kryptonite to anything technology if it can break or stop working she will find a way to make it happen. With this camera however, she ended up taking some amazing photos on our trip of fast moving animals at distances I couldn't believe. The videos turned out even better. Reasons to buy: -This a great does-it-all camera: Enough megapixels to take photos for large print, good enough glass to make them clear and more -The 50x (1600mm equivalent) zoom takes great photos at long distances with the right lighting - my wife got photos of monkeys at 500 yards that my 200mm/F2.8 would never be able to. The clarity was phenomenal and some will be on our wall, you'd swear we were closer -The video quality is outstanding and the slow zoom makes for great landscape shots that zoom in on objects far away -GPS- We were deep in the African bush and when I synced our photos all of them were geotagged, pretty cool -Wifi - Using the playmemories app on Android or iPhone, you can control the camera and take photos or send your best ones to your phone from the camera for sharing online -If you are already bought into Sony's camera line: this takes the same batteries and has the same menus as many others -Viewfinder is good enough, it gets the job done. For better long distance shots, this is a must and is why the cheaper long zoom cameras without an EVF are just about useless -Build quality is really good. The camera is also super light

The camera takes superior pictures in daylight/bright light but the low light is extremely poor. I have a DHC-HX200 and it is superior in low light using the same settings. The DHC-HX200v can capture a illuminated museum display with great accuracy. Nice black background and crystal clear foreground. The HCX400 has a gray background with a huge blob of out of focus light for the foreground. Absolute terrible in side by side photographs between the HX200v and the HX400v. The worse thing about the HX400 is the memory card slot. When I change batteries, opening the batter cover partially ejects the SD card. I took over 100 irreplaceable pictures with the HX 400 with no error showing. After the last it shows a " No card" error came up. Upon investigation it seems when you press down to close the battery compartment it ejects the card. There is no warning but the pictures are not saved. I could see the pictures when I shot them and after "Processing" it went to the next picture but the pictures were not there at the end. I reseated the card and carefully closed the door. The next picture I took was saved with the next sequence number meaning the 100+ shots I took were gone with no trace of the files. I ran a card recovery software and there was no data on the card for the missing pictures. I lost a lot of memories with no way to recover and no error indication. My memory card works great in my HX200v. The 400v has incredible issues.

I purchased this camera in August of 2015. I have taken lots of pics and vids and everything worked as expected. pic quality not the best, but decent considering the sensor size. light is your friend. setting the pixels to 5M also helps the sensor. Within the past 6 weeks an error code (e:62:10) started to display. I tired the work arounds found on the internet and that worked for about 1 month. Now I am finding that I will have to spend ~200$ to replace the lens, which is ~1/2 the price of the camera after 3 years and 1 month of use. I really like this camera and I imagine that when I look for a replacement the best option will still be this model. Hopefully this issue has been resolved. I want to stress that this camera has never been handled poorly. When I cannot clear the code you can see the lack of image stabilization in the view finder and in the pic. If I had written this review before this error occurred it would have been 5 stars. I am really disappointed that this happened after 3 years. Maybe Sony will help me out.

I cannot take good pictures but this camera helps me to be a better photographer. The 50x zoon is great. I took a picture of the moon FREE HAND. it turns out pretty good. The camera took several pictures of the moon and re-compose them into one which I call it cheating. The craters are visible without magnifying much on my laptop. The other pictures are sharp and exposed just right. The Firework program is not that great. Maybe I don't know the camera well enough. I did not have any pictures to bragg about. The night portrait program works well. it cuts down the blue tint from the sky to virtually nothing. The colors are true. The battery ran out on me once. I am considering to buy a spare. It will be great if Sony or Best Buy can make some small pouches which can be attached to the strap to carry small items like spare lenses and USB cables.

I am upgrading from the DSC-H5 to the DSC-HX400. I will start by pointing out that the camera does everything Sony says it will do. Specifically useful to me are - image stabilization (clear pictures at full zoom) - good clarity in low light - good automatic composition (auto mode and super auto mode) - battery life is much better than the H5 The HX400 behaves like a higher end DSLR. A couple of things I don't like: - the HX400 is bigger and heavier than the H5 - pop-up flash is not auto-pop-up even on force flash setting. The biggest beef with this camera compared to the H5 is the fish-eye starting point of the zoom lens. The H5 started out at 36mm equivalent which was fine for taking group photos - low distortion if any on the edges. The HX400 starts at 28mm equivalent which really stretches the faces of anyone outside the central ~2/3 of the composition. Zooming in to 1.5X fixes the issue but kills the spontaneity. Hey Sony, can we get a setting to wake the camera up to a certain zoom level (but everything else stays automatic)? In general a great camera that takes some getting used to.