Camcorder Reviews

This cable works fine: no directions needed, and it automatically alerts the computer (at least it does mine: I use Apple's iPhoto) that the camera is plugged in, which means the necessary software is launched without any effort on the part of the user. What's more, if you own any of the excellent Sony Cybershot cameras, this is the only choice available for downloading photos to your computer.

But if you do use this, be sure to unplug the cable from the camera as soon as the download is complete. If you don't, you may learn as I did that the product has one design flaw: even a moderate amount of pressure on the camera with the plug still in could tilt the camera bend the end of the cable, pulling the metal part from the plastic and rendering the whole thing useless. Which explains why I'm on this page ordering a replacement.

I just received my HB-207 two days ago and so far I am very impressed. This is my first camera backpack ever. It seems very well made, has lots of room and is very comfortable on my shoulders. It is very well balanced and easy to carry by the handle on top. I like the option of attaching a tripod or monopod on either side or the back. All that at a price that is highly competitive when compared with better known brands.

When I bought this camera I assumed it had flash, it doesn't. It only takes good pictures in certain lighting and the pixel quality is not as good as I thought it would be either. Also it goes through batteries really fast.

This product is horrible, I brought this cam thinking the digital pictures would be great, they were horrible, NO FLASH, not many functions of selecting picture quality such as contrast. The cam is horrible both inside and outside. I wanted to take pictures of items that I made, but I spent over 30 minutes to take one picture that was clear. You have to supply your own batteries vs other cams it comes with a battery that you can recharge, so that was another waste of money. I will never buy a cam from this company again.

I'm reading some of the reviews, and I just don't get it. First it does come with batteries. It also does have a place for extended memory which I highly recommend. I purchased a 512MB for $20.00. I mean I don't know anybody that only keeps the internal memeory. Most only have about 32MB, and that's not enough for any camera. The only thing missing is a flash, which is included in the 8200, but the megapixels is only 3.0 compared to the 5200's 5.4. Fot the small price and nice specs you can't go wrong otherwise just spend 2,3 hundred and get something better. You get what you pay for. Pay $20,000 and buy a Hyundai or pay $60,000 and buy a Mercedes. Both will get you around town. This is a great little item, but it's not a $300.00 camera.

This is a good camcorder for those starting out shooting digital video. If you already have a camcorder or are looking for something to make movies fit for Sundance submission with, this camcorder probably isn't for you.

The Pros:
It's very easy to learn how to use -- READ THE MANUAL! It's very easy to convert and control with Mac OS X & iMovie. The battery lasts a long time -- about 2 hours of shooting time (that's 2 DV tapes-full). Makes acceptable still frames, but not print quality, to share as e-photos with friends. (See some pictures I uploaded as examples.) Outdoor shooting resolution is acceptable.

The Cons:
Indoors the pictures are pretty grainy, regardless of the special settings you use. You need a LOT of indoors light to get the graininess out of the film. Graininess is worse if you re-use your DV tapes. USE NEW TAPES EVERY TIME. After fooling around with the special settings, other than "automatic," I couldn't really tell any significant difference between them. You can't tell what the special settings are doing in real-time, you can only see it on playback. The digital zoom says it goes to 20x, but you need a tripod for this kind of zooming because the there is NO "steadycam" help on the digital zoom. Also, the picture degrades significantly at the far end of the digital zoom. (The regular zoom works better.) For my Mac, I had to buy a $6 cable to convert the digital video to firewire.

SPECIAL NOTE: This camera is FABULOUS for translating your analog VHS tapes into digital format. It's soooo easy. With a Mac, all you need is the $6 cable mentioned above. The digital converter comes standard inside as part of the camera. I was able to take my wedding video on VHS, play it on my VCR, then through the camcorder and onto my Mac. I then used my Mac to make a DVD of our wedding -- a medium that lasts much longer than magnetic tapes like VHS! There was no generation loss of quality in this transfer.

NOISE: Some reviewers have commented on the camera's "noise". I have NO trouble with mine making extra noise.

Operative phrase: "for the money." Honestly, I am really surprised at how well this camera has performed over the last 8 months since I bought it. I have had excellent performance in color, the widescreen is SO much cleaner and crisper than the older Sony unit I was using previously. Even when exporting to Pinnacle Studio, and rendering to DVD - the resolution and saturation were wonderful. Is it HD? no. Will it record in 24 FPS? no. Did it beat the hell out of my expectations for a 300 bones camcorder? Absolutely!

I almost forgot to mention: the windscreen on the mic works really well; I'm from Oklahoma, and we know wind out here. This last Easter had winds of over 40 MPH, and even though you could tell there was wind noise, you could hear conversations from over 15 feet away.

I paid less than 300 smackers for this, and it has performed (in my estimation) at the level of a 600-smackers camera!

There may be "better" camcorders out there. Better in terms of more features. But it is unlikely the video or sound quality is much better than this one (in some cases actually worse). A 720X480 video frame (Mini DV standard resolution) can only accomodate approx 340 K pixels - therefore a mega or multi mega pixel camcorder will not improve your video performance one bit. And they cost least twice as much.

