60 reviews for Sony FDRAX53/B 4K HD Video Recording Camcorder (Black) Electronics

1. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Amazon Customer – March 9, 2024

   5.0 out of 5 stars

   Used Professionally since 2016 and it’s Fantastic

   This is probably the best image-stabilized camera on the market today. The lens is in a gimbal plus the in-camera image stabilization is exceptional. I use this for recording fast moving vehicles in the street and the quality of the image is buttery smooth. People ask me all the time what kind of camera i use.However, the touch screen stopped working about two years ago. It doesn’t matter to me because I never change the settings, but that could have been an issue for someone else. Not me. Otherwise it has traveled with me all over the world: Spain, California, Florida, Massachusetts, Vermont, England, France and Japan. Fantastic camera.

2. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   Robert L Taylor – March 9, 2024

   4.0 out of 5 stars

   Beware of this seller!

   Beware purchasing from this seller.I purchased this Ax53. So far I’m pleased with the camera but not so much with the seller. I believe this camera was either stolen or a returned item. The reason for my belief is this,I am not able to register this product. The answer that was given to me was , some times Sony don’t update their product model numbers. REALLY! So I’m supposed to believe a major corporation has inferior inventory systems?I give the camera 4stars .however, 2 stars to the seller only because they did communicate with me

3. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   darren fay – March 9, 2024

   5.0 out of 5 stars

   Camera is great

   The stabilizer is awesome very smooth zoom and crystal clear all the way to full zoom

4. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Geoff White – March 9, 2024

   5.0 out of 5 stars

   Very high quality and easy to use.

   I’m not going to make my review super long, hopefully I can help you make a decision. If you are worried about this camera, rest easy. It is top quality. The image is second to none, and in most cases it surpasses what your TV is capable of reproducing.Take it out of the box, turn it on, and start recording. It’s really that easy. You don’t need to adjust anything to get great video. It’s very easy to use. If, however, you would like to make adjustments, you can adjust just about everything you want.To those who are professionals, look elsewhere. This will not give you exact manual control over what you need. If you want a quick, easy excellent shot, this will do the trick. I can’t stress enough how good this camera is. The IAuto (intelligent auto) will make just about any adjustments you need. They have spent a lot of time, and have a lot of experience involved in the automatic settings, and they do an amazing job.To the consumer, there isn’t a better camera on the market, in my opinion. Just leave it in auto. It does an amazing job.

   32 people found this helpful

5. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   WadeWade – March 9, 2024

   5.0 out of 5 stars

   Best camera for the price. I use for church services, games, special events, active on the move…

   I use two of these for recording our church services. They are set up in the back of the sanctuary. One is plugged in to the sound board. Import videos to PC using Sony’s software. I then use Davinci Resolve, a free editing tool. Much better software program. Video and photo quality for this little camcorder is great.I also use one of these cameras for my kids sports. The stabilizer works great when you are moving.I have also set up this camera to work remotely from my phone. Easy set up. Easy to use. Watch a few YouTube videos and get started making your own great videos.I use the Sony VCT-VPR1 tripod while recording at the church. I use the Sunpak 6700M monopod while recording backetball, volleyball… events. The sunpak is easy to move around with.Great all around camera.

   22 people found this helpful

6. 

   Rated 3 out of 5

   Em – March 9, 2024

   3.0 out of 5 stars

   Awesome IS, good 1080.60, bad 4k, fkn terrible manual mode

   The one and only reason you should get this is the image stabilization. The 4k at 30 FPS is not great TBH because it ends up a pretty big tile-ing effect if you have a lot of motion in the scene (it was really bad when I filmed a stream flowing).The other main issue I face with this is that the manual controls are through the floor, trash-tastically terrible. If this camera doesn’t happen to guess what you want focused then get ready for hell. “OH MAN I WANNA FILM THAT RARE BIRD okokok I’m at full zoom with only a tiny bit of shake, ok that’s awesome…… but the stupid camera is focused on the trees waving in the background DAMMIT ok hold the manual button, scroll to exposure since it’s way to dark, hit manual button, scroll the exposure up, hit manual button DAMMIT THAT PUT IT BACK INTO AUTO EXPOSURE, hit manual button, scroll exposure back up, HOLD manual button this time, scroll to focus, DAMMIT THE RING IS TOO SENSITIVE I SCROLLED TOO FAR, ok on I’m focus manual mode. Hit the button, scroll to get focus….. and the bird flew away.”I use this camera at 1080, 60 fps with digital zoom off. That way I get the maximum image stabilization. And btw the image stabilization is absolutely incredible on this thing.

   34 people found this helpful

7. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Ryan BolohanRyan Bolohan – March 9, 2024

   5.0 out of 5 stars

   Amazing!

   If you are the fence about picking this up, I’d say what are you waiting for! The 4K is so amazingly clear. I picked this up as I am skydive Videographer. I have been using the 1080p settings so I can utilize the optical and digital image stabilization but if your using the 4k you still won’t be disappointed. The autofocus is so amazingly quick you can rarely ever see the video out of focus even when you are shaking the camera with your unsteady hands or head in my case. I also use this on the ground too. I would recommend this to anyone in the market for a moderately priced handy cam. The audio is very clear and in 5.1 if you choose. The external audio jack is a great feature too! The ability to manually set all the options IE: focus, Iris, Zoom and so on are great. I wasn’t entirely thrilled with the 120 fps as the picture is a touch grainy unless you are using that in a very well light environment. Good Luck!

   181 people found this helpful

8. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   Bill Krul – March 9, 2024

   4.0 out of 5 stars

   Almost perfect

   Purchased July 30 2022. All features performed well until the microphone jack quit function around last week of September 2022.

   2 people found this helpful

9. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Becky Thompson – March 9, 2024

   5.0 out of 5 stars

   Fabulous camera!

   This is a second camera for my YouTube channel. Once again, Sony Handycam does not disappoint. I’m not a professional AV person by any means, but this camera is wonderful. You can keep it plugged in and shoot a video at the same time so no end to battery life – or conversely, the battery lasts about 3 hours. The lens cover automatically opens and closes as you open/close the side viewer. If it times out and turns off, there’s an on/off button to turn it on without having to close the viewfinder screen. I use this mostly for still shots vs. action like sports. It’s light weight and so intuitively easy to use. I highly recommend.

10. 

    Rated 1 out of 5

    Tony Fleming – March 9, 2024

    1.0 out of 5 stars

    Will not record in 4K

    I bought this camera Oct 2019 along with a Lexar SDXC UHS-II Class 10 UHS speed class 3 V60 and it worked great the first 2 times using it that winter. Covid hit a few months later and the camera wasn’t out of the camera bag until Sep/Oct 2021. It was then I found the camera would automatically restart when I began recording. I thought it might be the memory card so I spent $150 on a new SanDisk SDXC UHS-II Class 10 UHS speed class 3 V90, same results. Both cards are well within Sony’s specifications so I called Sony support. We found it will record fine using XAVC S HD, but not 4K. He eventually sent me a link for out-of-warranty repair ($450, roughly half the price of a new one). I did some research and found out this appears to be a common issue with this camera and the issue is the motherboard, which a replacement runs about $300. It also appears Sony issued a service bulletin on this very issue in 2017 yet they have no recall procedure in place to repair seemingly faulty devices. I don’t think I can ever buy or recommend any Sony product ever again, this was a very expensive purchase for an electronic device that has been used literally a handful of times.

    6 people found this helpful

11. 

    Rated 4 out of 5

    James Biesty – March 9, 2024

    4.0 out of 5 stars

    This is a great little camcorder but missing a few things from being amazing.

    This is a great little camcorder and it came down to this or an RX10iii. I chose the RX10iii because it has a lot more settings for shooting in different situations and a bigger sensor so image quality was a little better. Also the pics of the AX53 are not that good. The auto focus did really well though and it’s such an easy camera to use out of the box. Also it’s much easier to carry around and doesn’t really require a ton of maintenance. I’d love to see a few things though:1. The 1″ sensor that was on the AX100 would be really cool with this wider angle.2. A better feature set that would be easy to adjust and save ISO, White Balance, Shutter Speed, Aperture, ect. and way’s to save them. I couldn’t even figure out how to do the ISO or Aperture. Overall I could adjust the RX10iii much better for different lighting.3. It was very difficult to navigate through compared to most other camcorders and cameras I tried and many of the names weren’t intuitive. I’d love to see them re-do it.4. Would really like to see a wireless remote included like Canon does with many of their Vixia models I owned.So all in all this was a great camcorder and I liked the video quality better than the Vixia HF G40 I tried. They do a really good job with this camcorder and if they had a more usable and advanced feature set I would of probably kept it. If I had more money I’d keep both the RX10iii and AX53.

