Some Small Sony and Panasonic Mini-DV Camcorders --

I have borrowed and tried out, briefly owned, or own several compact Sony and Panasonic mini-DV camcorders - and I thought people who read this NG might be interested in some opinions on these from a user...

General comments: I don't find fold-out screens very useful, so I will comment only on the unusually good one found on the TRV-900; the traditional viewfinders are barely good enough for focusing with a wide-angle converter attached to the lens (with the exception of the excellent finder on the AG-EZ1U); all have useable manual-focus rings; none of these camcorders has a real wide-angle of lens coverage, and some work better than others with various WA and fisheye converters; the digital zooms are useless; the manufacturers' claims of battery run-time are universally inflated, often outrageously so; these camcorders all have program modes, most of which are silly - a good aperture/shutter-priority auto-exposure system with a bias override is far more useful (though all do a reasonably good job of producing generally well-exposed, in-focus footage with acceptable white balance when in auto modes).

>>>Sony PC-1
- This is a VERY compact camcorder with a sharp lens, an excellent digital stabilizer, good AF, very good color balance and saturation for a one-chip camcorder (though shadows are sometimes bluish...), good low-light ability, and surprisingly good (and quiet) sound using the built-in mic. The picture is not as smooth or quite as sharp as one from a good 3-chip camcorder (scan lines and moire patterns are more evident, and texture is less well-rendered, but the images of most subjects look good). I did not do much experimenting with WA adapters with this camcorder, but the Raynox .5X Pro appeared to be a good match.

Conclusion: for a REALLY small one-chip camcorder, this one is very good for both image and sound quality.

>>>Sony PC-7
- I sold this very compact camcorder within a day of purchase (the picture and sound quality were not good enough, and there were no redeeming characteristics that would intice me into liking this camcorder [except for its small size] - it shares the problems of the TRV-9, but it doesn't offer the easy tape change, analogue input, and the B&W IR ability of the TRV-9).

>>>Sony TRV-9
- This moderately compact camcorder has relatively poor color image quality (poor low-light ability, poor color saturation [with weak greens and a blue cast]), an excellent digital stabilizer, excellent AF, and very poor sound from the built-in mic (the camcorder noise is audible above even high-level recorded ambient sound). I keep mine for three reasons: it is a convenient "deck" for viewing/dumping tapes shot in other camcorders; it has an analogue input, useful for copying other formats onto mini-DV tape (or for copying DV tapes passed through analogue picture/sound equalizers); and the B&W infrared image is excellent (for shooting landscapes, city-scapes, etc. [BTW, it does NOT work well for "seeing through clothes" - this is a silly myth]).

Conclusions: the color image can be acceptable under some lighting conditions (especially in contrasty sunlight when using a polarizing filter); the sound problems can be cured with an external mic (with a tape strip placed under the battery to keep it from "thunking"); the size, convenience of tape-loading, ease of control, and the analogue input make it a useful deck; the IR B&W performance is excellent (it is useable without a filter, with slightly better performance using a red filter, and slightly more IR effect with a no. 87 IR filter - but later versions may have had daylight-IR disabled, alas...); the Sony VCL-ES06 .6X converter works well, especially when three empty filter rings are used as spacers between the lens and .6X converter (this converter is not zoom-through, though - only about 1/3 of the short end of the zoom range is useable).

>>>Sony TRV-900
- This moderately compact (slightly larger than the TRV-9) camcorder has an image with excellent sharpness, smoothness, and low-light capability (but with a somewhat bluish or magenta image color cast in the three samples I have seen - a real draw-back, alas), excellent optical stabilizer and AF systems, good sound using the built-in mic (the sound balance is a bit bottom-heavy, the auto-level is a bit high [which can result in more audible compression effects in auto-gain], the noise level is quite low), mic placement that makes manual focus difficult without interfering with the mic, an excellent fold-out finder (useless in most outdoor situations, but for interior work the color quality of this one is good enough to aid in judging color balance), an analogue input (useful for copying other formats onto mini-DV tape), and easy and fast tape loading.

Conclusions: I have played with several of these, and except for the color-balance issue (and a bit of sound concern...), this is one of the best compact camcorders I have seen.

>>>Sony VX-1000
- By far the largest and heaviest of this group, the VX-1000 is still very compact compared with older camcorders with approximately equal image and sound recording quality. My two VX-1000's have an image (the two camcorders match very well!) with excellent sharpness and smoothness in high and moderate light levels, and the ability to go to very low light levels (candle-lighted room) with acceptable image quality; excellent color balance and saturation (but with a pleasant very slightly greenish-yellow picture color cast); picture and sound controls not found on most other compact camcorders (adjustments for picture hue-shift, saturation, AE-bias, sharpness, and gain-shift; and sound level [with meters]); excellent AF and optical stabilization systems; a large (servo...) manual-focus ring; excellent exposure control (with the usual useless program modes [with built-in ND filter and a VF warning when needed], shutter-priority, aperture- priority [the most useful mode for most work, I think...], an auto-mode bias adjust [I prefer it set one notch lower than normal], and a manual-lock-with-dial-exposure-shift control); a useful top-placed carrying handle; very good sound from the built-in mic (though sound can only be recorded on the 12-bit tracks, a problem when using older digital NLE computer programs that can't handle 12-bit sound well); a good viewfinder (that has adjustments for brightness and color saturation - dialing the saturation down gives a slightly sharper B&W image for focusing with WA adapters [unfortunately the eyepiece lens is not rigidly fixed, so tipping the camera up or down refocuses the eyepiece slightly...]); relatively slow tape loading; and enough space on top (and enough camcorder weight...) to make placing a video light and a couple of shotgun mics or wireless receivers on the camera practical. The deep-set lens makes using WA adapters more difficult, but a large-front Kenko .5X model works well for interiors by around f4-5.6 and for exteriors around f8-11 (I have found two [of five tried...] fisheye adapters that are quite sharp on the VX-1000, though their lack of coating makes for problems with backlight).

