Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX300/BC 20.4 MP Digital Camera with 50x Optical Zoom and 3-Inch Xtra Fine LCD (Black)

Over the years as a serious amateur photographer I have owned and used extensively Nikon and Hasselblad film cameras and lenses and when digital cameras arrived I began with the Nikon Coolpix 900 and 950, then DSLR's including the Canon EOS 10D, and today I am using a Canon 5D Mark II equipped with L lenses (Canon's premium glass). The Sony HX300 is my first super zoom camera, and as such I spent several hours after receiving the camera from Amazon on March 14 thoroughly reading and studying both the Sony pdf manual and the Sony User's Guide in html format. This was time well spent as there are many useful features on the HX300 that are not found even on my much more expensive Canon 5D Mark II. During this study with both manuals, I tried each feature in the quiet of my living room making sure I understood exactly how the feature worked and what it did. Only then did I set out to explore the performance of the Sony HX300 under "real world" conditions and to compare it to the Canon 5D Mark II under controlled conditions.The two most import things about any camera are its image quality and its performance in actual shooting sessions. Image quality is, of course, a combination of many things including the camera's ability to resolve detail, to properly expose scenes shot under a variety of lighting conditions, color quality, absence of both chroma and luminance noise, etc. Performance is how responsive the camera is and includes such items as how quickly the camera is ready to take a picture after being turned on, the time delay between shots in single shot mode, the ability of the camera's autofocus to work quickly and accurately without "searching", and certainly in the case of a super zoom camera its ability to smoothly and rapidly zoom through its entire set of focal lengths. For a camera of its price and likely use, the Sony HX300 does a remarkably good job of providing high quality images and a very responsive camera.My first test of image quality was to simply walk around my yard and the neighborhood taking images of a variety of flowers that were in early bloom as well as taking pictures of birds coming to the bird feeder in our backyard from about 75 feet away using the Sony HX300 at full zoom. In virtually every single situation the HX300's autofocus was very quick and very accurate, and the powered zoom using the lever on the shutter release was highly responsive and quite fast. The images produced had exquisite detail with good highlight detail retention, perfect color rendition, very good exposures in auto modes, and under these cloudy but bright daylight circumstances with the camera working at low ISO's very low noise. These images straight out of the camera with no post-processing looked very good to excellent. Using very small amounts of post processing mainly to slightly sharpen the images, I was able to obtain excellent large prints (13 X 19 in.) using my Epson 3800 Pro large format printer. The shots of birds on the feeder at the maximum optical zoom (1200 mm) of the HX300 were all hand held, in focus, and showed good detail, albeit not equal to the ISO 80 shots previously described. With one exception (vide infra), I had absolutely no problem hand-holding and autofocusing these 1200 mm maximum zoom shots. The one exception is when I happen to line up a tree in the shot that was about 50 feet behind the bird feeder. In that case, the HX300 always wanted to focus on the texture of the tree trunk behind the feeder. The feeder is plastic without high contrast. I was able to solve the problem completely by switching the focus mode from multi-autofocus to center auto-focus and placing the center focus frame in the EVF on the edge of the bird feeder where there was sufficient contrast for the focusing system to work properly. This initial collection of maximum zoom shots brought home an important lesson about super zoom lenses including the Carl Zeiss lens on the HX300. Remember that the HX300's lens has a maximum aperture of 6.3 at 1200 mm and therefore the ISO will be set at higher values (400-800) to provide a sufficiently fast shutter speed to allow the camera to be hand-held at such a zoom setting. Of course, the higher the ISO, the higher the visible chroma and luma noise in the captured image. I found that these outdoor shots at 1200 mm zoom on a cloudy but not overcast day came in at ISO 800 and a shutter speed of 1/160 - 1/250 sec. The maximum zoom shots were reasonably sharp, but benefitted from noise removal in post-processing which, of course, is always a compromise between detail and noise reduction. Nonetheless, these images gave quite good prints and beautiful images up to 11 X 14 in. I believe with experience I can hand-hold maximum zoom shots at shutter speeds even below 1/160 second and manually set ISO to 200 and achieve even better maximum zoom shots. I think it will be difficult and perhaps impossible to get good maximum zoom images with excellent detail on very cloudy and overcast days or in other low light level situations. The HX300 in such conditions will require ISO's higher than 800 in such