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My first perception of this camera was "man it's smaller than I thought it would be". Decide for yourself whether this is important. The FX-1 goes down to a deeper "blood red" which pwns the a1u's footage. I thought "no big deal", but when I reviewed the tape on a high def monitor I was stunned by how good the pic was. I often put it on a monopod for an overhead shot.Fifth: must be unmounted to swap a tape.
Also be zoomed in, that seems to take care of autofocus issues.Fourth: the mic is great for live music. If you are shooting a recital in the dark and have to unmount the thing, swap tapes, and remount in_the_dark then maybe this camera isn't for you.Sixth: for what it's worth, the cam captures all colors pretty well except the deep reds. Simply buy the tdk or sony 10 packs at Costco. Seventh: None of my cams have problems with tape. Try to stick with one brand of tape though. I don't think you want to be more than 60 ft from the subject. I am a serious hobbyist.
The dollars per cubic inch ratio is very high.Second observation: In daylight I used the cam to shoot some baby hummingbirds in their nest. This camera excells at guerilla music shoots, where you have to move around a lot. I am glad that I started with an FX-1 (heavy artillery), augmented with the A1U (when the shot is more important than the deep blood reds), and rounded out with a used FX-1 from B&H.I'd recommend a preowned FX-1 over a new A1U though. (No need for $10 tapes).The A1U has earned its way into my inventory. I intended for this camera to augment my main camera (Sony FX-1) on video shoots. (I guess I never tried that shot with my FX-1).Third: in low light, like at a dance recital, the autofocus can have problems. Before the commies start crying ;) let me say that I edit this cam's footage together with the FX-1 footage.
This thing is tiny for the features. It's weakness is low light recording, but is well worth the cost. This is a great Camcorder. I'll pick up another soon. I can't believe the size.
It consumes less power, less money to produce, better image quality then CCD and does not smear light. Three quarters of the bar is for exposure and the last quarter of the bar is gain which digitally brightens the picture and makes the picture real grainy. He also had problems with the mic, there are a lot of settings for the mic and you have to set them right to get good sound. The cineframe and cinematone features are a good idea if you want your movies to have a more professional Hollywood look to them. I really like the exposure lever, one strange thing is that the camera does not give exposure increments like F1.6. Some people say it's a consumer camera because it only has a one chip sensor instead of three like a CCD sensor but a CMOS sensor is a lot different then a CCD. The personalized menu is a great idea; you can have all your most used items at a touch away. I hope this review helps and I will be adding more to this review.06/29/08I don't know what the problem was with the guy below me.
After reading about 30 customer and 20 pro reviews it was the only camera that was offered pro features and great image quality worth way more then the price. F2.6 it just gives you a bar. Just make sure you adjust the exposure manually in dark places and turn the gain off by not going to the last quarter of the bar. I think he had problems in low light with the camera, this camera is not the best in low light. The auto focus is a little slow indoors but it's a lot better in good light. It has some other great features and that I am not going to go in to but you can read about them on this page.
It should be considered a pro camera instead of a consumer camera.OK; now what the camera can do. When rewinding tapes I did not think it made a horrendous noise but it does make different pitches as you rewind it. The picture quality in good light is almost identical the image quality of the Sony Z1U which cost $4,000 and that's really amazing. It is all because of the CMOS sensor the camera uses. A single chip CMOS sensor is three mega-pixels just like three CCD chips.
The low light performance is not that good, this is a downside of the CMOS sensor. If you need a good low light camera go with the Sony V1U.07/18/08Price went up $300 from when I bought it, I guess I made a good investment. The camera is small, they made it compact so pros could get great images in tight places. I recently had the Canon GL1 and thought it was time to upgrade to Hi-Def. It has a touch screen which is handy but you have to keep wiping it off because it smudges easily.
One other thing is that this camera is quite compact and I am really amazed at the picture quality that it takes.Over all it is great camera and a good choice for any one who needs a good Hi-Def camera for a low price.
Even with the CCD turned up to full brightness, the picture looks washed out. Buyer be warned about this one. So much for the manufacturer's boasts about the Zeiss Vario-Sonna lens; they are, in my opinion, thoroughly unwarranted.The sound quality was also poor, despite the large mic, and when rewinding tapes, this camera makes the most horrendous noise. I thought that buying a high definition camera from the same company would be a great move. The sound is irritating at all pitches, and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to listen to it.The camera was also a lot smaller than the photos lead one to believe, so check the dimensions if you're used to a bigger, semi-professional camcorder.
For several years, I've owned and used a Sony DCR-VX2100 3 CCD Mini DV Camcorder, and have been truly impressed with it. It is astonishingly slow to auto focus, and at lower light levels makes nearly continuously adjustments. Admittedly, I used it mostly at 480i, but even in 1080i mode, the result was no better. I returned this camera after trying it for 10 days. I purchased this camera last month, and almost at once I knew it was not the camera for me.
I was so wrong.The HVR-A1U is the most disappointing camera I have ever come across in my life. It is actually designed to do so since the noise changes pitch as the tape spools from one segment to the next.
I wanted a Canon A1, but didn't want to wait the extra year or two it would take to save up for that.I also liked the idea that it used tape. However, I picked up a six hour battery and got rid of that issue. I have a clear filter on my lens to prevent scratches, use the 37mm lens cover from my Digital 8 camcorder and generally live without the hood.All in all, I'm pleased with the camera and generally astounded with the quality of the video. On the small LCD screen, it's pretty much impossible to determine how grainy it will look. The 10X zoom is okay. Another issue with a tripod is when you eject a tape. The camera is not designed to shoot in those light levels (to be fair, no HDV camera seems to be at this time). Also, in my informal in-store tests, the picture with the AVCHD codec just didn't look as good.