Conclusions: this is the most versatile of the camcorders in this group, with the fewest limitations, but at a cost in greater size, weight, and purchase price. With a good side-handle, the VX-1000 is very stable for hand-held work. I use the custom picture controls to get the image character I prefer - I like this feature! Overall, this is still my first choice in this group.

>>>Panasonic AG-EZ1U
- This moderately compact 3-chip camcorder has an image with excellent sharpness, smoothness, and low-light capability (but with a somewhat greenish image color cast in the one I tried), a wonderful standard-type viewfinder, unacceptable noise in the audio using the built-in mic (though it is not as noisy as the TRV-9...), very good AF, and an unacceptable digital stabilizer (image sharpness is spoiled and a "digital-telephoto-effect" is introduced when the stabilizer is engaged). Conclusions: if the AG-EZ1U is used for WA work hand-held (or it is placed on a tripod), if an external mic is used, and if a work-around is used for the color cast, the image and sound quality can be excellent - but this may not be a good camcorder choice for the average user...

>>>Panasonic AG-EZ30U
- This very compact and light 3-chip camcorder has an image with really excellent sharpness under some conditions (but so-so sharpness under others - I have not yet figured out this one...), excellent color and color neutrality (the best of all in these characteristics that I have seen - and I have seen three samples of this camcorder, all equally good), excellent high and moderate light level color, poor low-light ability (the camcorder seems to have unusually low gain, making an ND filter unnecessary in bright light but providing little ability to shoot in very low light situations, even with the slow shutter mode engaged), obviously "stepping" exposure (exposures change in discrete increments that are too large, giving a "klunk, klunk, klunk" look to auto-exposure compensation for subject brightness changes), WB that if not locked down in daylight can move toward blue when the EZ30U is pointed toward the sun, excellent on-camera mic sound (maybe the best of all, though the level is lower than average), an unacceptable digital stabilizer, OK AF ability (AF does not seem to work well when using WA converters), and fast but less precise tape loading than the Sony camcorders (which reload tape frame-accurate). It is difficult/awkward/expensive to set up this camcorder with battery power recording time greater than what is provided by the single small internally-placed battery. It has shutter-priority auto (without bias), manual exposure, but no aperture-priority auto mode. For WA work the Sony .6X converter (with one thin empty filter ring added between the lens and the converter) works well (not zoom-through), as does one of my fisheye converters (the supplied .7X converter is not as good at wide apertures, and it is nowhere near as wide - regardless of the magnification numbers).

Conclusions: a "sleeper" (a relatively unknown camcorder, given its quality [maybe due to its originally excessively high price...]), this camcorder is excellent for some uses, and even without a useable stabilizer it can be a good general-use camcorder (with an added side handle for stability). Due to its generally excellent image and sound quality and small size and weight, I find myself liking this camcorder more than I expected to (once I got used to its foibles...).

My overall conclusions:

- The VX-1000 and EZ30U have the best overall image quality, with the EZ30U having the most "neutral" picture and the VX-1000 (with custom picture controls used) the "richest" - though the TRV-900 may have the sharpest and smoothest picture under the widest range of conditions.

- The TRV-900 has the best low-light ability (and has slow shutter speeds in addition...), with the EZ1U also being very good in low light. The VX-1000 is quite useable in low light (it has higher available gain than most, and a complete range of shutter speeds).

- The VX-1000 has the most versatile and useful controls (though the zoom controls of the TRV-9 and TRV-900 are better).

- The EZ30U and VX-1000 have the best sound.

- The EZ1U has the best traditional-type viewfinder (the VX-1000 in B&W mode is a distant second best, though all of them are useable with care for good focus), and the TRV-900 has the best fold-out screen (most are not good enough for color balance evaluation).

- The AF and stabilizer seem best on the TRV-9, though the AF ability of most of the others is good, and the other Sony camcorder stabilizers are excellent.

- The VX-1000 and PC-1 are slowest to load with tape (the Sony camcorders load tape frame-accurate, though, speeding the process of reloading a partially used tape without recording over earlier material).

- The battery power options are best on the TRV-9 and TRV-900 camcorders, with the VX-1000 having very easy connection of the AC adapter (and the battery does not need to be removed to use it).

Well, this is what I found... (Maybe someday I will run across a few Canon mini-DV camcorders for comparison... [I have liked Canon Hi-8 camcorders in the past]).

David Ruether
rpn1@cornell.edu
http://imperium.bayside.net/ruether