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Sony DCR-SR300 Camcorder Review
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Sonys
DCR-SR100 (USD999) was one of the best camcorders released in the year
of 2006, and it constituted a positive signs to come at Sony. Till that
camcorder, JVCs Everio series controlled fully and exclusively the
customer HDD space. The SR100 altered all that, blending better image
quality and simplicity-of-function in what was probably the most
beneficial HDD model up to now. Sony followed up in the middle of the
year 2006 with various fresh debut-level HDD cameras, and for the first
time in the history of HDD-based AVCHD camcorder, the superb HDR-SR1
(USD1120). Now ultimately, a follow up to the SR100 has come in the
shape of the DCR-SR300.
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It is no doubt an
appealing camcorder same to its forerunner and features a larger
imager, OIS, and Sonys highly appreciated Smooth Slow Record function.
The Sony HDD camcorder, the HDR-SR5, put up for sale for just USD100 and
shoots AVCHD high-account video.
Features
The
DCR-SR300 (USD762) bears a good still image feature. The still image
performance depends upon the imager, a 1/2.9inch CMOS sensor that
supports still image shooting equal to 6.1megapixel, or 2848 x 2136
pixels. The camcorder can also shoots still photographs at 3.1megapixel
(2048 x 1536 pixels) and 0.3megapixel (VGA, or 640 x 480 pixels).
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In the
majority of camcorders, you can also use the option of a compression or
quality adjustments for capturing still photographs, with Fine feature
making bigger and less compressed images as compared to Standard
feature. Image Size function and Quality control function are placed in
the Settings tab of the Option Menu in Still Mode. A flash is integral,
placed to the left side of the lens. You can make adjustments in Flash
levels, by the settings given in the Home menu. It has no burst or
bracketing mode.
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Almost all of the image
functions that are offered in Movie Mode can also be found to you in
Still Mode. They can be accessed in the Option Menu in either the three
Camera tabs. In the Setting tab 1 holding the functions of Focus, Spot
Focus, and Tele Macro, in the Setting tab 2 carrying the functions of
Exposure, Spot Meter, and Scene Selection, and in the Camera tab 3
carrying the functions of White Balance and Color Slow Shutter. In plus
to the Image Size and Quality, the Self Timer function and Still Media
commands can be seen in the Settings tab of the Still Mode Option Menu.
More options can be accessed in the Home Menu, under Home > Settings >
Photo Settings. The 1st two choices overlap with the Option Menu. That
is Image Size and Quality. Major options in the Photo Settings submenu
are File Number (i.e. Sequential or Reset), Night shot, Steady Shot. It
also includes Guide frame, Zebra, Flash Level, Redeye Reduction
function, and Still Media (hard disc drive or Memory Stick).
Performance
The Sony DCR-SR300s still
results were examined by shooting a Gretag Macbeth Color Checker table
and running those photographs by using Imatest imaging software program
to examine color accuracy, noise, and saturation. It gave good results
by producing a color error of 6.3, with 1.7475 percent of noise and 105
percent of saturation. So as to obtain this best result, the camcorder
was brought outside Easy mode and set the exposure to -1 step, which set
the opening to f/4.0 and the shutter speed to 1/60th of
second. The camcorder would not show this data on display screen, but
you can see it in the EXIF data.
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