Sony FDRAX53/B 4K HD Video Recording Camcorder (Black)

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Product Specifications

4K XAVC-S recording with 16.6MP, Exmor R sensor, B.O.SS stabilization
ZEISS lens(26.8mm) 20x optical zoom in 4K, 30x Clear Image Zoom in 4K
3.0” LCD (Touch panel), EVF, Wi-Fi/NFC, manual ring, night shot, 4K Time-lapse capture
Refer user manual below.

Product Description

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Product Reviews

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.

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!

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 (2736x1824) 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.

Four Stars

Very good quality videos and photos

File Size Limit Does Not Apply! Great!

When I was considering buying this camcorder, I was concerned that there was a file size limit, like there was on my old camcorder.

Five Stars

Very good product

120 fps with sound is great. I don’t have the tripod instability issues since …

The slow-mo 1080p, 120 fps with sound is great. I don’t have the tripod instability issues since I had the the latest software installed.

NOT ready for Prime Time.

Very strange mixture of Excellent and Horrible. Can’t mix many features. If you want feature A and B, you can’t have C. If you want B and C, you can’t have A.

Five Stars

No issues, worked as advertised on all features

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].