Well have been on the lookout for my first camcoder for a while.Main concern was my 400$ cut off, so had a look at most of the camcoders in that range. To start - I was undecided on the format- miniDV versus DVD, but looking at the products in the market realised that DVDs were in the passing phase - ie from miniDV to HDD/flash(HD).Since most of the HDD based models were outof reach- mini DV it was.
OVERVIEW Home user miniDV basically means SONY - well after the Canon Eula series was discontinued - the HC 28- 38 - 48 and 96 series models are the line up for 2007-2008. BUILT QUALITY / STYLE The cam looks nice out of the box - the mettalic finish looks and feels nice(pictures dont do justice).All the buttons have a nice and posetive feel to it, expect for the power button, wich is small for large fingers.Has a wide screen 2.7" LCD(unlike HC28/38) and viewfinder. USER INTERFACE The usual controls take up their usual positions and turning the cam on and switching modes is a breeze.
The cam fits snug in the hand and its quite small and light too.Loading the tape and the memory stick is a no brainer. The LCD touch screen is a bit hard to work with initially- as the buttons on it are quite small-fit for children and the menu perse is a bit hard to understand initially.The provided’Easy mode’ really takes all the hazzle out of movie recording.Its the auto mode and suits most situations.The software that runs the menu should have been better designed and the buttons better sized as my fingers hunt for space. RECORDING: Movie recording is quite easy with a single button contolling start/stop, the’zoom’ is also very easy and has three rates of zoom speeds(according to how fast one wants to zoom in and out), with the 25x optical zoom its quite easy(and fun) to look at the craters on the moon! The inbuilt image stabilization does a fair job but goes haywire when shooting in low light and increased exposure settings.
The digital zoom -at 2000X- is a scam. One gripe that I have is that the still pictures that can be shot while video recording is at a much lower resolutuion(VGA) than when using the dedicated still mode and this is a real short coming, speaking of which the still pictures are only of acceptible quality and that too in good outdoor lighted settings.Moreover stills in widescreen mode are recorded in 0.7MP. The’nightshot’ mode provided, which utilizes an inbuilt infrared lamp is there just for the sake of extra features as the image is monochrome and’blurring’ is prominent. Outdoor picture quality is excellent in both widescreen and standard modes.
Playback is straight forward and the picture quality and sound is excellent.The battery lasted about 80 minutes with moderate zooming and playback. DATA TRANSFER The only way of transferring the video is by firewire port and that becomes a hazzle as Sony does not provide the cable for the same and I had to get a firewire adaptor for my laptop to connect the camera and transfer the videos.Still images can be transfered by the supplied USB cable. Drawbacks- -docking station with the connectors is a flimsy idea - thats another hardware to lug around. -No firewire cable is provided. -Night shot/super nightshot mode is a gimik - should give it the pass. -The UI could be better put together. -There is no really useful manual control. -The software provided is horrible.Sony should provide a lite version of their vegas software - I feel.
ROUNDUP Overall happy with the buy.It has 1 MP CCD-decent 25X optical zoom-very good outside images -average indoor images-easy to use-moderate battery life and very good built.GOOD BUY FOR THE PRICE.