Review 1 of 1
, from Hungary
Price Paid:
$1200.00 Summary:Bulky compared to miniDV, but looks & feels as well built. Very good video quality. No noticable difference in LP. Good zoom range (15x), but as usual the "wide" end is not wide enough. I use Sony's wide converter lens. It is OK for video, but produces noticably soft edges in photo mode. Still image quality however is below a 1.3Mp digital camera - very noticable color noise, especially if light intensity is not optimal. Images nevertheless look good on TV but are acceptable only monitor viewing/printing.
Tons of useful features but also many gimmicks. It takes time to sort out the real useful features.
Plays back all my 8mm and Hi8 tapes in a very good quality (it actually does a better job playing back old tapes than my 5 year old Canon Hi8 camcorder). You can digitize your old tapes.
Couple it with a DV editing card (like Pinnacle studio DV 8) and you have virtually endless possibilities as the camera has analogue video in/out and digital video in/out capabilities. Strengths:- very good video quality and good zoom range.
- plays back 8mm and Hi8 tapes in very good quality.
- possibility to digitize 8mm/Hi8 tapes
- analogue and DV vide in/out makes editing easy if you have a computer and a DV card.
- easy to hold steady (big enough for my hand)
- reasonable sized still images recorded on memory stick. As image is not recorded (by default) on tape, it does not interrupt video. Weaknesses:- zoom lens is not wide enough
- black and white viewfinder (all D8s have b&w viewfinder. Why Sony, why???)
- still image quality is not good enough
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