Sony DSCHX90V/B Digital Camera with 3-Inch LCD (Black)

For years, I've been a dedicated DSLR user, with my Canon 40D and a slew of lenses being my "serious" camera. I have also become quite adept at producing some surprisingly good pictures from my iPhone 6S, which I have often used as my travel camera. Looking for something much smaller than my Canon DSLR, and more versatile than my smartphone, I purchased the Sony HX90V. It was a toss-up between this camera and the Panasonic Lumix, but I did not need RAW shooting and thought the GPS on the Sony was a nice feature, and one not offered in the Panasonic. I have now put this camera through a couple of weeks of use and, I must admit, am quite impressed with its feature set and image quality. Using either of its two "auto" modes, the images are crisp with excellent exposure, focus, and color saturation. It has a variety of shooting modes available, and all seem to work well. I was surprised at how simple things were, with macro and anti-shake functions engaging when needed. The control ring on the lens is smooth and acts as a manual zoom in auto mode. It's function changes with the mode being used, and it works well as a manual focus ring when in that mode. The pop-up EVF is clear and has a simple diopter adjustment. It can be set to activate when it senses your eye next to it, which is the default setting. It can also be set to turn off the camera when closed. The EVF must be pulled to the rear after it's opened, which can be awkward. The buttons on the rear of the camera are rather small; much smaller than any other camera I've used. This means that the easiest way to access the functions you want is with a fingernail rather than just pressing a button with your finger. It is different, but not very difficult to adjust to. The on/off button is recessed, and also really requires a push with a nail. The wifi software provided is enough to pair your phone with the camera, but it is anything but intuitive to use. With an IOS device, it requires several steps. The Fn button on the camera must be pushed while in view mode, and a picture or pictures selected for transfer. After you initialize the transfer process, you must then go to your phone's settings menu and select the Sony SSID. After that is checked, you then close your settings and open the Sony app on the phone. At that point, the pictures will start loading on to your iPhone. The transfer itself is very fast, and the new photos show right up in your All Photos folder. The Sony app to remotely control your camera is very awkward and not at all user friendly. One excellent feature is the "selfie" feature, which i part of the pivoting LCD screen. When you flip the screen up fully, the "selfie" mode is enabled and a time delay is part of that mode. It is quite clever. Low light shooting is this camera's supposed Achilles heel, but I have yet to experience any significant noise at higher ISO settings. In normal shooting, and at reasonable ISO levels, this is a non-issue anyway. The 30x optical zoom is amazing, but I would advise against using the extended digital zoom, which can degrade or crop the image. In any case, it can be quite challenging to keep this tiny camera steady at very high zoom ranges. I think this is a fantastic little camera, offering virtually every feature any photographer would want. I don't see the lack of RAW format as a real disadvantage for this camera's intended audience, since most would find the JPEG quality to be more than acceptable. One recommendation to anyone buying this camera would be to immediately go to the Sony online manual for this camera. It is a very inclusive and well written description of every function of this camera. The documentation with the camera is basic and not very informative. Small size, formidable zoom, excellent image quality, versatile preset modes, manual controls, GPS, a very usable EVF, and wifi image transfers make this one of the finest compact cameras in its class. In my opinion, it is worth the price and produces images that can rival the finest DSLR cameras out there. It gets my strong recommendation.

