Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX200V 18.2 MP Exmor R CMOS Digital Camera with 30x Optical Zoom and 3.0-inch LCD (Black) (2012 Model)

When my backpack was stolen in May in Barcelona, I found myself in the market for a new camera. My old camera was a Sony DSC-HX1, which with only minor flaws, we absolutely loved. I never liked the fact that Sony forced you to use their memory stick, and the picture quality was acceptable, but no where near that of a DSLR. So, when I started my replacement search, I was focused more on Canons, Nikons, and the new Sony Alpha series DSLR. But because we had had such good luck with the Sony DSC-HX1, I decided to at least take a look at the new model, the DSC-HX200V. So, I did a ton of research, visited with several high-end camera shops in the Raleigh area, and spoke with a number of experienced photographers. All the research and the advice led me right back to the DSC-HX200V. My wife wants something that is simple to use and takes great pictures in "auto" mode. And the advice that one photographer gave me, pushed me over the top - he said, "If you spend a lot of money on a Nikon d5100 and leave it in auto-mode, you have wasted a lot of money!" And he was right. Almost any point-and-shoot, including the cameras built into most smartphones today, can take perfectly acceptable pictures in auto-mode. The real question is - what else do they have to offer. The answer to this question is where the Sony DSC-HX200V really shines! Like its predecessors, the camera has a built in panorama mode...just hold the shutter button down and pan left to right. The internal processor stitches the images together into a perfect shot! Don't go looking for this on any other brand camera because Sony acquired the patent when the bought the 'Minds of Minolta'. It is truly amazing technology that allows for the capture of incredible shots. To get these shots with a high end Nikon would require you do stitching in a 3rd party software on your computer like Photoshop. We liked the DSC-HX1, but its big brother has much more power and capabilities. This camera sports a 18 MP processor, and its picture quality rivals (not equals...and it never will) the DSLR. And in 'Scene' mode, they have added a few settings that I really love...like an HDR mode (three images combined to give you perfect light balance) and a "background defocus" mode, which produces DSLR-like images with shark subjects against a blurred background. And for the creative types that like Instagram, you will love the "miniature" mode, which somehow applies filters and light settings to make any picture appear as if it is a miniature model and not real. There is also a setting that will take a B&W shot with one predominant color left in...something that it takes me hours to do in Photoshop in post production. Another really cool feature this camera has is that it automatically senses when you are putting it up to your face, so it switches from the LCD image to an image in the view finder. Sweet! Add to these features the fact that this camera now comes with a 30X optical zoom, allowing you to take shots of craters on the moon (no kidding), and it is one powerful beast. Oh, and Sony got the message about the overall dislike of the memory stick, so now you can also use a standard SD card in this camera! Thanks Sony! All-in-all, this new Sony DSC-HX200v is absolutely everything we ever wanted and more! I give it a full five stars! BTW - warning to those traveling in Europe - take precautions not to fall victim to teams of crafty thieves! They will distract you, take your belongings and you will never ever know it. I suppose the silver lining in this experience for me, was being able to get this new camera!