    5 people found this helpful

12. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    KDII – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Better than the Competition

    This is a fantastic camera. I don’t have a lot of experience with camcorders but this one is amazing! That being said I won’t bore you with tons of technical talk as that has already been done. I researched quite a bit, as I usually do, and compared as many samples as I could. There are 3 things that led me to this camcorder over the competition.Image quality. It is amazing. Crystal clear. I opted for the 4K over comparing HD models because I wanted to future proof. At least best as I can. If I’m going to spend this much money I don’t want to feel like it’s obsolete in a few years. As 4K displays are becoming more prevalent this camera will ensure that I will still have the best image quality for years to come.Stabilization. Again amazing. the Boss system cannot be beat at the time. It’s almost as the camera is sitting on a professional gimble that cost thousands.Color temperature. Called white balance in DSLRs. Not sure what the tech term is for in camcorders. This camera produces the truest color replication without having to do any post processing. At night it does seem a little cool but the Panasonic seems just a little too warm during the day and that’s when I figure I will be using it the most.Yes there are many other things that make this a great camera but you can read about touchscreens and menus elsewhere. These are the things that were most important to me and this camera excels in all 3 over the competition. If you are considering this camera buy it. It was a few hundred more than I wanted to spend but I’m glad I did.

    13 people found this helpful

13. 

    Rated 3 out of 5

    chris319 – March 9, 2024

    3.0 out of 5 stars

    Good Camera But a Few Flaws

    It’s a good camcorder until you try to use the optical zoom. Apparently there are just two zoom speeds. The on-board optical zoom control of the Zeiss lens is so small and fiddly it’s practically useless. To make matters worse, the still-photo shutter-release button is annoyingly close to the zoom control. Being able to zoom smoothly is an important part of a camcorder’s functionality and this camcorder just doesn’t cut it in that regard. Sony could have done a much better job; for starters, they could have located the still-photo shutter release further away. I have ordered one of the many remote zoom controls for this camera and we’ll see how that works out. There is no LANC interface on this camera. The zoom ring can be turned manually and is smooth, but it is awkward, not having any kind of handle to grab onto.Zoom-control issues aside, it is worthy of more stars than I have given it. It shoots at 50 Mbps but lacks an interlace mode at this bit rate (some broadcast contribution standards require interlace) but this can be fixed with ffmpeg. On the plus side, it has LPCM audio, but I would like to see 24- rather than 16-bit audio.There is a strange artifact in all modes of the image stabilizer. When making small, incremental movements, the floating optical system floats or “hunts” as it tries to stabilize the picture. You don’t always want this as it makes precise framing difficult and unpredictable. It may work in some applications such as moving shots which do not require precise framing. This behavior can easily be remedied by turning off image stabilization completely, which I have done.I love the White-Balance Shift control. I run it at -3 (toward blue) on Auto White Balance, as without it the images come out slightly warm (as measured using a Kodak white card). At the -3 setting the white balance is perfect.Another big plus of this camera is that the price is right, costing much less than other camcorders which address some of the issues I have described.[ADDENDUM]Come to learn there is a thing called a “Fingazoom”, which is basically a rubber band which fits around the zoom ring and has a tab you can grab to operate it. I’ve ordered one and we’ll see how it works.Should you buy this camera? Yes, if you are prepared to deal with or don’t need to worry about some of the issues I have described.

    7 people found this helpful

14. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Dr Leyland – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Best Camcorder I’ve Ever Owned!!!

    This camera is very underrated IMHO. I buy A LOT of gear and I can honestly say this is the best Camcorder I’ve ever owned.If you’re on the fence like I was (I planned on buying the AX100), don’t be. The AX100 is 3 years old and the AX53 is about a year and a half old. This means the AX53 has Sony’s latest features, hardware, and software tweaks and it shows (if you’ve ever used or played with the AX100). The lack of BOSS is the deal breaker on the AX100 and while the AX100 technically renders a superior picture with its high-end Zeiss lens and 1″ sensor, the in-camera noise reduction wizardry Sony pulls off with the AX53 is incredible. The AX53 Zeiss lens is excellent, not sure how they can sell the AX53 for the money they do. I literally can’t get any noise with this camera. You’ll see grain in poor lighting conditions, but you won’t see any noise (or what the non-professional calls noise – red/orange grain).I could go on and get technical with features but everything has been said a million times before, so I’ll spare you.If you want incredible 4K footage with rich color and beautiful contrast, this is the perfect camera. I honestly feel it’s a more usable camera than the AX100 due to BOSS.I have a 75″ Sony XBR850D and the movies from this camera look incredible on it.Highly recommended.

    27 people found this helpful

15. 

    Rated 3 out of 5

    David Wilson – March 9, 2024

    3.0 out of 5 stars

    I think I received a used unit

    My ax53 came in a Sony box that was unsealed and the camera was not packed or secured in the box. It only has one thin sheet of foam paper that did not protect it in any way. The lens was open as well. I’ve never seen a high end Sony product come like this. I think I’m going to return it due to this. I could have lived with the tiny, almost useless view finder. I’m very disappointed in this seller.

16. 

    Rated 3 out of 5

    Brian Jordan – March 9, 2024

    3.0 out of 5 stars

    it could be better for the price

    no option to timestamp video, and 5.1 audio is not an option in 4K mode, only AVCHD modei may just switch back to Canon

17. 

    Rated 3 out of 5

    schexO2 – March 9, 2024

    3.0 out of 5 stars

    I really wanted to like this camera and it has several features which make …

    I really wanted to like this camera and it has several features which make it stand out. I was primarily interested in the BOSS stabilization and the viewfinder. However for my use, the BOSS performs noticeably worse than my old Panasonic HC-V270 (which is actually pretty good) at the telephoto end. The jitter when using a monopod is unacceptable for a stabilization system that is supposed to be 13x better than its competitors. The viewfinder has no eyecup so you are forced to use your other hand for this when in direct sunlight. The manual focus ring is nice but you have to press a seperate button to enable it. If you don’t, an extremely annoying popup which you cannot disable blocks your view. This also occurs if you happen to brush a finger against the photo button located just underneath the zoom rocker. If you’re using the viewfinder, you have no way to quickly close these warnings and have to wait 5 seconds while filming for them to disappear. To top this off you can’t use the viewfinder and lcd screen at the same time. The remote control via smartphone is extremely barebones and pales in comparison to the functionality of the Panasonic Image App. The quality of the video seems fine and the BOSS seems more capable at the wide end of the lens, but these easily correctable “features” render the camera pretty much useless for my purposes.I suppose if you’re not filming critical events and don’t mind losing shots to these ridiculous pop-ups, the camera will work fine. I never thought I’d make a camera purchase decision just on the menu system, but in this case, Sony, your menus and alerts SUCK. LET USERS TURN THEM OFF!!!

    18 people found this helpful

18. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    EricRod – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Supports External Lavalier Microphone/Automatic Gain Control Works Well

    I wanted a video camera that would allow me to use a lapel microphone I could connect with a 25′ cable. This camera has a 3.5mm audio input and provides phantom power to my remote mic. When I plugged in my external microphone, the onboard camera microphone was shut-off and the camcorder received audio only from the remote mic. This Sony provides automated gain control and maintained a constant audio level whether I was whispering into the microphone or intentionally speaking loudly. I have only had this camera a week, but so far it has met my key needs. I wish it had a variable-speed zoom control. It takes a lot of skill to implement a slow zoom using this camera.

19. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Ric See – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Grab on to this camcorder and hang on cause it will give you a high quality ride!