My camera cam last night and so far it is very impressive. I'm wring this review to help people with downloading some of the features as it was a very frustrating process (Shame on Sony!) and I want to try to help. I also comment on the viewfinder as I wear bifocals and am questioning whether it was worth the extra $100. When you buy the camera give yourself 2 hours if you want to get apps downloaded and know that you're probably going to have to connect to a computer to do it. Apps that should have been included on the camera need to be downloaded and it isn't as easy as it should be in a plug and play world. Many people are going to want to do this because the sync to cell phone feature seems attractive for travel and so does the ability to take remote photos for group photos. To download the apps you first need to register with the Playstation network and download the Sony PlayMemories app to you telephone, tablet and/or computer, so you'll need a smartphone, tablet or computer, and patience as it wasn't the clearest process and involves verifying your e-mail. None of it worked as smoothly as other things I've registered for. Next, I tried to use my new account to download the software through the camera - BIG MISTAKE! You have to enter your e-mail address (not your user name) and password, and the connection to the network doesn't work, so each time you try you have to enter it again. This never worked for me after multiple tries! (I want the name and telephone number for the software engineer who set it up this way to give him/her an earful.) Thankfully I was able to connect the camera to the computer, download software to the computer and register online. Next, I tried to download the apps via Google Chrome, which did not work. Using Firefox I was able to download them slowly and one at a time. Instructions weren't very clear to me, possibly because of age, but any event it worked. Also the webiste was buggy and didn't let me go back easily to the page with the others apps to download, but I finally realized you have to go through path message to get back to the page with the other apps you may want to download. MY MESSAGE TO SONY - MAKE THIS AUTOMATIC ONCE A CAMERA OWNER CONNECTS TO A WIFI NETWORK OR COMPUTER!!! THE LITTLE BIT OF USER INFORMATION YOU ARE GETTING CAN BE OBTAINED THROUGH REGISTRATION AND WITHOUT FRUSTRATING THE BUYER!!!!!! Connecting the camera to an iphone works, but might not be intuitive to you. One place referred how to connect using my iphone as a network hotspot, a feature I don't use on my iphone. Luckily I found the instructions that tell you to USE THE CAMERA AS NETWORK ON YOUR WIFI setting on the iphone (SETTINGS, GENERAL, WIFI ...). When I first tried it, it wasn't there, but after a little while it popped up. You then need to enter the password the camera displays in the PlayMemories app, not the settings. Another thing I noticed is that the sync to telephone feature defaults to auto sync, which means when you turn off the camera it tries to connect to your telephone and sync the photos. If you are on a wifi network it won't work and the camera will keep looking for the connection burning through battery. The reason is that you need to go into settings and turn on the camera is the wifi network for this to work. (Obviously if you already had the camera as the wifi network this should work fine.) I turned the auto sync feature off. Everyone I talked to said get the viewfinder for sunny days. I listened. I wear bifocals and so far I have mixed impressions. I'll post on this once I use it more. I will say that I wish that the viewfinder was a little more rigid in place and that the diopter adjustment was easier. It works, but because the camera automatically switches back and forth between viewfinder and display, it is a pain. Also, I wasn't able to adjust it enough to use without glasses although that might be the solution for other people. I'm glad that the camera gives me some options about use, and I may just need to change settings. I also found the electrical viewfinder to be very different than the SLR and rangefinder cameras I've used in the past, as well as the older Olympus and Nikon digital cameras I used in the past. Once I use it for awhile, I may edit this and provide more info. The display and viewfinder do have an unbelievable amount of information available. I dimmed the display to save on battery life and it may have also dimmed the viewfinder - I can't tell yet. The pop up flash works and I understand the value of having it higher above the lens, but I still might prefer a flash I don't have to pop up.

