HDR-CX405

I am an aspiring actor who purchased this camera and a few other miscellaneous products to aid me in making my own indie films and this camera would be just what you need...The camera is lightweight and compact which means you can easily take it wherever you want without any hassle, although I wouldn't recommend dropping it as you will probably destroy it.The battery lasts about 2 hours which is brilliant for when I am filming for a long period of time, the battery also only takes about 30 minutes to charge.The camera menu is relatively easy to navigate and all of the settings are easy to follow and change, however be warned that the manual is outdated and some features that are given in the manual are not present in the camera.Finally, the quality is fantastic! The camera can record in AVCHD instead of the standard MP4, meaning basically that it looks really good. I honestly thought that I was watching a professional television show when I was watching clips back.I would recommend that you purchase a Sony Micro SD Card as the camera only takes Micro cards, the camera does not come with it's own so make sure to buy one with this product. I personally have a 32gb Sony Micro SD Card and I record up to 3 hours of content in the highest quality and have it processed in seconds with that particular card.Overall, fantastic camera for the price and would recommend it to anyone look to record crisp and realistic video!

I took this with me just a few weeks after buying it after just doing some test shots at home. The quality of the footage that I took is super with the help of some nice features tucked away in the menus.The stillness of 'zoomed' handheld shots is terrific if you use the feature in the menu. Also, if you customise the white balance before taking footage, the results are just stunning. Colour is natural and if you also take the trouble to use a tripod, you'll have people coming in thinking that it's broadcast TV!!The beauty of this camera is the ease of getting it turned on. Just flip it open and you're off. I got many shots on the cuff like this which were brilliant when edited into my end result.Just watch the software that you decide to edit with. The rendering can actually harm the quality that you capture from the camera. I used a Sony programme. Although it's not a brilliant editor, it does the job but the rendering is one of the best I've seen, where I can barely see any difference from the camera original. Some software is clumsy in the way they render, so you end up with uneven motion and artifacts.This is a really useful camera for capturing events very efficiently.

Very simple to use, very small and light and the picture and audio quality is excellent. The big plus on this camcorder against many of its competitors is the wide angle lens. I can now film buildings in full without having to pan up and down or left to right, what a bonus!! Battery life is excellent, I bought a spare battery on eBay for about £4 which performs just as well but have never run out of power during one day. A big improvement on my old Sony which used DV tapes. One big drawback and it is big for somebody my age (pensioner) is the lack of an optical viewfinder. The little fold out screen is fine when the sun does not shine but in sunny weather I can not frame shots precisely and that is with my reading glasses on! Having said that unfortunately none of its competitors offer an optical viewfinder so you are stuck unless you quadruple your budget.

Light, easy to use , reliable, good battery life and gives better videos than mobile phones. The software is easy to use but in some circumstances can be a little confusing. The menu system is not the easiest to use.

I have long been a fan of Sony cameras and camcorders so when it was time to buy another camcorder, the obvious choice was Sony for its picture quality and reliability and, despite some initial disappointments, it has proven to be another good choice.On delivery, my first impression was that it didn’t look the least bit like the Sony quality I expected with its wholly plastic body and it feels lightweight and cheap – not at all what I expected. I was also disappointed to see that it could not record just MP4 files (the ability to film in MP4 format was one of my reasons for buying it) and has to dual record AVCHD and MP4 files together in order to produce MP4 files. Again, I felt let down. I had opened the sealed box so was committed to keeping it and making the best of it – and I am so glad I did.Despite initial doubts the camcorder is actually very good. Start-up is almost instant simply by opening up the monitor and opening the lens cover which takes perhaps a second and then it’s ready for filming. It will film in 4 AVCHD formats (long play 5M, standard 9M, HQ 17M and Highest Quality 25M) with the option of recording the second smaller file in MP4 format ‘for sharing’. Although this is not a feature I particularly wanted, it has actually proven very useful. I film in the highest 25M resolution for ‘professional’ work for files which are to be edited then use the smaller MP4 files for Facebook and YouTube uploads and this dual-recording system actually works very well – to my surprise.The camcorder menu system is accessed via a jog shuttle/joystick controller above the monitor, although I would have preferred a touch-screen (unlikely to be offered at this price!). At first it felt quite fiddly but after a few hours of use, it became second nature to use it and navigate the various menus which include resolution sizes, still picture size, picture effects, zoom mic, lox lux filming, white balance, exposure, manual focus, shutter speed and frame rate (50P or 50i). In practice, I find myself sticking to the ‘auto’ mode which has proven completely reliable.Sony’s optical image stabilisation is always good and this is no exception, but a tripod is still recommended if using the top end of the zoom. The camcorder has a 30x optical zoom supplemented by a further 30x ‘clear image zoom’ giving a total zoom length of 60x. Personally, I am less keen on the additional zoom where quality is lost and there seems to be no option to disable this so I have to remember to only use the first half of the zoom which involves some guesswork.Charging is via the nifty USB cable which clips into the hand-strap. It is quite short but an extension cable is provided so it can be connected to a computer, laptop or powerbank for charging. It uses widely-available NP-BX1 batteries which offer a good life of several hours stop-start filming. However, if the camcorder is going to be used regularly, ie daily as mine is, then I would recommend buying an external mains and 12v charger plus a few spare batteries which are available together on Amazon for about £12 for non-Sony branded yet seem to work just as well.This camcorder offers a lot of features and performance and has more than redeemed itself for its unexpectedly-plastic build quality and having given it a thorough testing as a casual user who also films semi-professionally for news agencies and TV companies, it is a camcorder I would happily recommend to a novice or more experienced user and I would happily buy it again. It also offers very good value for money and I doubt that any other brand could match the performance at this price.STRENGTHS* Very good picture quality* Smooth zoom* Range of filming resolutions* Good stereo mic records clear and crisp audio with good volume* Can take a still image while recording* Neat USB charging cable tucked into hand-strap* Very good battery life* Tripod socket on base* Easy menu system with many user options* Excellent ‘auto-everything’ mode* Very lightweight, compact and portable* Extra batteries available for about £5-£6 (non-Sony)WEAKNESSES* Build quality isn’t up to Sony’s usual standards* Cannot disable the ‘clear image zoom’* Joystick menu controller may be fiddly for larger fingers* Probably wouldn’t survive a drop