    High quality camcorder with latest features. Records in HD, S-HD, and 4K all which were the reason for my purchase. If you haven’t purchased a camcorder in awhile (several years) expect a somewhat steep learning curve to catch up to the latest video technology…I learned a good bit and now feel relatively comfortable with this camcorder. Guide book could be more complete though. While attempting to load video footage onto my computer hard drive the guidebook fails to mention to look at your computer’s root drive area for USB connections where files can be found…Me not being a digital camera “wiz” stumbled over this awhile, but once I did it a couple of times it was easy. I was hoping to see a jump in video quality migrating from a (digital video tape) Canon Optura 20 to this SONY FDRAX53/B (memory stick storage) and the camera did not disappoint!**FYI, if you happen to be editing your video footage with Pinnacle Studio 17 Ultimate, expect to convert files to avi format (HD 1080P 1920*1080 Xvid, MP3) because “17” does not handle 4K very well (if at all). [Pinnacle Studio 20 does do the job though.] Bottom line– Happy I purchased this camcorder!

    4 people found this helpful

20. 

    Rated 4 out of 5

    Meleman – March 9, 2024

    4.0 out of 5 stars

    NOT for Tripod Use

    UPDATE – Nov. 3, 2016: Sony released Firmware 1.02 that has vastly reduced the awful video shake when camera is used on a tripod. I’ve updated rating from two to four stars.Just received this camera and I concur with the nice reviews on here BUT be forwarned… If you plan to use this camera on a Tripod you will get shaky video footage anytime you touch your camera to make adjustments. The BOSS stabilization works great when camera is hand held but when placed on a tripod you will get shaky video anytime you touch the camera. I tried all three modes: off, standard and active with similar shaky results. I was also less than half its maximum zoom. The Sony forum and DP Review have a thread talking about this issue. I like this camera for its other features but will likely return it due to this one flaw. I use a tripod in about 75% of my shoots so the shaky video ain’t going to cut it. Camera doesn’t come with a remote so you can’t avoid handling the camera to make adjustments.

    15 people found this helpful

21. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Pablo M. – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    A terrific little camera

    A terrific little camera. I have a Canon DSLR that does very nice HD with lots of lens choices, but I wanted to have 4K, also, and I wanted it in an easy to use camcorder format. I can take it to ballgames or family outings and not be distracted by too many choices. Just open up the LCD panel on the side and start shooting. The video stabilization works extremely well and doesn’t seem to get in the way, at all. Just a very nice, easy to use 4K camcorder. Fits my needs exactly.

    7 people found this helpful

22. 

    Rated 3 out of 5

    Robert A. Staton – March 9, 2024

    3.0 out of 5 stars

    Good camera, bad user interface

    Excellent camcorder with tons of features. I’m dropping two stars because the user interface is horrible, clumsy, and non-intuitive. In order to change resolution, for example, you have to first pick a codec. And it’s difficult to find manual settings, which can sometimes be set to manual and you don’t even realize it until after messing up your shots. Basically, you need to spend some time setting up the camera before each recording, and train yourself to become an expert with it before anything critical comes along.

    5 people found this helpful

23. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Jacob Mathew – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    At last a true professional like 4K camera from Sony for Home use

    Three cheers to Sony. Finally I have a 4K camcorder that is good at all levels. Good picture stability, clarity and true 4K ultra high definition videos. Sony home memories software allows one to edit and burn Blu ray discs of home movies in 4k which makes it look like a professional videography even by amateurs. This camera even has a setting where you can make two videos at the same time-one in ultra 4K and the other in digital HD AVHD. I only wish the camera came with a remote..

    6 people found this helpful

24. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    CA dude – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    most incredible image stabilization. very usable camera for movies and photos

    at full zoom and with rather dim lighting, the camera took photos with virtually no shake. amazing! videos are rock steady with no shake whatsoever. lightweight as compared to an SLR. the photos are not as clean as that of an SLR in low light. overall, a camera that is totally worth its money.

25. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    MeteorPETE Enterprises – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Great camera

    I’m a sony fan and this one is great. 4K quality looks amazing. This camera does not work well at night – I don’t fault Sony for this. The image sensor is made for daylight. Set your expectations for lighted environments and you’ll be very satisfied.

26. 

    Rated 3 out of 5

    More – March 9, 2024

    3.0 out of 5 stars

    Not that great!

    This Camcorder is to expensive to NOT be able to tranfer Video filesthrough Wi-Fi. I was expecting more from this Camcorder but it’s not worth the price.

27. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Lleland Abernathy – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    The digital zoom is crazy good

    I wish the battery life was better, But it has a lot of great features. The stabilization isn’t really useful if you are zoomed in on an object that is far away and moving but it’s great if you are zoomed out. The digital zoom is crazy good. I was able to see the windows on a passenger jet. It was a very noisy image and hard to track without a tripod but I could make them out. I have not used the wifi settings.

    3 people found this helpful

28. 

    Rated 1 out of 5

    charlie gambino – March 9, 2024

    1.0 out of 5 stars

    cheap made

    I ‘ve had sony products for long time , in fact I have a sony a6500 camera ,a dve-3 3d camcorder and a dev-50 camcorder ,all very good cameras and built to last but, when I first get the ax53 realize how cheaply made it is , and specially when I looked trhough the viewfinder wich is very small and you cant see anything, and the all camera its made of plastic so you think if you drop it once its going to brake, but the video quality its not bad ,, I would not buy it again but thanks sony for the good stuff they make.

    2 people found this helpful

29. 

    Rated 4 out of 5

    Evan Gelical – March 9, 2024

    4.0 out of 5 stars

    Crystal clear video

    Fast focus. Crystal clear video. Decent mic. Wonderful image stabilization. Haven’t used very much. Bought a lexar 1800 v90 64gb and so far together they run flawlessly

30. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Clint B – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    The internal Gyro is amazing very very steady video footage

    The media could not be loaded.

    I wish I brought this back in 2016 when it was first released, The internal Gyro is amazing very very steady video footage. UPDATE the front lens cover broke and I had to return the camera

    One person found this helpful

31. 

    Rated 4 out of 5

    Craig Patrick – March 9, 2024

    4.0 out of 5 stars

    Great camera with a few caveats

    Great camera, amazing picture, decent sound (though I’d recommend purchasing a shotgun mic at the least [I use a RODE pro mic] or at the very best, lav mics]. I’m a bit disappointed that the FRDAX53/B doesn’t allow me to use a flat (LOG) profile to adjust color in post-production (please correct me if I’m wrong here — it could very well be that I just have not found that feature in the settings). I guess it’s to be expected with a camcorder, but given the price tag, it should be a feature.High speed recording (120fps) is fantastic, though you’ll need a card that supports 95mb/s to get the nicer video at 100mb/s.All in all, great camera, just a few small caveats.

    5 people found this helpful

32. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Billy D – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Great HandyCam!

    I bought this as an upgrade to my Sony HandyCam DCR-SR65 which I owned and used for 10 years. I have used it three times and I am very pleased with the picture and sound quality. I use this camera to record live music. I added a wide angle lens to improve the recording field. Battery lasts 4 hours. No problems yet. I have not used 4K yet as HD is plenty for me. I discovered that the audio levels are set to a manual default. I found the AUTO audio setting is the best choice for me as it won’t allow loud music to overdrive and distort. The only drawback for me is the file sizes are 3 times larger than my old camera, but the video quality is worth it.

    3 people found this helpful

33. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Ibz – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    4k is over rated! hear me out

    The media could not be loaded.

    This camcorder is great! It would be great for vlogging. It’s light, has built in stabilization, and the zoom is amazing. This is the best all around video cam especially for the price. I Highly recommend shooting in XAVC S 1080p at 60fps though.The 4k quality isn’t all that, the 1080p at 60fps is so smooth and the quality actually seems to be better in post as well. The autofocus is pretty decent. But for all around you can’t beat it. Get you a few attachments and boom.

    8 people found this helpful

34. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Eric J. Strawn – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Disregard negative Reviews. Buy this Camera

    First let me start off by saying this is the perfect bridge between a professional camera and a home video camera. I read a review about the battery life not being great. Absolutely false. I have the standard battery with 4K settings at 100 frame rate and it lasts well over four hours. Don’t buy the extra oversized battery it defeats the use of the eye piece. Just buy the one and half inch thick battery. I have owned this for over a year and have no complaints. I shoot great basketball videos and low light dance of my kids. A must buy!

    10 people found this helpful

35. 

    Rated 3 out of 5

    bugsalive – March 9, 2024

    3.0 out of 5 stars

    The reviews were very good for this unit

    I bought this to replace a Canon HV30 that I felt was becoming dated. The reviews were very good for this unit. I wanted higher quality HD video, better low light quality, and a higher zoom. I don’t use the 4K. I expected to be impressed with the improvements. I was not. The zoom is certainly better, but the quality improvement, if any, is not anything to brag about. I kept the HV30 for 5 years. I’ll probably replace this after 1 year. I don’t think I will try Sony again. The steady cam feature is okay at close distances, but at great distances when the camera is fully zoomed, it really messes up any high action events. When you try to follow a moving target, the steady cam becomes a pendulum and swings back and forth, moving your target from side to side in your video. For extended distances, I turn the feature off.