I'd say it compares to my Hi-8 camcorder from the early 90's in terms of sensitivity. Indoors, it does okay with one big exception that I just found out: Christmas tree lights totally screw it up. The primary reason I bought this camcorder was - at the time - it was the lowest price HDV camcorder that had a way to connect to external audio sources. Again, in bright light, this isn't too big of a problem. The external microphone that comes with the camera isn't bad.
Three, focus is absolutely critical in HD.The touch screen menu system took me awhile to get used to. The pictures are okay (no flash) and they are in the 16:9 format of the camcorder. I would say anything below a bright kitchen needs some additional light. However, you cannot assign ANY function to the button, just SOME functions.
I have a 1GB stick and can fit something like 800 pictures on it. I'd recommend the camera though there are now consumer level camcorders with external audio options that you might want to research before buying this one. Inside, it's a little different. Use a tripod as much as you can and don't make sudden movements. My son played flag football and I covered that - a la NFL films - all in close up and with lots of action in the frame. I need both of them because the component only outputs the video, so I have to use the RCA outs of the standard audio as well. In any case, I recommend you zoom in all the way before you shoot as it is very difficult to tell on a three inch LCD screen if the scene is properly focused, but it is very easy to tell when you are watching it on a 46" HDTV.There is a single button on the side called "ASSIGN" that you can have set up to do a number of things. The video can get very grainy (especially with a lot of dark areas in the frame) and the colors tend to go reddish.
I quickly zoomed in all the way, focused and then began to shoot. I have a DVR that I fill up all the time and then have to dump onto tape or DVD to store what I want to keep. I don't know what it is, but our tree lights, my friend's tree lights and my aunt's tree lights all had the auto focus totally confused. You can have a lot of light and dark in a frame before you completely blow it out and have white glowing blobs instead of kids in a spotlight against a dark background (parents have had camcorders for an entire generation; you'd think they would have noticed this by now).
This is an annoyance for me about twice a month as I generally shoot 60 minutes of tape every couple of weeks; not critical, but more of why did they change it from the top loading mechanism on my Digital 8 camcorder.The battery life with the original stock battery that would get sucked dry in less than an hour. Actually, that helps to balance the camcorder in my hand when I use the audio breakout box which fits on the top of the camera towards the front. However, you can adjust the menus to have a personal set of menus; putting the menu selections you use mostly at the beginning of the list. I can think of two lost half-seconds of video where the key frame was corrupted in about forty hours of collection. For example, you can't set it to black fader.A "nice to have" would have been an HDMI out.
Even so, Murphy's Law seems to dictate that you need to hit at least two menus to get to what you want. Again, in flag football, I could be shooting the action and then taking a still or two while the kids were running and the 10X zoom was much better than my 3X on my snapshot digital camera.The camcorder comes with a hood for the lens with a built in lens cover. Two, you need a lot of light to shoot good HDV. I think I would have liked about 15 - 20X though, especially since I primarily use the camera with a tripod. It's taken me longer to figure out how to best shoot in HD versus SD, but I'm getting there. One nice thing is to be able to take a still while recording video. I use that a lot because the built-in microphones seem to pick up more sound from the sides rather than straight on and they really seem to pick up a lot of wind noise.
However, so far, the stuff I have shot at school seems to look fine under lots of fluorescents. You won't be able to tell until you play it back on something normal sized and then the artifacts can be distracting. I shot a football game with thirty mile an hour gusts and only the worst ones came through the wind screen.The camera will shot still pictures to a Sony MemoryStick. Also, I strongly suggest you get an LCD protector for the screen.In bright light, the camera is fantastic. And HDV seems to have a wider range than standard video. Primarily, I found three things to be important going from SD to HD. I've tried a couple of LCD lights that fit on the camcorder, but I haven't found one that I like yet, so I won't recommend one at this time.
I use standard DV tape mostly, but I clean my heads regularly and only record on the tapes once. It took me a couple of months of use before I was totally comfortable with the camera layout and didn't accidentally turn it off when I wanted to start shooting. Primarily, I use it for family functions, but I do shoot things that require me to gather better sound than what comes out of the built-in mics. Unfortunately, if you want to put on any filters, the lens shade can't be used. One, picture stability. However, the focus can be manually controlled by a switch on the side and through the dial at the front of the camera. Family functions tend to take place in low light: table lights, kitchen overhead light, that sort of thing. I started with a reel to reel system, worked with a camera and VHS portapack, did 8mm, Hi-8 and replaced my Digital 8 camcorder with this HDV camcorder earlier this year.
Even in flag football, the auto focus worked remarkably well, adjusting to the focus point within a second in almost all cases. at this time. On a tripod, I find I can navigate quickly to the fader button without too much shake; this is much harder to do when I am doing a handheld shot. And the camera does have a "Zebra" function that will alert you to areas of your frame that need to be toned down.The final thing is focus. It exits from the bottom, so - at least on my tripod - you have to take it off the tripod, take the connection plate off and then reconnect it after you put in a new tape.
It looked great and very clear, even in slow motion. I have been shooting consumer video since 1981. I've shot landscapes that just blew me away watching on a 46" plasma HDTV. You have two proprietary outputs for standard video and component HD video that I have hooked to my HDTV permanently.
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