I was looking for something really basic. I go for features (and use them) in a Camera - not a Camcorder. When was the last time you used the fancy video functions? Do you even know where they reside on the menu? This camcorder has all the functions you will use and some that you probably won't. Its sufficiently loaded in that regard.

Performance - I faced NO noise issues. In a very quiet room, there is faint noise (when the auto gain circuit increases the mic sensitivity). However, under all my shooting conditions (when the auto-gain ramps down the mic sensitivity), this has not been a problem. My unit was "Made in Japan" - I don't know if this has anything to do with the "noiselessness" of the unit. The sound clarity is awesome - the mic is quite high quality - much better than my old sony 8mm.

Video - WoW - very impressed. Clear and colorful - very close to what my eye sees. Very sharp as well. One can easily read text, see the veins on the leaves, the hair on the eyebrow - on closeups. No problem regarding sharpness and overall color fidelity. Reds tended slightly towards pinkish sometimes (minor). On a dark overcast day - video came out looking just fantastic. It wowed me/wife/dad - everybody.

Low Light performance - On par with other camcorders out there. If you keep the lights in the room on (reasonably well lit), you can capture excellent video (great white balance) with little to no noise. None of the blue tinge that I observed with another brand under the same conditions. In a dim room, the video is noisy, but still quite viewable. It is important to note - that this camcorder has no worse performance than the others in its price range when it comes to low light performance.

Ergonomics - easily fits in your jacket/pant pocket and the controls are well placed. I have no problem with the location of the menu button - as a matter of fact - that is where I think it needs to be! Very easy to manual focus but haven't done so - yet. Autofocus is snappy - no hunting. I don't care how tapes are loaded - from the top or bottom. How many of you shoot using a Tripod and need to change tapes halfway?

The zoom speed depends on how far you press the zoom button - simply great feature. Not just one or two steps. You can go from very slow to very fast zooms.

The unit can work as an analog to digital converter - something I plan to use - to convert my 8mm tapes to digital.

The eyepiece viewfinder is color, does not flip, but very good otherwise. I use it a lot. The flip out display is apparently not the best out there, but I find it to be adequate - if not downright good.

Batteries are charged "in camera". You don't have to take the battery in and out for charging purposes. On the other hand, charging a spare battery ties up the camera (unless you purchase an external charger). The supplied battery seems to last for an hours worth of shooting - works for me.

One last thing - I have not seen mentioned in other reviews and I don't know how other brands perform in this regard. The image stabilization was just too good. While shooting video going through Golden Gate Bridge in a car(no zoom), the shots were almost professional in their stability. The exact same shots taken with an earlier camcorder without image stabilization are unwatchable. Note added later - Compared to a PV-GS150, the image stabilization on the Canon was definitely better. I'll cross compare other aspects with my friends PV-GS150 and report back!

BTW - I don't miss it not having photo taking abilities. All camcorder still pics are horrible when compared to my digicam. Why bother?

It does record hi-res 16:9 images (instead of the cropped ones). Maybe that'll be good for the future.

One purchase that exceeded my expectations.

Capturing - Using a cheap firewire card and included cable (together less than ten dollars), video capture using Ulead software and Win Xp was a breeze. Other software (Pinnacle 9) worked equally well at capturing. Camera could be controlled from the software interface. The file size was approx 12 Gig (DV compression) for 45 min worth of shooting. Video looks very good on computer monitor and on TV. Now to MPEG 2 compress and author a DVD..

This tripod is helpful for needing to get close to the ground of your photography subject and has an incredibly low height. The quick release shoe is easy to use and attach to a camera. It has the capability to extend out to a 90 degree angle to the ground if your camera is looking down on an object, but this makes the tripod unstable if used with anything other than a very, very compact camera. The tripod is very small and lightweight, and fits easily into the front pocket of a midsize camera bag.

Just wanted to clarify... your camera's field of vew will NOT be adjustable when using this TriPod, because there is no center ball attachment.

One reviewer reported "you will actually receive Sima ST-10K," which has a ball head mount. I assumed that I would also get this substitution, however I did not. As indicated, I received the ST-10T without the ball head.

And because I was looking forward to the ball adjustment, I found myself frustrated with this (non ball-head) model.

In outdoor scenes, I had to search for a reasonably level surface that was at the proper height, in order to properly place my tripod/camera, because you can not adjust your camera to raise or lower its field of vision, since there is no center ball on the tripod.

If you want to be able to raise/lower your camera's field of vision once the tripod is set up, you may want to choose the ST-11K.

Basic, compact, easy-to-use mini tripod. Perfect for
taking closeups of stationary objects with an ELPH
when you need greater stability than you could get holding it yourself.

I bought this light to shoot an evening wedding. I was a bit aprehensive, because my previous experience with video lights is that they are too bright, and have a "flashlight" effect. This was not the case. The SONY light is bright, but diffuses nicely. Plus, the light can rotate, which also helps to diffuse. At night, outside, it created a nice fill with excellent image quality and color, without harsh shadows.
Great light, great price.