    8 people found this helpful

36. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Eric RiceEric Rice – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    An Amazing Camcorder

    I had previously rented one of these camcorders to record a choral concert. The image stabilization is so great that I decided I needed to buy one. The 4K image is sharp and clear and large enough to allow zooming in post processing if you will be producing the video in HD. Low light quality could be better, but it serves my purposes. The only problem I’ve had with it, was over-tightening the tripod plate and cracking the plastic around the mount. I sent it in and got it fixed and it’s like a new camera. I love this thing!

    2 people found this helpful

37. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Clifford Greaves – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Great camera for high definition video streaming

    We recently inaugurated virtual worship service streaming at our church. We selected this camera on recommendation of another user. Great recommendation. Easy set up with the Dell Laptop we are using to mix the audio and video stream. The zoom capability is fantastic, easy, while providing a fabulous image at all zoom range. So, we hardily recommend this camera as being a great value and fine performer in this price range.

    One person found this helpful

38. 

    Rated 3 out of 5

    Barnacules – March 9, 2024

    3.0 out of 5 stars

    The camera is amazing in every way except for that it has a …

    The camera is amazing in every way except for that it has a noticeable shake on the outside edge when shooting in 4k mounted on a tripod. This is a very well known issue with this camera and they claimed to have fixed it with a firmware patch but after applying the firmware the problem still remains. Even when you disable the steady shot feature it still happens so something else is causing the optics to vibrate inside of the camera. Sony has been little help so far with correcting the issue and even claimed the couldn’t tell when I sent them a video clearly illustrating the problem. The truth is the issue isn’t that bad and you have to ‘notice it’ and in all honestly the other features of the camera still make it my primary camera with anything I shoot for Barnacules Nerdgasm on YouTube.

    20 people found this helpful

39. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Payton Gannaway – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Incredible Camera for my Family and our Travels

    So, I spent likely 800 hours researching cameras before making this purchase. I looked into everything from point and shoot, to DSLRs to camcorders. At the end of the day, I realized I’m not the type of person who will sit and attempt to frame a perfect image with a still camera.I enjoy taking family videos and documenting our travels and so image stabilization has always been very important. This camera blew my expectations out of the water. Image quality at the stabilization was perfect for me.The main con is the battery, however a $20 purchase of extra batteries can resolve that.Phenominal camera. Highly recommended.

    18 people found this helpful

40. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    David – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    This bundle was a great deal when I bought it

    Have to agree with W. Thai.I was looking to replace my 8 year old camcorder. I also did a ton of reviews and the Sony FDR-AX53 meet all my needs. An important capability was a hot shoe adapter and a microphone jack in addition to the 20X zoom. This bundle was a great deal when I bought it, it was just $20 more then the camera and came with a 64GB memory card and bag. The bag will hold the camera and power cord but not much else. Thank you again for a great value bundle.

41. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    BotFixer – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    great intro to 4K shooting with fantastic image stabilization

    Came for the 4K, stayed for the stabilization!The Balanced Optical SteadyShot (B.O.S.S.) image stabilizer on this thing is phenomenal for handheld shooting, best I’ve ever seen. Supposed to be slightly better in HD mode than 4K, but I didn’t notice a significant difference. You can walk while shooting in wide angle, or zoom in all the way while standing still, and get usable to great footage — no tripod necessary. Of course, you can’t do swish pans and fling the camera around and expect miracles, but if you at least make an *attempt* to help it out by smoothing and dampening your motions or bracing yourself (like any decent cameraperson would), you can get unexpectedly great results.Yes, the AX100 has the much bigger 1″ sensor. But that model is now about 3 years old and about $700 more, while this camera has the very latest (2016) vastly improved optical stabilizer technology. Since I’m shooting lots of handheld documentary footage, often in remote locations with only occasional tripod shots, I opted for the better stabilizer rather than the bigger sensor and am VERY glad I did.Requires a fast SDXC card — I used this SanDisk Extreme Pro 128GB UHS-1/U3 card with no problems:

    SanDisk Extreme PRO 128GB UHS-I/U3 SDXC Flash Memory Card with up to 95MB/s- SDSDXPA-128G-G46

    . You can fit about 2.5 hours of 4K @ 100mbps in XAVC-S mode on this card, more than double that for only HD resolution.I can report that the XAVC-S video from this camera works GREAT as-is when imported directly to iMovie 10.1 or greater on the Mac. I was pleasantly surprised — you don’t need a top-of-the line machine for basic 4K editing, my 2012 MacBook Air with an SSD does OK, and anything newer with an SSD should be even better. You do NOT need any scammy 3rd-party XAVC-S transcoding software, which you will find plenty of links to if you are googling around for AX53 and XAVC-S. I just mounted the SDXC card in my computer, clicked Import in iMovie 10.1.2, selected some clips, and could start viewing and editing them right away. The 4K video looks GREAT on a calibrated HD monitor and TV downscaled to 1080p. Update: finally got the chance to view it on a large calibrated 4K monitor, and yes you really can tell the difference; you don’t perceive it as 4x more detail, but finely textured areas definitely seem more lifelike and tactile than in 1080p.The camera has some features for transferring video wirelessly, but that looked like a lot of trouble to me. I like simple things: just pop the card out, and stick it in your computer.Reading reviews, people kept complaining about two main things with this camera: not enough manual controls, and some kind of “bug” with the stabilizer when shooting on a tripod. Actually, I really like the Manual button, you can use it to choose which ONE of about 6 settings the lens ring controls, and you can do that from just the viewfinder (no touchscreen necessary). I wish I had 3 manual buttons like you do on the AX100, but I’ll live. I also used the “My Button” feature to put 3 quick-access “soft buttons” always on the left side of the touchscreen: White Balance, Spot Focus, and Audio Rec Level. That’s enough to remind me to take care of those things before every shot. As for the stabilizer “bug”, I didn’t see it. For moving shots on a tripod (live panning and tilting with a fluid head) you want to turn SteadyShot off, otherwise it will fight you — same with any lens that has optical image stabilization. But for locked-down tripod shots I didn’t bother turning SteadyShot off and didn’t notice any problems.Focusing system is fast in reasonable light — when picking a target on touchscreen (Spot Focus), it goes from infinity to a foot away in less than a second. When in auto-focus mode and moving around, the camera actually takes its time and waits for things to settle down a bit before selecting a target, which I liked.When shooting, I start out by putting the camera in “full auto” mode with the little “iAuto” icon on lower right of screen (SONY calls it “Intelligent Auto”), which resets everything to auto while the camera tries to figure out a scene mode, exposure, shutter speed, etc. Then if necessary I make a few manual changes: white balance (using a white card), focus (using touchscreen or manual dial), and sound level. I observe the on-screen guides for Focus Peaking and Zebra Stripes. If I see too many zebra areas, I press and hold the Manual button for a second, pick the Exposure setting in the on-screen menu, and dial it down a little. That’s about it — but for quick run-and-gun the camera does a surprisingly good job when in iAuto mode, even in low light, and always with that great stabilizer.I use external mics exclusively, and the audio quality has been excellent: Rode VideoMic GO (powered by camera) or Rode Wireless Filmmaker Kit (transmitter, receiver, and lapel mic).I love the Time Lapse feature — but unfortunately it stores the frames as individual 4K JPEGs rather than a movie, which means you have to use external software before importing to iMovie or whatever. I use the free Mac app called “Interval” (from the App Store) – pick an input folder with all the frames, pick your output settings, export as 4K QuickTime movie, then import that into iMovie. You don’t need the SONY PlayMemories Home software for ANYTHING.This is a great hobbyist/prosumer camera for getting into 4K/UHD shooting, small and lightweight, feels very comfortable in your palm for on-the-go situations, and can yield amazing footage with a little care.

