Excellent camera for price.
This is my 3rd Sony P&S camera and by far the best.. I have owned SLR but wanted the versatility of the 50X zoom, and the CMOS chip. I just took pictures of my grandson 's graduation shooting from the stands about a hundred feet away for a close-up of his face and the image was great but what blew my mind was it picked up a single wild blond hair of the girl next to him. Amazing detail, excellent color, great viewfinder - I really like the camera. I shot a recent baseball game in which he pitched using the 11 frames per second and froze his pitch halfway between him and the batter. I also find the 11 F/S great for street photography with people for it allows you to catch some very interesting facial expressions.
I belong to a camera club with some members using very expensive SLRs and lens. I have found I can compete with them because of the HX400V's versatility. Don't have to change lens to catch a changing scene so I have gotten shots others missed on field trips. Bugs some that my $450 camera competes with their $5-10K rigs.
My first digital camera was a Minolta which Sony bought and has continually increased the quality and cutting edge features. I've found Nikon and Canon users are rally amazed at Sony's quality products. You can download the camera guide book from Sony's site to print out a larger easier to read instruction manual. Read the manual and you will be delighted with all this camera can do.
I consistently print 11x17 inch inkjet images of my selected pictures that are very sharp and colorful with great quality and win club awards.
So this camera is a real deal for the money.