situations for maximum zoom images and the result will be more image noise than I would find acceptable.My next photo expedition with the Sony HX300 had the objective of comparing image quality under controlled conditions (tripod mounted camera with timed release of the shutter to avoid vibrations that would lower image detail) of the HX300 with my Canon 5D Mark II and the 24-70 Canon L zoom lens as well as with the Canon 100-400 L lens. I went to a nearby park which has a lake that affords a 1.5 mile unobstructed view to a wooden bridge and homes across the lake. Lots of trees surrounding the lake provided added detail. It was a sunny bright day with no clouds in the sky. I shot a series of shots with the Sony HX300 in IQ mode and in Scene Select Landscape Mode at focal lengths ranging from 24 mm (maximum wide angle) to 1200 mm (maximum optical zoom). I matched the shooting conditions and scene with my Canon 5D Mark II on a tripod using the two L lenses up to the maximum 400 mm of the Canon L zoom lens. Upon arriving home and comparing the images, I was truly amazed at how well the Sony HX300 had performed. In fact, until I got to 100% image size (pixel peeping!), I was very hard pressed to see any difference in the detail or overall quality of these two cameras. I found this to be very surprising since the Sony system is $500 and the Canon 5D Mark II with its L lenses is in the $3500-$4500 range! At 100% image size I was definitely able to see a difference in the quality of the images and it always favored the Canon 5D Mark II which, not surprisingly, showed greater detail and less image noise than the HX300 especially when comparing the 400mm shots made by the two cameras. With that said, the difference is best described as noticeable but not overwhelming as I might have expected. I have shown these comparison images to several photographic friends and all have expressed amazement at how well the Sony HX300 image quality holds up in comparison to the much more expensive Canon equipment.While at the lake I also had the opportunity to try out the Sony on some real "action" situations. A blue heron flew past and landed about 150 yards from me. I was able to get some terrific shots at full 1200 mm optical zoom (ISO 125) that I have printed at 16X20 size. I had the opportunity to try the burst mode of 10 images on a group of ducks in flight. I found that it was going to take some additional practice to master the art of zooming, tracking, and setting off the shutter for pictures of this type, but the camera did track and focus fairly well on this difficult scene. In another instance, a bird was circling high over the water and I was able to zoom to 1200 mm and get a nice detailed shot.While at the lake, I had the opportunity to try out the movie mode of the HX300. I found that it tracked focus on my subjects beautifully, allowed me to smoothly zoom during movie making, recorded the sound nicely, and performed in every way in movie mode as well as I could have desired to produce excellent 1080i AVCHD movies.Just a few final comments. Build quality on the Sony HX300 is quite good. Yes, it is made of composite (plastic), but it feels solid, has a nice textured grip that makes the camera easy to hand hold, and is so wonderfully light compared to my Canon 5D Mark II. I was using a 32 GB ultra high speed San Disk SDHC card, and I had no problem taking single images rapidly in virtually any mode, and even the burst of 10 shots previously described were recorded to the card in about 5-7 seconds which seems quite acceptable to me.The HX300 is not a perfect camera (nor have I yet found one that is!), and here are some things that I would like to see changed. A button press is required to switch between the EVF and the LCD. On the older HX200 there was a sensor which automatically went to the EVF upon sensing the eye. I wish Sony had not removed this feature. The button turning on the EVF is flush with the camera body and quite small making it difficult to find by touch. The same is true for the Focus button, although the latter is only required when changing focus modes. Of course I would like to see a larger aperture than 6.3 when at full optical zoom, but this would likely require a much much larger lens with all the weight and expense that would entail.My bottom line is that if you are in the market for a super zoom camera and you understand that under low light situations you may not find the 1200 mm zoomed images to be acceptable in their level of detail and sharpness, then I would highly recommend the Sony HX300. If you are printing huge images (larger than 16X20), this is probably not the camera for you. If you want a camera that will be great for vacation pictures, pictures of the family, bird photography, wildlife photography, etc. and you are willing to invest some time to learn to properly utilize the camera, then the HX300 may well be the perfect camera for you.TomNote Added: I I have now posted the images referred to in the above review of the Sony HX300 including the comparison images with the Canon 5D Mark II on the dPreview.com Sony Cybershot Forum. The images, as per Forum requirements were posted at 1/2 the original image size. You can view the post at [...].