    202 people found this helpful

42. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    writerdreams – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    The Perfect All Purpose Camcorder for Individual or Organization/Church

    I waited 3 years to write this review as I wanted to be sure anything I said I could feel certain was a constant. I have used it for photo/still as well as ultra low light to bright sunlight, indoors/outdoors and using all 3 available mode settings and testing all functions including stabilization under normal and semi extreme circumstances. Personal events, Church events, Weddings, etc., totally out performed my Canon in every test. I used a formatted 256 GB SD Card (FORMAT IN CAMERA NOT A COMPUTER, etc). and quality in all 3 modes was amazing. Whether converting to/from 4K/1080/720/480 with a good converter program there is no graininess to speak of and DVD’s are stunning on a good DVD Burning program. I would say everything is absolutely a positive BUT if you use a line in or Mic connection DO NOT set AUDIO as AUTO. The on board amplifiers over boost and you get that hum/hiss. I found setting it just slightly before 1/4 audio and manual worked well and you can listen with headphones/earbuds to quality. The on board Mic works extremely well and on a par with the Canon with an external Mic. While it has both 2 channel and 5 channel audio recording, ONLY the lowest setting is 5 Channel capable. The camcorder is very user friendly and the on board menu is very smooth and built in monitor is quite clear in all lighting conditions. My Canon lasted 2 years as our primary video taker but doing things like black light recorders left much to be desired and why after much research we opted for the Sony and here 3+ years later not a single regret. We also got a 6 Foot Tripod and the camcorder works well on that platform and with Steady Shot on Standard, walking around and doing a video is nice and stable with minimal bounce. Setting Steady Shot to Active you can walk, do rapid turn and scans likewise the real world effect versus bobbling and shakes. Whether for personal use, Church, organization….the quality of the camcorder and output is hard to beat without spending double the price or more.

    12 people found this helpful

43. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Concerned Customer – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Excellent Video Camera

    I bought this camera to video tape the graduation of my son from UVA. As we all know, I had to video recorded from afar. I did use the zoom feature and it was excellent with incredible clarity. No shaking, especially during zoom up close, due to the image stabilization feature and the incredible 4K image. Wow! I can’t tell during the taping but on the play back on a 4k TV it’s awesome. The clarity, the colors is incredible. One thing I need to mention, if you zoom up close and turn the camera off and then turn it back on again, the auto focus wouldn’t work when I tried to video long distance again. So, a portion of my taping is completely blur. Maybe it’s me not knowing what to do. I am new to the camera. So, if you rely on the auto focus, watch out.

    One person found this helpful

44. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    laubacht – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    From a Storm Chaser and Sports Videographer

    First of all, I am a severe weather photojournalist, thus my primary reasoning for this camera is to shoot storm and weather video. I have also shot high school football games with this camera, and both types of videos have been used on TV. That said, I am reviewing this from that perspective.General thoughts, I love this camera. For many years, I have been shooting on the Sony XR500v models (HD) that I swore by, mainly because of their low-light capabilities and the quality they rendered out, even if I was just using headlights as my only source of light at night.I finally graduated 4K, this being my first go, and after a month, I have to say that I love what I am getting. One of the bigger initial reasons for buying this was because the batteries from my XR500v models were the same as what this camera uses, so I was able to keep all my accessories the same without any further investment.WEATHER VIDEO: I have shot in daytime, low light (cloudy or stormy conditions), and at night, and all three look terrific. The quality is outstanding, the low light and nighttime videos turned out great. One of the notable differences between the XR500v and the AX53 at night was that while the AX53 was not as bright as the XR500v (slight difference, but noticeable), it had much less noise and was much cleaner. The details on this camera are great, colors are bright, and while the 4K is great for building a library, I render out clips in 1080 and they look outstanding.FOOTBALL VIDEO: Shooting under the Friday Night Lights, I love this camera. It focuses well and easily, very quick, and handles the action very well. Lower light situations mostly, and the clips look crisp and sharp. Have even done interviews on the fly and they sound good even on the built-in mic, so that’s a perk for that (I’d use a more professional microphone system for more formal interviews). You won’t get professional sound from this, but I feel like it rates higher than most built-in sound on cameras, so for most, I think it’ll work just fine.TECHNICAL: I LOVE the focus ring… one of the things I loved about the XR500v was the ability to adjust the focus on the camera using a knob as opposed to going into the menu. This is super handy for me and allows me to set this camera to infinity very quickly without having to access menus. Note that you can turn the focus to auto/manual via a button that is easy to access beneath the ring on the left side. The position of the photo button has lead me to inadvertently shoot photos when using the zoom toggle, and I have done it a lot while picking up the camera, etc. That is slightly annoying, but hardly an issue overall. The image stabilization is terrific when hand-holding (which I shoot 90% of the time using this camera), but on a tripod, you need to let it settle a bit or your image will float a bit. But it is smooth when using by hand, or in a moving car. It is even very stable when at full zoom.DUAL-SHOOTING: This camera is capable of shooting 4K as well as 720 video at the same time. My station uses 720, and having compressed 720 files immediately available makes for a very quick turn around. The file sizes are small, but the quality of the video is noticeably low, but will suffice in a pinch. It is extremely handy for me to have that feature. But in most cases, I will not substitute the 720 files for the 4K files in my edits, only using them for mobile uploads cause of small file size, or for quick turn around in tight deadlines.ADVICE: Get a UV filter for the lens just to keep it safe from scratches. And you likely will not find a hood you can use at full wide because the lens shoots so wide, it will get the hood in the shot.MEMORY CARD: I use a Transcend Class 10 card at 128GB and have had no issues with it in dual record.BATTERY: I have a FV100 on the camera and it sticks out a lot. The tab that holds the battery in place does the job, but definitely feels small and breakable (have not broken it on this camera, but it just has that not-so-stable feel). Be weary of that if you’re using extended batteries. The FV70 will probably work fine. The FV100 also makes it hard to use the viewfinder to shoot if you use that method. I have shot two hours of football on the battery and have had plenty of time left. I don’t have an exact, nor am I shooting continuous (10-second clips), but I feel confident in saying it will last you a couple hours easy.COMPLAINTS: The position of the photo button will probably give you a few accidental photos, but again, more of an annoyance than anything else. I’m not a fan of having to flip open the LCD screen to turn on the camera because the card access is located behind the LCD, so I get into the habit of manually turning the camera off before taking out or inserting the card. That manual power button is also behind the LCD screen. Again, as mentioned earlier, use of the FV100 extended battery virtually renders the viewfinder a bit tougher to use. It can still be used, but the battery sticks out further than the viewfinder, even when it is pulled out. BTW, pulling out the viewfinder also turns the camera on.VIDEO EDITING: Post-processing 4K files is very hardware intensive… my laptop I edit on needed at least 8GB of RAM with a stout processor. I use Premiere CS6, and originally had 4GB of RAM which was terrible for editing. The upgrade helped immensely, but still is a bit lagging in areas. My desktop is loaded and edits beautifully. Just make a note of that if you plan on editing much.OVERALL: I love this camera and am happy I made the investment. My XR500v camera have lasted nearly 8 years, and still going (the only reason for the upgrade was to get into 4K). My hope is to get a lot of life from these babies as well. Strongly recommend for anyone casual looking to shoot, but certainly would not stray away from doing some semi-professional stuff with it as well.

    110 people found this helpful

45. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Capt. Aero – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Great Images–The Best Stabilization–Complicated Learning Curve to Use

    The Sony AX53 can’t be beat by any other model of its genre. After you exert due diligence to learn its fairly complex features and controls, it will reward you with videos and photos that could be mistaken for professional. The gimbal-like image-stabilization is unmatched.I realized that using the manual-control lens ring for the AE Shift (same as EV Compensation), is the most useful application for it. You can quickly fine-tune the exposure by increments, to plus or minus 1 stop, by a turn of the ring.The Sony Play Memories Home Program, that comes free with the camcorder, is very good for basic image-processing. However, its video player does not do well displaying 4K video, which is faded and too bright. Go off the program and use another player, such as Windows Movies & TV, to see the 4K video at its best.I recommend getting a couple of extra batteries, such as the high-capacity NP-FV100. I bought mine from Wasabi on Amazon, for a very good price. Medium-small headphones for audio monitoring are best. I got a pair of Panasonic RP-HT21 headphones on Amazon and they work great, but allow you to also hear environmental sounds. A good handgrip that mounts to the tripod jack is very useful for steady shooting. You’ll never want to go just handheld again, after using one.If you want the best audio, I suggest buying the Sony ECM-XYST1M stereo hotshoe microphone. It comes with a furry windscreen and can be set to wide or narrow pickup positions. It eliminates most operational sounds and gives a much stronger performance than the built-in mikes. No connecting cord is needed when mounted on the hotshoe. It’s available on Amazon.