I purchased the sony hx200 and the nikon p510 loaded the same class 10 sd card, set the same auto functions for both camera's and took the same shots with both cameras. Wow, what a difference in function, photo quality and ease of use the Sony is. Using the sony zoom compared to the nikon there were interesting differences. The sony photo image has clear image detail along with excellent color rendition compared to the nikon. In fact, I had to take 6 photo's of the same image with the p510 to try to get a similar quality image as the sony and it still didn't show the fine detail and color the the sony did in the first try! (the nikon p510 going back). Just started using the hx200. But from the looks of the terrific image quality, ease of use for the menu navigation user interface, and overall quality features and options I will keeping this. I purchased the Case Logic DCB-304 High/Fixed Zoom Camera Case, which fits perfect and room for filters, small accessories and the shape of the case is easy to wear/use. This replaces a 4 year old panasonic smaller point and shoot. The sony hx200 does some excellent low light images and very quick image capture and shoots 10 fps! Very happy with the hx200 and would highly recommend this camera. **UPDATE 12/20/12 just finished a 2 week vaca and took more than 1500 images along with over 90 min of video with the hx200. Performance was accurate, color rendition is very crisp and impressive from no zoom to super full zoom. Was able to capture whale splashing in the ocean in full zoom with crisp definition and droplets of water. I enjoyed learning some of the functions to improve various images. Including a function to add high 'vivid' colors to landscape photos. It would be difficult to take a bad image with the well designed hx200. Overall ease of use was simple and quick. I have small hands and this camera fits well for me. The one thing I had to get used to for this camera was the lens cap. I took the hx200 on long hikes, sailing, flying ect. Low light performance is excellent! I took a little time to learn the functions and experiment to find what settings worked well for me. What a terrific camera and very happy to recommend the hx200. **another Update** 1/24/13 I wanted to note that I use this camera frequently on a daily basis. I purchased an additional battery but even after a day of 300 shots and 20 min of vid, I have not had to change my battery that came with the camera. Also: for those that are saying it is slow. Not the case! Are you using a class 10 card?? The card you are using may be what is making your camera record slow!! I use a class 10 card and I get no lag for camera shots. Still loving the camera :)

I've tested 11 cameras previous to this one. So far this one is best for a point & shoot with a long zoom. The Clear Image zoom doubles your range without any noticeable loss of quality, but turn off the Digital zoom. The Image Stabilization is excellent, until you enter the Clear Image Zoom range. The image quality is excellent for daytime shots and the flash has an impressive range. Night time zoomed shots leave a larger sensor to be desired, however an SLR with that much zoom would be cost prohibitive. Play around with Contrast, Sharpness, Noise Reduction to see how "low", "standard", or "high" work in combination for your shooting situation. Get to know the settings of this camera. The ISO up to 1600 is very good, but try setting it to 100 and let the camera automatically adjust the shutter speed and aperture. Play with the shutter speed and aperture to see how they affect the picture, especially with those moon shots. The Superior Auto with its automatic High Dynamic Range can give you surprisingly good photos in difficult lighting. The tilting screen is very handy, and the viewfinder, tho not great (but better than some), works in a pinch. The eye sensor for the viewfinder is a plus. The grip is good. You learn to remember to remove the lens cap before powering up the camera. And yes, a threaded lens would be nice so we can use a protective filter. I need to investigate to see if there is an adapter. Disappointed AVCHD video is not compatible with Mac, but the MP4 is pretty good. The jog dial to access frequently used settings is handy. The battery life is excellent! A stand alone charger would be appreciated, instead of the cumbersome long cords and transformer that are space eaters and awkward in the camera bag. To all the people remarking about slow focus, slow between shots, slow after changing a setting or changing a mode on the dial - simply press the shutter button half way in any of those situations and the window will immediately return to "ready" to shoot, no waiting. To those who are wanting the User Guide handy, pretty much the whole Guide is inside your camera. Check it out. I am so impressed with the quality of this camera's image and ease of use, I am having the urge to go SLR for even more and better. But for now, for a point & shoot, this is the best I have tried.

