At first glance the camcorder is very small. In fact it's not much bigger than a can of soda. But then when you start to play with it, you notice the old cliche holds true. "Big things come in small packages", and this camera definitely fits that saying.
It comes with 8gb built in memory and records in AVCHD. It also has an SDHC slot to expand that memory and increase recording time. I currently have 8gb SDHC card and so at 17mbs FXP mode I can record 2 hrs of video.
Speaking of video, the quality is actually quite impressive for a camera of this size. I've only had limited time to play with it but so far i like it. Low light shots will take some optimization but if you can get it right it will look great. I was doing a lot of random night shots (Aka a street near a friends house at night) and just general shots with different light settings. It performed well in all conditions. Again, more messing around with the settings will yield some interesting results. The 1080p recording really does look great. Especially very well lit areas and daylight scenes. They simply pop! To help with some low light shots, the camcorder does have its own little LED light, but it's only really effective at close range or if you open up the exposure settings to let in more light (although you get a little motion blur). Additionally the camcorder does have a pretty good optical image stabilization feature. It has a few settings and features for this. There are 2 basic settings for image stabilization, "Standard" and "Dynamic". Then there is one more, "Powered IS". This is actually a very cool feature which allows you to stabalize your image even if you are zoomed in (this camera has a 15x Optical/18x Advanced Zoom/300x Digital Zoom) the Powered IS does a great job of steadying your shot. Since I don't have the most stable of hands, this is a great feature. There are plenty of settings to play with and I have yet to fully check everything out. The more I use it, the more I am finding out what a fun camera this is.
Other than video, the camcorder does boast a still photo mode which takes 3 megapixel pictures. While that may not be too impressive, it's adequate enough. It also has a built in flash to take pictures with. Very handy!
The last thing I'll mention is the touch screen. It's actually quite responsive and works well. It allows you to access all your settings, and then some. I'll go into this a bit later. But so far I'm actually like the way they implemented the touch screen.
While I still have some work to do with the camcorder, I am really enjoying it. I am looking to get some extra lenses that this camcorder will support to help with a variety of shots.
Initial recommendation: This camcorder is definitely worth the money you pay. It has great versatility and I've just begun to scratch the surface. More to come on this but for now. Get this if you can!
No comments:
Post a Comment