    2 people found this helpful

46. 

    Rated 4 out of 5

    Kyle S. – March 9, 2024

    4.0 out of 5 stars

    A great camcorder for recording family vacations and special events!

    I purchased this camera to record a family vacation to Disney World. I practiced with it for about two weeks before the trip and I used that time to familiarize myself with the camera. During these two weeks I was disappointed. I wanted much more manual control of the video than it was giving me. With this camcorder, you are able to manually set shutter speed or iris ( which is the same thing as aperture for those of you who know about still cameras), but not both. Whichever of those two you don’t set manually is adjusted automatically. Furthermore, the gain (similar to a camera’s ISO setting) is not controllable. The best you can hope for on gain is to set a maximum gain amount above which the gain will not auto-adjust. So be aware that this camcorder has very limited manual control; it’s mostly automatic.That all said, I took this with me on vacation and overall I was pretty happy with it. In fact, it probably is better that I couldn’t mess with those settings because it would have distracted me from what I was recording, and no doubt I would have messed things up considerably on some shots. Usability of the camcorder I rate as good, not great, because of the difficulty with the small touch screen and menu structure.Disclaimer: I still don’t have a 4k monitor or TV, so I haven’t seen the video in full blown 4k (3840 × 2160). I have seen the video on my Surface Pro 4 (2736×1824) which is higher than HD and the video does look very good on it.One thing that bugs me is that when recording in the bright sun the shutter speed was often 1/250th of a second (or higher in many cases), and that gives the video an unnatural sharpness and judder that I don’t like. Normally you want the shutter speed to be twice the frames per second setting to get a natural looking blur. However, the advantage of the fast shutter speed is that you can pull out of the video very sharp images. I did this right as my wife was getting soaked on Kali River Rapids and it is an awesome still image!Anyway, a built-in Neutral Density (ND) filter option would give this camera better (more natural blur) bright light performance. I wish it had one.The manual ring can be assigned to several different functions: [Zoom] [Focus] [Exposure] [IRIS] [Shutter Speed] [AE Shift] or [White Balance Shift]. I did use the ring often in AE Shift mode. For example, when my daughter was meeting a character outside the background was very bright (over exposed) and the subjects were dark (under exposed). Well I don’t care about a blown out back ground, so I would enable the ring and dial up the AE Shift so that the subjects are brighter. The shift range is only -1 stop to +1 stop. This range was *almost* always enough; I wish it went to +/-2. (BTW, there is an Auto Back Light feature that I always had ON, but I couldn’t speak as to if it really did anything. It didn’t seem to be all that helpful.)Bottom line: This is a great camcorder for anyone who desires a simple, 4k capable camcorder that doesn’t need to be told what to do. It is not a great camcorder for anyone who wants full manual control over settings. There are definitely more things I can list that I don’t like about the camcorder than things I like, but in almost every case the negative things are more or less small gripes. Overall the camera excels at what I needs to do and that is record great quality video.Things I like:- Taking a photo during a video does not stop the video (like what happens on a DSLR camera).- The camera is small and lightweight.- Voice canceling does a good job muffling (not silencing) the camera man, though I never used it on the trip except to test it out. (This function was given a physical button; you may use it, I never did.)- I *think* the “logic” behind the auto exposure does what I would want it to do. ○ That is, in bright conditions it appears that it tries to keep the shutter speed at twice the frame rate by adjusting aperture (or iris as it is referred to) until it can’t be adjusted further before adjusting to a faster shutter speed. But it will take the shutter speed to a very fast setting to keep a reasonable exposure in your recorded scene. ○ In dark conditions is behaves similarly. The shutter speed will be set to twice the frame rate and the iris is opened fully, and then gain (similar to ISO) is adjusted up to the max allowable (perhaps set by you using Auto Gain Control). I never observed the shutter speed dropping to slower than twice the shutter speed. (By that I mean if recording at 30 fps, the shutter speed wasn’t ever slower than 1/60th of a second. This keeps the video from being too blurry when motion happens.)- The rotating/flip-out display is great. Lots of cameras have this now so no big deal here. It was easy to flip it around for selfie mode.- I didn’t take many still photos with this camcorder, knowing that I can extract stills in post-production. But when I did it was nice to have the button right on top next to the zoom. Easy to press without missing a beat on the video recording duties.- The camcorder’s stabilization system is really amazing. I HATE shaky video and it was really minimized with the system in this camera. I’ve seen a some of criticism about this camcorder because of not having the Intelligent Active image stabilization available in 4k, but the Active mode works in 4k and that coupled with the physical vibration-reducing mounting of the lens within the camcorder body still does a really great job.- I only used the wifi capabilities once… after my wife and daughter got soaked on Kali River Rapids they went to the bathroom to dry off and I had some time to kill so I used the in-camcorder editing to view the point where they got soaked, create a couple still images of the event, connect my phone to the camcorder, and transfer the stills to my phone. I then sent the stills out to friends and family. It was awesome. I only wish the 4k wasn’t limited to 30 fps, because this video would have been awesome in slow mo.Things I don’t like:- The display is very glare prone and reflective. There is a normal and bright setting in the menu, and if your environment is bright you’ll want this to be in bright mode for sure. Changing between the two is a bit of a pain as you have to go deep into the menu to do it.- The display is small and it is hard to hit the right button on the screen. I very rarely used the three custom buttons you are allotted, partly for this reason. On several occasions I pressed the wrong one… not the end of the world but something to keep in mind.- Interface is too difficult to navigate. Example: It takes 13 “taps” on the screen to turn the focus magnifier on or off.- The viewfinder only works when flip-out display is closed. And when it is closed you can’t change any settings other than the one setting assigned to the adjustment ring.- Viewfinder is difficult to use if the extended battery is used because the battery sticks out so far.- I only used the viewfinder one time, when I was on a dark ride and didn’t want light emanating from the flip-out display to distract from the experience for other riders.- When zoomed and medium-to-low light, auto focus had a really hard time (using firmware version 1.01). Even when using spot focus and touching the item it still would not focus on it. Had to totally reframe to get it to focus on what I wanted.- It is not easy to control basic settings like shutter speed, iris, or gain, and you can only choose one to manually control at a time. The other two will adjust automatically and there is nothing you can do to change that.- You have to initiate manual control of a setting (shutter speed or iris) to see what it is. Why is this not shown on the screen at all times? Very frustrating. The camera really should have an option for this info (along with gain) be shown on the display at all times.- No custom shooting modes. I would have loved to have the ability to define a custom mode for {4K, 30 FPS, 60 Mbit, 1/60 shutter speed} and another for {HD, 60 FPS, 1/120 shutter speed}.- The door/cover over the microphone line-in and micro USB port opened on me frequently without me intentionally doing it.- It takes several menu selections and few seconds to switch between 4k mode and HD (1080p) mode, and then an unnecessary tap on the OK button to dismiss the window telling me it completed switching modes. Seems like this should be easier to do.- I hate it that you have to have the battery in the camera to charge it. I bought extra batteries and a travel charger and that helped.- The lens is variable aperture from F/2.0 (wide) to F/3.9 (20x zoom). I wish it had a fixed aperture through the full zoom range. This is something to keep in mind when recording in low light especially, as more light will be available to the sensor at wide angle.- BIG GRIPE. I didn’t realize this until after returning home. Every time I formatted the card, file numbering reset at C0001. In the camera settings you can choose “Series” or “Reset”, and I had “Series” selected. I’d expect the number to just keep incrementing even after formatting the card, but that’s not what it does. Perhaps this is a bug in the firmware? Not sure. I had to download a file renaming utility to get these names straightened out – a real pain in the neck. (BTW, at the end of each day I copied the SD card contents to an external HDD using a card reader; I did NOT use the PlayMemories software or transfer directly from the camcorder using the USB cable. Also, I’m planning on doing all my editing using Adobe software, not the included PlayMemories from Sony.)Be aware of the following:- If it is very bright out, the aperture (iris) will be closed down to F/11. Pretty much everything will be in focus. An ND filter on the front of the camera will be necessary if you want shots with a more open aperture so you can get those DSLR-like blurry backgrounds in bright light.- 5.1 sound only enabled when recording in AVCHD (read that to mean not 4k). For this reason I never used it. Didn’t even test it. Wasn’t interested in it at all. Sales gimmick?- Digital Image Zoom (250x) looks terrible. It’s bad, really bad.- Night shot mode is enabled by physical button on the camera, but the night shot light is enabled within the menu structure. The light does not have much range at all – only a few feet. The night shot mode has a physical button directly above the power button and is the same size and shape. I missed a shot by pressing the power button instead of the night shot button by mistake.- There is no neck strap provided. You will really want a strap of some kind. I used a Quick Release Sling Shoulder Neck Strap and it was AWESOME.- What the heck is Clear Image Zoom (CIZ)? I tried to figure this out and I will explain what I think. I think for this camera it means that the video that will be recorded is using slightly less area on the sensor than it normally would, and thus in order to maintain a 4k resolution some pixels in the final video are interpolated (in camera up-scaling). Essentially it is a type of digital zoom. The remaining portion of the sensor, the area around the edges of the recorded video, is then used to stabilize the image (reduce shake). Note that when Intelligent Active or Active steady shot are enabled that CIZ is enabled as well. My assumption is that with Intelligent Active, more edge area is used for stabilization and thus a smaller sensor area for actual recording, thus more pixel interpolation. Regardless, CIZ seems to do a good job. For my purposes I doubt I could ever tell if it was on or off.Here were some usage tips I made for myself before the trip. You may find them helpful.1. In low light environment, shoot wide angle to take advantage of the F/2.0 aperture that lets in more light. Hopefully the gain will be lower and thus the video will not be as noisy.2. Use Low Lux setting for “must-capture” events in low light. The video will be very noisy so don’t use it if you don’t have to do so. Try night shot if it is very dark vs using the Low Lux mode.3. For the maximum field of view, use Standard Steady Shot or Off. Intelligent Active or Active will crop in on the image a significant amount.- NOTE: Steady shot will change the field of view quite a bit. It’s hard to quantify, but it’s like the difference between a 24 mm and a 30 mm focal length on a camera if that makes sense to you. ○ Intelligent Active (clear image zoom will be enabled). Not available in 4k, I’m guessing that this is not available in 4k probably because it would look bad with all the interpolated pixels from CIZ. ○ Active (clear image zoom will be enabled) – has the same field of view as Intelligent Active. This mode is available in 4k. ○ Standard and Off. Both of these have the same FOV, which is wider than the other two options. ○ When switching between 4k and HD the last used steady-shot setting for the resolution is retained.4. If it is very bright out, aperture will be closed down to F/11. Everything will be in focus. When it is dark the aperture will open up the full amount, you may want to consider turning on focus peeking if manually setting the focus.5. Steady shot doesn’t help small camera “movements”, only shake. Keep the camera as steady as possible and don’t expect steady shot to work miracles.6. If Intelligent Active or Active steady shot are not needed, use Standard steady shot. This will keep clear image zoom off. (Clear image zoom which adds pixels to the image.)This ended up being way longer than I expected.