There are three cameras that one should consider the Canon Powershot SX40 the Panasonic DMC FX150 and then this one the Sony HX200V. Researching these three is interesting because you will find sites listing each of the three as the very best over the other two. I think the bottom line is that any of the three will give good photos and satisfy the user. I purchased this camera because of two features that are largely ignored by the professional reviewers but to me they give this camera the edge over the others. First is Sony's proprietary optical steady shot stabilization. A good stabilization system is extremely important because no matter what the camera if you don't have good stabilization or a tripod then you have fuzzy pictures. Here is what Techradar had to say in their review of the HX200V; "We got sharp results at maximum zoom from shot to subsequent shot when it was used handheld. That's almost unheard of on rival models. On most superzoom rivals we've needed to take two or three shots of the same subject to arrive at one that wasn't soft." The reader should go to the Techradar site review and then go to SAMPLE IMAGES. The first photo is taken at wide angle and shows a long tree lined path ending at a distant white building. The next photo was taken handheld at the same spot but now at full telephoto and WOW. You now clearly see a fence that you did not see before and the paint is rusted in spots and there is an emblem on the fence that you can read. Also go to SENSITIVITY AND NOISE. Here you can see how the level of noise at different ISO settings effects the photos. Which brings me to another subject. Some professional reviewers point out that higher megapixels do not necessarily mean better photos because noise can increase depending on the CMOS sensor which is true but then they are completely baffled at why the Sony engineers increased the megapixels on this new camera. Well I'm not sure either however I am sure they didn't make the camera worse than the competition but rather better. My second reason for selecting this camera is the Superior Auto Mode. This mode shoots multiple shots of the same scene in rapid sequence and then creates the best single picture as a composite Here is what Squidoo says in their review; "Get cleaner, more dynamic pictures and fewer missed shots. The DSC-HX200V automatically recognizes the correct scene mode, then quickly shoots and combines up to six shots to produce images with greater clarity, optimum dynamic range using backlight correction HDR technology and lower image noise using 6 shots layering technology. Superior Auto intelligently detects 33 scenes for still images and movies, making it easy to get the best shot." If you Google tumblr HX200v you will see sample photos of the Superior Auto Mode which are impressive. So did the camera meet my expectations, yes it did. The stabilization worked as advertised however the lens does have limitations. It works best in bright light. The alternative would be stepping up to a more expensive and larger Digital SLR camera along with lens. For example Canon has a 800mm lens to fit the more the expensive cameras but it is 18 inches long weights 10 pounds and costs $13,499.00. The Superior Auto Mode also met my expectations. It does not improve all photos but it does make astonishing improvements in photos that would benefit from this mode such as back light etc.

Ultra-zoom cameras are particularly good on safaris where the camera taker does not have the option of moving closer to the subject. On safari, we two couples took two Sony hx200v cameras and one entry level Nikon DSLR, as well as the newest high-end Nikon DSLR, both with Sigma zoom lenses. The latter lenses weighed about 4 pounds and were difficult to maneuver, but the high-end Nikon pictures were superior to the Sony pictures (as should be expected when the equipment costs about 12 times as much). The Sony cameras were very easy to use and produced excellent pictures, with greater magnification than the Nikon cameras were able to achieve without cropping. We considered purchasing the Canon SX40. However, the Sony has two very valuable attributes that no non-Sony camera has regardless of price. First, it has what is known as the backlit option. In taking pictures, sometimes part of the picture is in bright sunlight and the other part is in shade. If you adjust the camera settings for the bright light portion, then the part in shade is too dark, and if you adjust the camera settings for the dark portion, then the part in light is washed out. And going halfway means that neither the shaded portion nor the sunny portion looks right. What the Sony camera does is take two pictures at once, one automatically adjusted for the light and the other adjusted for the shade. Then it combines both pictures into one, where both parts are more balanced. The light part is still lighter than the shaded part, but both parts work. And all this is done, without any complicated manual adjustments. The second attribute is that under the "superior auto selection", the Sony camera takes 3 pictures in very rapid succession. It then throws out the random noise to produce a superior picture. Like the Canon Sx40 and almost all point and shoot cameras, the Sony hx200v has a very small sensor. This means that a lot of random noise enters the digital photo. By taking three pictures, the camera can eliminate most of the random noise as random noise is unlikely to affect the same pixels. This is a very easy to use camera that produces excellent pictures and very high-quality video. It also allows those who like to adjust camera settings in various ways to do so. I highly recommend this camera.

First thing first, I know is not a DSLR and was not expecting to have similar pictures. Now, I got this camera because of 3 key features: 1. High ISO levels 2. 3D pictures 3. Long zoom 4. Still captures while shooting video This camera is 12800 ISO, which means that you can take pictures in extremely low light conditions, usually you cannot go to the max ISO level in any camera because it takes really noisy pictures; in such case I usually expect at least one step before max (6400 ISO in this case), well this camera's pictures have a strong presence of noise even in 2000 ISO (sometimes even at 1600 ISO is really noisy); and is not just noise but also is not sharp at all. 3D pictures are barely ok, I tried another smaller point and shoots cameras for 3D (a Samsung) that take better 3D pictures, this one kind of lacks of depth perception. The zoom is actually really good, I cannot say anything bad about it, the zoom range pretty good and enough for most situations. Still captures while shooting video are, again, just ok. Usually they don't have enough light at certain conditions. Some good features is the bunch of presets that are part of the menu for those people that doesn't either like or know how to set manual mode, the support for both SD/Pro Duo memory cards, the face/blink detection mechanism, the ergonomic position of the buttons, etc. I wonder if I should put an extra $300 and get the Nikon 1 combo with two lenses which is not 3D but it might take better pictures (because of the sensor size) and is less bulky.