The media could not be loaded. This is a simple review so I won't go into every single detail about this camera. I bought this camera because of the 50x zoom, which is very impressive. The camera is easy to use. The menus and options a very user friendly and you don't need to be an expert to use it. It has a build-in user guide if you need help with options. This is not a DSLR camera so don't buy this expecting it to perform like a DSLR. The camera does take great pics and in good lighting it takes some impressive picture. video recorded in 1080p looks crisp. The camera is not very heavy. I can hold it one handed and not feel like I have a brick in my hand.I use this camera primarily to photograph my vacations, outings, family events etc. The 50x zoom has really come in handy. I have used it at the zoo, sporting event and even out deep sea fishing. Using the 50x zoom is great but once you go pass 20x you need very steady hands or a tripod. At 50x zoom the smallest movement made will render the image useless. I find the using the barrel on manual zoom works best at getting less shaky images and video.I have uploaded a short video showing the 50x zoom. The camera was mounted on a flimsy tripod so the video is some what steady. I did not use the barrel to zoom, I used the button so every time I zoomed you could see the camera vibrate.Some may not be happy with the image quality of this camera but I am happy with it.SpecsLens:Max Aperture f/2.8 - f/6.335mm equivalent 24mm - 1200mmOptical Zoom 50xImage Sensor:CCD pixels 20.4Mp (Megapixels)Pixels (W) 5184Pixels (H) 3888Sensor Type Exmor CMOSSensor Size 1/2.3 inchAspect Ratio: 4:3/ 16:9LCD Monitor: 3inScreen resolution 921,000 dotsNo Touch ScreenFocusing: Min Focus 1cm, Focusing modes Manual, Spot, Face Detection, Multi, CenterRecording modes:Easy, Intelligent Auto, Superior Auto, Program, Manual, Aperture-priority, Shutter speed-priority, Memory Recall, 3D Still Image, SCN, Intelligent Sweep Panorama, MovieISO sensitivity: ISO 80 to ISO 12800White balance: Auto, Daylight, Cloudy, Fluorescent white, Fluorescent natural white, Fluorescent day white, Incandescent, Flash, CustomShooting Options: Continuous shooting 10fps,Movie modeVideo Resolution 1920x1080, 1280x720 720p, 640x480 VGAVideo FPS 60Stereo Sound YesOptical Zoom with VideoImage Stabilisation YesInterface: HDMI, USB, USB 2No Wi-FiNo GPSStorage: SD/SDHC/SDXC; Memory Stick Pro DuoFile Type: JPEG/AVCHD (MTS); MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 (MP4)Power Source: LITHIUM ION NP-BX1 3.6VBox Contents: Rechargeable Battery Pack NP-BX1, Shoulder Strap, AC AdaptorAC-UB10, Lens Cap, Micro USB cable, Instruction ManualDimensionsWeight 650gWidth 129.6mmHeight 93.2mmDepth 103.2mm

My last Sony after years of buying Sony. The products has all sorts of annoying traits, meaning they have lost their minds. No way to attached the lens cap so it is always lost. The flash is situated back on the camera so that if you take a close up it shadows. The color is fine and focused, but gads these constant reminders that pop up every time you change the camera mod, and I can't seem to turn off except by pushing the button! It made me resort to read the manual and still it is elusive! The controls are not very clear so that you set it for stills of filming and it reverts. Okay, Sony had a good run in our business but that time is over.UPDATEAfter having Sony's that lasted 3-6 years, this one lasted 16 months. It was a poorly designed camera and I am so sorry that Sony is now a camera company that I wont go back to -- especially as they KNOW they have the exact issue with the camera that went wrong and do not offer any resolution, and the cost of repairing is more than the camera.