    396 people found this helpful

47. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    John – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Love this video camera

    I’ve owned like 4 of this same model over the years. I’m a PI and use it daily. I recommend them to all of my employees. Hard to find a video camera with an eyepiece anymore and they are so beneficial to get a steady shot. It’s also great to have Night Shot vision and to be able to put the auto/manual focus on the button on the outside front of the camera.Sony truly makes the best video cameras and have for the 35 years I’ve been a PI.

    3 people found this helpful

48. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    XOR42 – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Perfectly balanced set of features for *ITS* category & price – can’t be beat.

    Quick’n’Dirty SUMMARY (pending a later proper edition):Discounting features that are beyond the scope of the AX53’s category/price, like multiple lens adjuster rings, and fast focus at max stabilization, the AX53 is without peer.Its only competitor is its discontinued predecessor, the NX30, with its superb XLR handle audio mixer and a really cool but totally gimmicky LED projector, but, even used, the NX30 still runs 2x more money!The icing on the AX53’s cake is its gyro gimballed focus cage (Sony’s “BOSS” system) which only exists on 2 other Sony models in this category and NOT at all in other brands. Despite those who think other units w/o a gimballed lens (like the pricer NX80) are great “run and gun” cams, well, they DEFINITELY have not experienced a B.O.S.S. cam. I can only suggest they try an NX30 or AX53 before making such a judgement.This model truly is a Run’n’Gun cam — Rock steady whilst standing, quite steady whilst walking, usably steady whilst trotting, and acceptably steady whilst running. It seems the judgement of such things is swayed by a huge demographic that thinks cellphone videos are good — complete with constant inane jerking. What I call nominally steady is the limit of axial skewing you get with a 20-30lb shoulder mounted pro camera. To wit: Not being readily noticeable that its not on a tripod. Well, the Sony BOSS units perform THAT well!BOTTOM LINE:For me, there are simply no other choices under $1K. The menus are a good blend of options, touch screen, and logical layout (for Sony) – unlike the terrible blend of the same things on the much pricier NX80.Ps. Low Light:Ah, then there’s the low light performance with its small sensor and F2.0 aperture. It is very good unlike the NX80 with a large 1″ sensor but VERY slow F2.8 aperture. The theory is that a larger sensor with the same resolution as a smaller one, has larger pels (sensor elements). The larger the pel, the more photons it might catch. However, with a much slower F2.8 aperture and a higher resolution (smaller pels), you lose that effect and it ends up FAR worse. To compensate for this shortcoming, the NX80 ramps up the video gain 20x or more to achieve what the AX53 already does. So, this “little brother” handily outperfoms the NX80 in low light.NEGATIVES:Of course such a low price, there are negatives. There always are some at ANY price!Some fault the single lens control ring and lack of total manual mode. But neither do other units at the same or lower price!On my absolute quality scale, I’d give it a 3/5 stars. On my realistic scale which is weighted to compensate for the limits of what is being manufactured in the same price class, I give this unit 5 stars w/o hesitation.Will it work for YOU?I can’t answer that and I am sure it won’t for anyone requiring features it, and its siblings, simply don’t have. Nothing you can do about that! Just know this unit has a great blend of features, value, usabillity, and best of breed stabilization.That’s all for now, Stay tuned for a proper eval at a later date.~ fin~

    2 people found this helpful

49. 

    Rated 4 out of 5

    Guobe – March 9, 2024

    4.0 out of 5 stars

    Firmware 1.02 – Fixed Issue with Tripod

    I got this camcorder when it was first available in Amazon. The reason I decided to have it is that I have owned other models of Sony consumer camcorders, Hi8, 8mm and HDR ( I skipped HDD model due to its heaviness).The events for me to use the camcorder are the dancing performed on the stage, school orchestra concert, figure skating, family reunions, birthday parties,etc.Amazingly, this camcorder performed very well when I tested it out until I put it on a tripod for a dancing event. I was shocked on how shaking of this camcorder was whenever I touch it for taking a photo, titling or panning.I was about to return it to Amazon purely due to this issue. The reasons I didn’t return it are that I really liked my previous camcorders from Sony and I couldn’t find any other available models that were close to this one in term of features and price. So I tried to workaround of this issue: to not use tripod;it would perform very well for the same situation, to use a phone APP as a remote control (only start/stop rec. though) , or to use monopod in stead of tripod.I was also expecting a firmware update that would come out soon;I believed this issue could be fixed with a software upgrade. It looks like that Sony did listen to the consumers of this camcorder.The firmware 1.02 version was released in September to “Improve the stability of your images when using a tripod in pan or tilt operations”.I took some testing after the upgrade, It is a lot better now to film on a tripod with the new firmware 1.02. With the new firmware, a small icon on the screen shows as either person or tripod to indicate if camcorder is operating on the hand held or tripod mode;it seems trying to make it automatically switching between two modes. Sometime, the icon showed as person even the camcorder is on a tripod. I’d suggest to make the tripod selection as an option in one of the setting up menus.The issue is not completely going away but it is acceptable now in my opinion. The stability has been greatly improved.The firmware upgrade is easy and smooth, which can be done either on Window or Mac. I did it on Mac. The 1.02 version can be download on the official sony support website.

    38 people found this helpful

50. 

    Rated 1 out of 5

    Leedizzal – March 9, 2024

    1.0 out of 5 stars

    I tried to like this camera but it failed miserably at being just an acceptable video camera.