I have been reviewing super zoom camera's for the past 2 months. I had it narrowed down to the Canon SX50, Nikon P510 and the Sony DSC-HX200V. I consider myself an Intermediate/Life events photographer and for me the DSLR's were out of the question. I eneded up going with the Sony for the meriad of fetures that none of the other camers offered. 18.2MP is great, 30x zoom with the 60x clear digital zoom is phenominal. I've always wanted a camera that could zoom in to the moon and show great detail and the Sony does just that. Although the Canon SX50 has a greater zoom (50x) it is lacking with 12mp's. My favorite feature of the Sony is the "defocused background" that will take 2 shots, creating sharp focused detail on the object shooting and blurring out the background creating a beautiful portrait that was previously only possible with a professional DSLR. The Sony is very simple to operate with several "auto modes" that are great for the quick point and shoot for your everyday use. The Video produced is a Stunning 1080/60p which is Crisp and beautiful for playback. I Love the 3D Stills options and Panorama. It takes phenominal Low light images with incredible clarity and detail without a flash. I would buy this camera again without hesitation. If there were any problems I could easily return it but Love the camera. The down side to this camera is the inability to delete photos from the Memory card with the computer. You have to do all of your photo/video management with the camera functions only. which isn't nice at all. In addition you have to charge your battery while it is in the phone, the is no external battery charger included. The instruction manual is poor to fair at best. Even with the online manual it does a poor job of specific details on how to use the many functions. they are pretty vague..for instance, if you want to use the "defocused background" all of the manuals will tell you what the function does but does not elaborate on how to actually get the function to work correctly. I select that option then aim the camera, half press the shutter button for the very fast auto focus and recognition, then full press of the button. 50% of the time it will take the picture beautifully, the other times it will say "unable to perform specified function at this time" and I have no idea why. I dont know if i am to close or to far away from the object and it does not explain it anywhere how to use this function properly. Overall though the camera is great, you wont find all these options in any other camer. it feels great. Love it

This is a fantastic camera. I have all but stopped using my older DSLR (Nikon D70) since getting this camera. The pictures are more crisp (18mp, baby) and the 30x optical zoom is amazing. With the zoom and a tripod I got some spectacular moon shots with a ton of crater detail. The image stabilization feature works surprisingly well, especially on stuff below 20x zoom. It works OK beyond that, but you'll notice a little blur when you zoom in. Once again, this is a feature that I didn't have on my DSLR. I got some pretty cool shots of a family of loons that were aided by the image stabilization feature. And if you've ever encountered loons, they don't particularly like to get close to people. The only slight downside to this camera is its size. It is not going to fit in your pocket. So this wouldn't be a good replacement for a small point-and-shoot camera that you can stick in your jeans pocket (I have a Nikon Coolpix that goes just about everywhere with me). That being said, no camera that size will take anywhere near the quality shots that you'll get from this camera. Another huge bonus was getting this camera on sale; it was a steal at $250. Having used it for about 6 weeks now, I'd have to say that $400-450 would be a reasonable asking price for this thing. It's that good. Other items that I would purchase with this camera: -If you don't already have large capacity SD cards (16+ Gb), I'd recommend grabbing one, if not two, for use with this camera. With great image quality comes great memory usage. -I would also recommend grabbing one of the two battery/charger combos (can be found for under $30 here on Amazon). The camera does come with a charging cable, but it can only be charged via USB. The battery charger can be used with regular wall outlets or with via the included car adapter. Having a few extra batteries is key (especially if you constantly have the viewfinder on and are taking lots of pictures) as the battery will typically run out faster than the SD card will fill up.