I should probably say first that I am a huge fan of Sony cameras. I have a Sony DSLR and 2 previous HX models. First, if you are wanting this camera to perform like a DSLR, this camera will not do that. It is still a point and shoot with a small sensor. As long as you are aware of this limitation, then you will probably be pleasantly surprised. I purchased this camera mainly for use at concerts, going to places like Seaworld, video recording my daughters dance performances, and just general photography. I do have a DSLR but I find that its size and weight prevents me from using it very often. There is nothing wrong with my other HX models but the 30x optical zoom on this camera in a small body was just too much to pass on. My favorite feature of this camera is the control ring. I thought it would be the zoom, but it's definitely the control ring. I find myself shooting in S mode quite often at concerts and the control ring allows me to easily and quickly make adjustments in the dark. This is wonderful!! My least favorite feature is how the pop-up viewfinder works. It pops up but then you have to pull part of the eye piece towards you to get it to work. Its a little cumbersome, but not terrible. The size is nice. Since this was going to be my main concert camera size was extremely important. Most venues do not allow any camera with a detachable lens or one where the lens extends beyond a certain length. My larger HX (sorry, I dont know the model number off the top of my head but its in the "bridge camera" size range) would often give me issues. I would have to explain that no, the lens does not detach but sometimes they still didn't want to let me in with it. I am confident that I will not have that problem with this camera. I know there are lighter and smaller cameras out there but I'm not sure if any of them pack so much into them. The grip took a little getting used to as the body is slightly different than my other HX model, but that was nothing significant. The record button for video recording is in a much better position now and can be found easily in the dark. The menus and scene selections are very intuitive, particularly if you have ever used a Sony camera before. The battery life is as expected. I had no problems during a 3 hour concert taking stills and videos about 40% of the time. The picture and video quality was what I would expect from Sony and this type of camera. It works excellent in great lighting, struggles a bit in low light. I'm not one of those that zooms in at 100% and looks for purple fringing, noise, and so forth. I also don't do large prints - 8x10 maximum, but mostly 4x6. I found the concert images were better than expected. This is really putting the device to its maximum capabilities. I know I'm not going to get perfect images when you zoom in at 30x optical from really far away. But I could tell who I was taking pictures of and wide angle shots caught some really beautiful mood pictures of the overall stage. I was impressed that the camera was able to capture the colors in almost the same hue as I was seeing with my eyes. I've noticed that at concerts cameras tend to not be able to capture the stage lighting well. Purples come out as blue, and so forth. With some experiments with the settings, this camera did a pretty decent job. The tilting screen is nice to have on such a small camera. I kind of wish that it rotated in the opposite direction so that you could hold the camera above your head and use the lcd screen, but this is a minor issue. It worked well for taking a selfie. Overall I am very pleased with this camera. I would definitely recommend it to others.

I've purchased and used consumer compact digital cameras since 1999. I upgrade every couple of years, so I've owned quite a few cameras now. This is the first camera that has stopped working on me. I bought it for a vacation to Yellowstone and it stopped working after taking only a few photos at the park, leaving me stranded with only my camera phone. This was my first purchase of a sony camera and I could not be more disappointed. The particular symptom was that the lens seemed to be letting no light at all to the sensor. The camera itself was otherwise functional -- I could turn it on, see the LCD display, and even take pictures -- but the actual images (including the live LCD display) were completely black. The camera was still trying to take pictures in "low light" mode, indicating that perhaps the lens aperture was permanently closed. Overall, I did like the feel of the body and the feature set. I was concerned about the flimsy nature of the pop-up flash and viewfinder, though -- it seemed like they could easily accumulate grime and grit, or just plain break off. Unfortunately, I'll never get to test the longevity of these parts, as I've returned this camera in favor of a Panasonic. Luckily, I was able to process the return via amazon rather than having to deal with Sony's poorly-reputed warranty program. Buy this camera at your own risk.