    Well, in a few word I am very disappointed with this camera. I purchased this camera to film lectures and other various general activities. I have not owned a new camcorder in the better part of 15 years. My last camcorder was a Sony TRV-900 still love that camera however the DV tape drive has started having issues camera side still works flawlessly. Aside from being standard definition video its still one of the best camcorders ive owned. This FDRAX52/B on the other hand has got to be one of the worst cameras I have ever owned. I wanted to like this camera so first the positives, it feels like it is quality built and in a very small package. I really like the direct to digital recording onto an SD card, coming from DV tapes this just makes sense. I like the lense shutter guard as well as the auto stabilizing lense works very well and really improves the steadiness of your video images.And that is pretty much where the positives end. Now for the negatives. First off this camera has a very difficult time focusing. At first I thought it just must be me and how I would zoom in on objects but as I would zoom in they would go out of focus very quickley and I would hae to zoom back out and then try to zoom in very slowely and sometimes they would stay in focus and the others it would go out of focus halfway through the zoom range and at full zoom would finally refocus. The camera has a very difficult if not impossible time focusing on bright backlit objects such as a TV, Slide projector, computer screen etc. Just will not focus on the screen at all and if you cannot zoom to make the screen full screen what is the point of the camera. In case anybody reading is wondering if it is the digital zoom no I always have digital zoom turned off. I then attempted to put the camera into manual mode to try and overcome the short comings of the auto focus and much to my shagrin the camera still cannot focus on the screen. it as if the lense sometimes is in the right position but then falls into a bad position I dont know but my TRV-900 never had these problems. Next big thing I dislike about this camera is really the lack of settings that the user can access and take over manual control. I also found the battery life of stock battery to be a pathetic 1.5 hours of continuous recording time perhaps the battery being shipped to me completely dead as in not even able to keep the camera on for a second was part of the problem I dunno. I am very disappointed with the lack of accessories Sony includes with the camera as well. Not to keep bring up the TRV-900 but it came with a remote control, lens hood, floppy drive to record saved images to, DV tape and a charger that can charge the batteries externally as well as power the camera through a cable. This camera came with just a power cord to power the camera that’s it you have to purchase all the other stuff separately and its not like this is a super budge camera its 1k dollars perhaps I should have known this going into buying the camera and I could over look it if performance was awesome. Next thing they do not tell you about this camera is that if you are shooting video in 4k which why would you not want to if you bought this camera at least that Is what I was thinking you can only record audio in stereo sound not the 5.1 channel audio that they advertised as such a great feature. You have to drop down to HD if you want to have 5.1 ch audio.So as I mentioned I wanted to like this camera and gave it many chances to prove itself however when I missed filming a lecture that I had paid $1800 to attend and flew half way across the country for I was more than a little irritated that the camera ended up being so terrible. I ended up simply using my samsung S7 cell phone which performed far better than this dedicated video camera could. So with regret I am sending this POS right back to amazon so they can send it back to Sony and tell them to get it right. Oh I also did a firmware update on the camera in hopes it would fix the issue to version 1.02 but it is still terrible after the firmware update. My advice avoid the AX53 and perhaps look at other brands or Sony’s higher level pro camera albeit they get a lot larger physically. I am in search of another almost prograde video camera in the package size of roughly the AX53 that is pretty much what the TRV-900 was most of the pro features in the package of a consumer grade camera one of the best products sony produced.

    29 people found this helpful

51. 

    Rated 3 out of 5

    kyle – March 9, 2024

    3.0 out of 5 stars

    Owned two, both quit on me.

    I’ve bought 2 of these, yes TWO, and both of them broke after 1.5 years of daily use. Specifically, the touch screen quit working. No way to format card, or change modes. It sucks! I make youtube content, and this is my workhorse…Well, it was. As much as I don’t want to, I’m jumping ship and going with another brand. Aside from that, the camcorder is amazing.

    2 people found this helpful

52. 

    Rated 4 out of 5

    Wildside Nature Tours – March 9, 2024

    4.0 out of 5 stars

    Arrived faster than expected and the image quality is great! The controls are a bit confusing with non-industry …

    Arrived faster than expected and the image quality is great!The controls are a bit confusing with non-industry standard pictographs and icons. And I can’t believe there is no way to easily over-ride the auto exposure for backlit or spotlit subjects. After randomly pressing a bunch of the digital buttons, a backlight setting appeared for 2 seconds and I could never find it again. Not a smart design.

    3 people found this helpful

53. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Overlin – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    This is a very easy to deploy with great video quality camera

    I really like this camera! Great features. The only thing I don’t like is the stability feature. My 17 year old digital 8 does it much much better than this unit. Not a deal breaker, however. Next time, I will shut off the stabilizer. This camera shines for vacation use. I took it to the Canyon and it was easy to deploy. Just remember, this isn’t a professional camera. If you expect to have the flexibility of a pro cam you’ll be dissatisfied. Enjoy! 😀

54. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Greg57 – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Best 4k on the market

    I’ve had this camera for about 6 months, and am extremely pleased with it. This is my first real movie camera. I’ve taken video with my DSLR, but it’s not the same. Still getting used to some of the settings and features. The image stabilization is excellent. The 20×1 zoom is great. The image quality is beyond what I expected. The only negatives are minor. One is the flip out view screen is hard to see in the sun, and the second is the eyepiece could use an eye cup.

    14 people found this helpful

55. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    MarkMark – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    WOW

    this was an upgrade from my sony a5000 series and oh BOY, this is such a well deserved upgrade. I was on the fence between this and the AX33, and I got the 53 because of the improved lowlight that it has over the 33.4k video at 30 FPS 100mb bit rate records beautifully! even near dusk time with minimal noise just as long as you keep the gain locked at 24.over all, this is a very impressive camera and records beautifully!

    11 people found this helpful

56. 

    Rated 1 out of 5

    RugRat – March 9, 2024

    1.0 out of 5 stars

    Sony FDRAX53 4K Camcorder.

    I purchased this from Amazon and it was defective, the image stabilization didn’t work, with camera held steady the lens would climb up to the top left corner and move around all the time, would make you dizzy watching it, I tried every setting, I was shooting 4K video 30fps, 100mbs, I tried to shoot in HD 1080P but did the same. The more you zoomed the worse it was. On top of that if you panned left or right real slow it would lose focus and take 1 to 2 seconds to refocus after you stopped panning, there should be no reason for it to do that. I contacted Sony about this and they wanted me to send them the camera so they could see if a software update could fix the problems, they believed the gyro was defective. But I had already did a replacement with Amazon, but the replacement was almost as bad, almost useable but not quite so sent both back and going to wait and see if Sony fixes the problems. I really want it to work, if they fix the problems will order a new and see what happens. On top of all this you can not use it on a tripod, which is one of the things I really need it to do as I video my friends dance and singing shows they do. Come on Sony get this fixed!!

    14 people found this helpful

57. 

    Rated 3 out of 5

    David – March 9, 2024

    3.0 out of 5 stars

    It’s too dark.

    I planned on doing glamour videos of goth attire, dresses, etc. All the objects appeared to have crushed shadows unless I spot-lit each object. How annoying. Even the “high key” color preset just made the images bland, even after color grading it looked cheap. I ended up returning.I currently use a Sony A6500 mirrorless camera with Neewer 35mm f1.7 lens, and that blows the AX53 out of this world. I can see all the detail in the dark clothing.I should have kept the media test shots, but I didn’t.

    2 people found this helpful

58. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Bright Day – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    The SMOOTHEST camera EVER!!!

    This camera is the best camera anywhere near this price point. The handheld imagery from this camera is the best I have used, almost like a steady camera used on movies, in that the lens uses little motors to keep the lens from shaking while handholding. I can almost shoot like it’s on a tripod. The BOSS stabilization has no equals in the camcorder or DSLR market .There are ways to shoot it semi pro, but you can’t do everything manually, understand it’s limitations, and set yourself free.

    4 people found this helpful

59. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Jorge Almendarez – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    Muy buena calidad de Imágenes y videos

    El Zoom y estabilización

60. 

    Rated 5 out of 5

    Robert Reed – March 9, 2024

    5.0 out of 5 stars

    beautiful pics even at night

    Purchased for Disney vac. Camera was very easy to use on auto settings. It is a little big in the lookhand when shooting nothing that cant be managed. Battery life was good for what i did with it. Stabilization systen on the camera is the best. You wont be disappointed i am not a pro by any means and everything worked perfect.