Sony DCR-PC115 Mini Dv

I'm very dissapointed from the quality of this Sony camcorder. I bought Sony, because I expected a good and reliable camera. Instead I found myself after two months with a camera in which the display gave up, and stopped working just like that.

Good Lens.

Zoom too fast

The service by sony was terrible and instead of getting a new camera, mine was sent to repair. It is the "policy" of the company to repair instead of providing a new camera. Not only that, I was told the camera had to be opened and they wanted to be sure I hadn't done anything on purpose to the camera! This is the last Sony I ever buy! It took over 3 weeks to get the repaired camera back.

Prior to buying the Sony DCR-PC115E (E is for PAL system), I had spent days searching through Internet looking for some reviews. I could not find any. Eventually I decided on buying this camera based purely on its technical specifications. The 115E was prepacked with a charger, cables, a 120hr battery, an 8M memory stick, Sony USB driver & MGI Photosuite/Videowave software. VIDEO RECORDING: I played the recordings on my 61" Sony DRC TV (1250 lines). The quality of those pictures recorded under good lighting condition (e.g natural outdoor environment) was superb, in fact even better than the best MPEG2/DVD picture I have ever seen. So for those of you who wished to record HQ video, pay a little attention to the lighting, you wont regret it....Good lighting condition would be able to exploit this camera to its fullest capability. I also tried using the 115 to convert one of my large collection of VHS tapes to digital format and stored them on my computer via fire-wire terminal. I did not use the MGI software though, but instead I used Ulead MediaStudio Pro which came with my Snazzi DV Link. The MediaStudio Video Capture program worked smoothly without any hitch in this initial run. There was just one complaint. It was very difficult to control the multi-speed Zoom button. Exerting too little or too much pressure resulted in either no-zoom or over-speedy zoom. I have yet to get used to controlling this darn button.. Talking about zoom, unless you have to shoot far away inaccessible objects, do not turn on the 120x digital zoom, stick with the 10x optical zoom. The later produces better picture resolution... STILL PHOTO: At 1.5 Megapixel, I was surprised that the quality already exceeded those taken by my old Nikon & Minolta SLR camera. I had seen pictures taken with above-2-Megapixel DC before but the quality was only average. So I guess it is not just the megapixel figure that contribute to image quality. Other aspects, e.g the quality of the Optical Lens is just as important. Also, like video recording, in order to bring out the best from this camera, it is absolutely vital to have good lighting condition. I tried taking close-up using manual focusing & a tripod, the resulting picture details was daunting. But don''t try it on your girlfriend unless she has perfect complexion... you may not like all the protrusions and crevices.. The m

Very HQ Video & Still images

Difficult to control Zoom button

National Panasonic Video camera