After researching a lot, I finally decided to upgrade my Sony HX50V for the HX90V (strangely, at the time there were very few comparisons between the two models that went beyond cut-and-dry specs). I carry a dSLR with a big heavy lens for wildlife and birds, and a compact camera that will take decent landscape shots is a must for me. This was a worthy upgrade, and I will explain why. 1. Viewfinder. I read a lot of complaints about the finnicky push button --> pull out viewfinder mechanism, but I've had no issues with it whatsoever (granted, I use this camera mostly to take landscape shots, but I think almost everyone knows this is not the adequate machine to photograph birds in flight, lions charging, pianos falling from buildings, etc.). The viewfinder is a most welcome addition, since in bright sunlight the screen can hardly be seen for the glare (a common problem with all cameras with no viewfinders). Very helpful to compose shots better and actually see what you are photographing. 2. Form factor and build quality. It is smaller than the HX50V, truly pocketable. I found that holding this camera firmly and steadily is actually easier than it was with the previous model. The grip on the right side, albeit small, is very anti-slip, better than in the HX50V. Complaints about build quality, plasticky feel and flimsiness, in my experience, do not proceed. I stupidly dropped the camera twice on a recent trip (nothing to do with the grip). Once it landed on packed dirt and rocks. That sinking feeling of watching your beloved electronic device falling in slow motion, and the mental image that follows a nanosecond later -- the noise of technology and dollars shattering and tiny bits of camera spewed all over the ground --, was replaced by a huge sigh of relief when I picked up my camera, turned it on and realized it was working. Zero damage. 3. The ring. Works really well for zooming in auto mode, setting aperture, etc. in other modes or fine-tuning focus in DMF. This is a really nice addition, making shooting quicker and enabling more control over settings. 4. Tilting screen. Although it flips in a vertical direction (the hinge is on the top, so this is not the swiveling screen you'll find in other cameras, where the hinge is on the left side) and intuitively the best position to use it is to hold the camera upside down, it is useful in some situations -- selfies or shooting something close to the ground, for instance. The HX90V makes great video, a resource I only use occasionally. Focus is bang-on and the quality, outstanding. I do wish the HX90V had a touch screen to help set focus points, but this gripe goes back to the HX50V, too. Maybe Sony will implement it in a future iteration of the line. No RAW capability is no deal-breaker for me in this kind of camera, as .jpg results have been pretty good. And the GPS continues to work well (the absence of GPS would have been a deal-breaker for me, and that explains why the Panasonic contender in this camera category wasn't even considered in the upgrade). Wi-fi doesn't matter to me one way or the other, and the only time I used it was when playing around with the camera to see if it worked. All in all, I'm happy with the HX90V and feel that this was a good step up for my needs.

I've been waiting a long time for this camera. I never pre-order cameras but when I read the specs on this a few months ago I decided to risk it. The elements that caught my eye were: electronic viewfinder, purported low-light sensitivity, 30X zoom, and integration with smartphone. I'd characterize myself as an advanced amateur user. Meaning I like to learn all the functions and play with different features and mode. I've also been disappointed many times by cameras with poor low-light performance and poor focusing, so those are particularly important to me. Having said that, here's my review after 2 days of using. Interface: I've used Panasonics before so switching to a Sony took a while to get used to. There are lots of rings and dials and very tiny buttons. If you have fat fingers, don't get this camera. My fingers are average for a guy and I do have to be careful where I press. If you leave settings on full auto of course you don't need to use buttons, but if you want to control a lot of settings, then you do. One nice positive is the big control ring around the lens. It can be used to adjust shutter speed and aperture. Viewfinder: You have to manually pop up the viewfinder with a tiny slider. I'm somewhat nearsighted (-1.50) but the diopter adjustment was easy and I have no problem seeing perfectly clear through it. The viewfinder is high enough resolution that I can actually see that the image is focused. Lots of information is also presented in the display. Display: The main display is great and I like the fact that it can pivot 180 degrees up to do selfies, and also is good for taking pictures close to the ground. It also can display whether the camera is level, which is great for shooting landscapes with horizons. It is also good enough in bright sunlight, though in such situations I do prefer the viewfinder. Low light: Low light performance is above par for a camera with such a small sensor. Sony has a nice feature where it will take multiple fast exposures and blend them together to achieve a low-noise yet non-blurry low light image. I've included an example of that. Zoom: the 30X optical zoom is amazing. I've include pictures comparing full-wide to full-zoom. On other 30X cameras I've tried, the long end of the range is almost always unusably blurry. With this camera, it is quite acceptable and even impressive from the samples I've uploaded. Dynamic range: The camera has 3 modes - regular mode, expanded dynamic range mode, and HDR. Photos with HDR do look a bit odd, but the camera does a great job of blending multiple shots together without blurring. I didn't spend a lot of time playing with these modes, but most people will leave it on the expanded dynamic range mode and let the camera decide when to activate HDR and by how much. Video: The camera promises 5-axis stabilization. It does work quite well as my hands have tremors and I'm usually disappointed with handheld videos from my smartphone and previous cameras. I shot a video rapidly changing subjects far and near and moving the zoom a lot, and the camera kept up the whole time without doing that annoying "focus search" that other cameras seem to do whenever the subject changes. I'd give it high marks for being intelligent. Conclusion: I wanted a great pocket-sized camera that works for travel, indoor parties, and some fine photography such as flowers, landscapes, and portraits. I believe I've found the camera with the best of all worlds, without excessive compromise. Would I get better images from a 1" sensor? Probably, but then I'd sacrifice the zoom. If I were to have just one camera, this would be it.

