 DO NOT BUY THIS CAMERA Strengths: none
Weaknesses: no manual white balance, poor auto-focus, poor color, many others
Summary: DO NOT BUY THIS CAMERA
This camera has the following critical drawbacks.
1. The autofocus is very poor. It has trouble maintaining focus even when pointed at still images with constant lighting!
2. Do not expect to quickly switch from video camera to still camera or vice-versa in the middle of the action. This is two completely separate cameras in one case. When you switch from one camera to another, the first camera must shut down and the second camera must boot. This requires six seconds.
3. Like many other digital still cameras, there is a several second delay between when the button is pushed and when the camera actually takes a picture. I have missed many precious moments because of this delay!
4. The USB interface can be used to view the memory stick as a disk. In this way, pictures can be easily downloaded to your computer. However, the DV tape cannot be used like a tape drive via USB. The video camera only uses the USB for cheesy real-time video that looks like a poor video phone over a low-bandwidth connection! There is no way to simply download the digital contents of the tape to the computer. So much for digital video. The only way I have been able to get decent video to my computer is to digitize the analog output.
5. The video camera cannot use the memory stick and the still camera cannot use the DV tape.
6. The colors are washed-out and lighting performance is poor. There is no manual white balance! Someone should fire the design team who left this out!
7. It is impossible to adjust anything in real-time. The manual interface is very poor, with some buttons on the back of the camera, some on the top, and some on the left side. Even the zoom is difficult to adjust properly. The strap makes working the buttons even more dificult. Many options are only selectable via the menus. Therefore, it is impossible to select these options in anything approximating real-time. Just forget about catching fleeting events. Only pre-set shots are possible.
8. Don't allow yourself to be impressed by the rotating screen. We haven't found any practical use for this feature.
9. The screen is a power hog. To record an entire 1/2 hour play, I must use the view-finder. Buy a bigger battery if you must use the screen.
10. Hi-8 video looks much better than the video produced by this camera. However, if you are just upgrading from an old VHS camera, circa 1985, you will be impressed.
11. The case is nice, but so are the cases for many other cameras. I might use it for the cameras that I buy to replace this one.
 63% of People (5/8) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?
 There are no comments for this review. Post a comment.
|
Report this as 