Yes, I agree, the light was not defective, it installs backwards then swivels around when installed, & tighten locking ring. Some people will never figure out technology. But sony's help line for light not being able to tell him how to operate it and telling him it was defective was even worse. I'd suggest you re-order this light and figure it out. it works fine.

Anyway, for closeup shooting the 3 watt light is good. If battery drain is a problem, you can order additional hight capacity batteries for your camcorder. you can't use flash closer than 2 feet or so for stills, so get this. The dvd-403 that it works with take FABULOUS 3.3 megapixel stills.

it even helps preview object that you'll take flash pix with.

I use the additional hvl-20dw2 video light (see separate review for this on amazon) for objects 6 to 15 feet away and also for lighting closeups. I hold the sony camera as close as needed (sony's can macro in to 1 cm from objects usually) and hold the light a bit further back usually so not TOO bright in viewfinder. (move light in, out a bit till object looks best).

This light worked perfectly for my Sony DCR-HC40 Camcorder and all of my needs and yes as pointed out by the reviewer who said when he mounted it & it faced him and not the subject (which happended the same for me when I installed it)...YOU SHOULD HAVE TRIED TURNING THE LIGHT AROUND AS I DID. It does swivel completly around...DUH!! Some people can not think for themselves.....a pitty. They would have loved it as I did if they had discovered this.
FOR THOSE WHO ARE WONDERING, It uses an 8-Pin Connector Shoe.

This really helps you to acheive wide angle where the built in Autofocus lenses can't. The only thing is there is considerable curve distortion up close. From far away you won't notice it as much. This is a characteristic of many wide angle lenses below a certain focal length. Its a good buy. I just wish the other wide angle accessories that Sony offers were as reasonable in price! They are very over priced if they want to keep the market they should shift their prices to be more affordable on accessories!!!!!

Dan

Ordered this light for myself for Christmas. I have a Sony DCR-HC30 camcorder, and the built-in IR light source (one LED) is woefully inadequate for anything that's more than about 3 feet away.

The HVL-IRM light mounts on the (non-hot) shoe on top of my camcorder just fine, and the screw-clamp on the light locks it in place. It also comes with a black aluminium mounting bracket to allow the light to be attached to a camera that has no accessory shoe.

I tried the light with both NiMH and Alkaline batteries (I don't have the Sony battery pack) and it appears to work equally well with either type. The unit appears to have a step-up converter inside, to run the 8 LEDs from such a low voltage. There is a rotary brightness control on the front, which is quite effective. The locking on/off switch is also cool. Build quality is nice, like you'd expect from Sony. The light is quite small and lightweight.

The claim is that it works up to 100 feet. I found that the light has quite a narrow beam pattern, which is about the same width as having the zoom on my camcorder at 50%. Shooting at less than this focal length and you see a distinct, lighted square in the centre of the picture. The 100' maximum is wishful thinking, unless you're happy with a faintly lighted, grainy picture. I could barely make out the features on the house behind mine, ~60' away.

I haven't tested the light extensively yet, but initial tests in the back yard indicate that it would be best for shooting specific objects or subjects about 10-30 feet away, rather than a wide-angle scene that's happening directly in front of the camera; which is what I was hoping for. (I almost always use my camera with a x0.6 wide angle adapter fitted.)

I will try to update this review when I've used the light some more...

He purchase 30 of these for classroom use. Most of them are having the same problem. What appears to be a bad tracking problem is in fact a bad solder joint or connection. Sorry LG/Zenith, you have lost us a customers next time around.

I tried to hook up my DVD to this item right out of the box. None of the audio video jacks worked. I could get a picture but no sound when I hooked the DVD player to the front of the VCR which is for other devices

This Zenith VCR does everything it was supposed to do and I have no complaints. It plays commercially recorded tapes, it plays tapes recorded on other machines and on this machine. It's not state of the art and doesn't have all the bells and whistles...but it only costs 50 bucks for Pete's sake! I'm happy with it.

Worked like a charm in my Panasonic AG-DV30 video camera! Having 5+ hours of battery life really helps when you're on vacation and don't want to mess with charging batteries or being "selective" in your shooting. This gives you the freedom to tape what you want and edit out the boring stuff later. Worth the money and a good deal here!

This battery got me though many shoots for my many DV Films. It does last about as long as it specifies. Too bad I had to sell it as I am about to buy a new Canon as my Pana died. It's a great battery though, and a great price from J and R.

If the CGRD16A/1b doesn't have enough battery life for you (3 hours, approx. 1.5 if you use LCD screen), then this is probably the battery for you.

You will get about 5 hours of battery life out of this battery, or 2.5 if you use the LCD screen a lot. I like this battery much more than the CGRD53, which I think is much too large for the average user (it has 9 hours of usage, but it is very large compared to the small size of the digital camcorders).

This battery holds its charge well, and is a good size.