I bought this camera to replace my Panasonic TZ3, which was working fine until I accidentally dropped it. I looked for a camera that is small enough to carry in my pocket like the TZ3. Because I often take pictures on the beach in bright sunlight I was looking for a camera with an EVF. After reviewing several cameras my options were the Panasonic DMC ZS40, DMC ZS50 and the Sony DSCHX90V. I chose for the Sony because of the pivoting LCD-monitor. To my surprise, the Sony DSCHX90V is almost identical in size as the TZ3. As odd as it may seem, I'm going to compare the Sony with my TZ3. Of course not technically but on quality and ergonomics. The TZ3 is sturdy and has round corners. It's easy to drop in it's pouch and then putting in- and taking out of your pocket. The Sony on the other hand although well built, has sharp corners, making it less "pocket-able". That's why I purchased the Sony LCJHWA/B Jacket Case to hang it around my neck. I have trouble too managing the buttons. They are small and almost flush to the body. Sometimes I have to push it more than once before it's activated. In darkness I even have trouble finding them, where as the buttons of TZ3 are rounded and are easy distinguishable. Now about the quality of the glass of the LCD-monitor. I have the Sony just a couple of months and it already got some scratches. The TZ3 on the other hand I have used extensively for many years, still there are no noticeable scratches on it's screen. So far the comparison between the two cameras. Now I want to elaborate about the pop-up viewfinder and pop-up flash. Although they are working fine, it takes extra time to get your camera ready for shooting, especially with the viewfinder. You first pop it up with one finger, but then I need two hands to pull out the eyepiece. Notwithstanding, the Sony DSCHX90V/B is a marvelous piece of technology with a quality lens to guarantee for making good photos or videos. But if I have to choose again I would opt for the (newer) Panasonic DMC-ZS60. For a couple of bucks more you even get 4K. But for me it's the ergonomics that count.

The Sony HX90V offers great functionality and a nice shooting experience but ultimately, even considering its sensor size, image quality falls short with detail smearing down at the lowest ISOs when blown up to anything larger than web size photos. While I realize that they have decreased the MP slightly on this model, I still think 18MP is way too much for a camera with a 1/2.3" sensor. I kind of feel, for an enthusiast-oriented megazoom, they should've gone with something like 12MP like Panasonic did for its Lumix ZS50. Detail smearing due to noise reduction is visible at reduced sizes at base ISO. Most pedestrian point and shoot cameras these days should at least be able to give you the ability to blow up your prints at ISO100. RAW capture is also not available on this model, which is unfortunate, because you can customize the level of noise reduction applied and potentially get better photos than what they out of camera JPEGs display.To balance this out, color and exposure are pretty good. The camera doesn't blow out highlights as badly as some of its peers. It's unfortunate that image quality falls short because, otherwise, this is a nice camera to use. The autofocus is fast and mostly on target. The image stabilization works well. And the viewfinder is actually very nice, despite being a lower resolution than the ones found in the RX100 series cameras. Battery life is also pretty good. The LCD screen on back is pretty good as well. I have not shot with the Panasonic ZS50 so I can't really comment on overall image quality compared to this camera, but, the fact that you can shoot RAW gives it a leg up over the Sony. If you never really blow up your photos at all, then this might be an alright choice. But if you at least want to make larger prints from images at base ISO in good light, I would look elsewhere.

Great alternative to the more costly RX100. This is a camera that works well under good light. In dim conditions, the quality of the pictures suffer. Overall, a recommended camera for recreational use and portability.

Nunca me llegó, espere por 3 semanas y nada. Muy mal, no he vuelto a encontrar el producto. Una pena

Great camera, we love it and fit in a pocket.

Sony Cams are the best Good quality and easy to use

Very nice camera I really like it.