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Sony HDR-HC7 Camcorder Review

Why would Sony outfit their best camcorder of the year with the most defective multi-function controller in their queue? Your thinking is the same as ours, but our expectation is that there is a young suitor waiting in the wings, a camcorder that gets it in unison. Even so, AVCHD is yet not well equipped, whereas HDV is extensively supported. It’s a difficult problem that consumers all around the markets are attempting to wrap their heads around. A lot of consumers are fixing their hopes on the Canon HV20 (USD903) and JVC GZ-HD7 (USD1529). As for the Sony’s camcorder HDR-HC7... have a hard look before purchasing.

Features

Sony’s HDR-HC7 (USD1129) is a better in performance as compare to an average hybrid camcorder, shooting stills at resolutions equal to 6.1megapixel, and having Sony’s latest “Dual Record” mode. A lot of consumer camcorders provide the power to record digital stills during shooting video by pressing down the photo button, but those at the same time captured stills are normally restrained to the resolution of a video frame. Sony’s Dual Record option takes still photographs to Memory Stick at very much higher 4.6megapixel resolution during shooting HDV or 16:9 standard definition video, or 3.4megapixel while shooting 4:3 standard definition video. High resolution stills are achievable gives thanks to the CMOS imager offered in this modern camcorder, which allows quicker data processing as compared to the Charge-coupled devices (CCDs) still received in the most of consumer camcorders. In plus to Dual Record mode, the HC7 has power to shoot videos to Memory Stick while the camcorder is running in the Playback mode.

The “Series” option will number images in order within a mentioned recording folder, and will continue the counting series over if a new Memory Stick is inserted in. The “Reset” option will start the numbering from 1 whenever the new Memory Stick card is inserted. The New Folder function in the Memory Set secondary menu makes a new folder on the flash card whereas the HC7 has the feature of making a new folder by itself without asking whenever the number of image files in the current recording folder exceeds than 9,999 – although we surprise if any HDR-HC7 operator will ever experience this auspicious level. The Recording Folder command in the Memory Set secondary menu enables you to adjust the folder to which fresh images are captured; and the Playback Folder command enables you to adjust the image replay folder.

The HCR-HC7’s Picture Application secondary menu in the primary menu (tagged Pict. Appli.) contains few extra still image possess functions like Interval Recording (tagged as Int.Rec-Stl) and Slide Show. Interval photo recording can be found in the user’s manual as “helpful to see the motion of clouds or the fluctuations in daylight, and so on.” As you have may be judged from the explanation, the HC7 has the capability of recording images at different time intervals of 1, 5, or 10 minutes, adjusted by user, when this function is employed. If you have ever desired to see the growth of mold on a plate of leftovers, and run it back in thirty seconds, this time interval image recording is exactly the function you have been looking for.

The Slide Show function runs all image files in a specified folder, or all pictures saved on a Memory Stick card. When the HC7 is linked up with an HD monitor, this offers an easy way to display images from a tour to the family, also by using Mac and PC software programs you can easily add an audio to an image slideshow, it perhaps will not be the most admired bell on the HC7. A lot of Picture Effects can be used on still images throughout either shooting or playback. These effects include Skin tone for soft looking skin (if you are capturing images of melanin-challenged folks), Neg Art that reverses color and brightness), Sepia, B & W, Solarize that employs a solarizing filter to the images, Pastel (the manual draws this as creating stills just as “a pale pastel drawing”), and Mosaic (uses big, fat pixels to the picture – only function while still image shooting).

The HDR-HC7 has a full power of still image printing and categorization functions that enables you to remove particular images, arrange a DPOF list of files to be printed, and protect particular image files from deletion. At the same time, the still functions presented by the HDR-HC7 establish this camcorder almost poised still image studio. The entire image files categorization, printing, and deleting options offered would be more well carried out after shifting images to a Mac or PC. But for all those brave adventurers who desire to grip all the commands they can, offered in their camcorder, the options are at that place. On a more hardheaded level, DPOF enables you to get the prints of your captured stills without facing the difficulty of connecting to a PC.

Performance

The Sony HDR-HC7 was examined for color performance in its still photographs by shooting a Gretag McBeth Color Checker table chart and playing those captured images by using Imatest imaging software. Giving best results, the camcorder created an undisciplined mean color error of 4.5. So as to acquire this score, we adjusted AE Shift to -1. Whereas the score for auto exposure had got a slightly high color error score, moreover AE Shift of positive 1 was higher yet. Colors Under the best of setting (AE Shift -1) were oversaturated by an average 15.9%, with skin natures (browns, yellows, and reds) particularly forced towards the green side of the spectrum. This signifies fine color accuracy for a photographic camera, whereas the over saturation depicts that Sony has provided this image to a user market that wishes colors that pop.