Sony HC1E First Look

Product Review: Page (2) of 3 - 07/19/05

Sony HC1E First Look Douglas Spotted Eagle reviews PAL version of Sony's consumer HDV camcorder The camera also has four white-balance modes, Auto, Indoor, Outdoor, and Manual. I found the manual mode a little irritating, because if the frame isn?t entirely filled with white, the white balance wasn?t accurate. With the FX1/Z1U, and most other camcorders, it?s quite easy to white balance if you?ve only got 75% of the screen filled, you can still white balance off the shot. Granted, a lot of consumers won?t be using any manual white balancing, but for the pro or pro-sumer, this is going to an important feature when using the HC1E as a backup or second camera accompanying another HDV camcorder.

Spot Metering in this camera is very good; it?s quite easy to focus on the subject and then touch the view screen at the area at which you?d like to adjust the exposure. One thing I found most handy for this was to use the plastic pen from my PDA, as I didn?t really care for my finger oils filling in the view screen fairly quickly.

Like other Sony camcorders, this camera has a Sharpness adjustment. On the FX1/Z1U camcorders, I found a sharpness setting of about 11-12 was ideal, whereas on this smaller camcorder, a shutter setting of just slightly to the right of the default center was perfect when viewing on a 1900 x 1200 laptop screen.

I used Serious Magic?s HDV Rack for my sharpness and color testing/comparisons, and found this camera to be no where near the same imagery as the Z1U as displayed on the Vectorscope and Waveform monitors, but at the same time, the pictures are very, very nice. One major benefit to the HC1E was giving the color a slight boost, again pushing it to just barely right of the default center point. One thing that would surely be sweet is if this camera could remember settings. If you turn off the camera or the battery dies, you?ll be adjusting everything ack to where you like it to be. The camera should at the least allow for uswers to memorize favorite settings, ie Picture Profiles) so that they are recallable. You do have the ability to save shortcuts for menus, which helps a lot. The built in semi-owners manual is nice too, because you can point to a section of the touch screen and get feedback on what that feature does. Charging the camera for longer than 12 hours also resets all settings to Default.

Everything in this camera is menu-driven, there are few physical switches to adjust. The only buttons/switches found on the camera are:

Exposure up/down, which doubles as a volume level input control
Tele/Macro button
Expanded focus button (very necessary with HDV)
Backlight button
Focus (Manual or auto, and may also be switched to Zoom, thus converting the focus ring to a Zoom ring)
Nightshot (gain on/off)
Flash on off
Still Photo snap
Power on/off/VCR/Still Photo/Camera rotate
Start Stop Record
Zoom lever

There really isn?t much to adjust physically with this camera, although it does offer more adjustment and control than most consumer oriented DV camcorders.

Sporting a port on the top of the camera for Sony?s new consumer products, this Active Interface Shoe allows for any AIS capable accessory to be plugged into the camera such as a video light, microphone, or flash. The HC1E does sport a built in flash for still use as well, although it cannot be used as a video light.

Audio considerations have not been left out of this camcorder. Accepting a microphone input, and offering a headphone output are part of the package, and the headphone/mic level may be adjusted during the shooting/playback process using the Volume control which is accessible via the touchscreen menu. Levels may be automatically adjusted or manually set, although there is no individual control of right/left levels. Pressing the small button to the side of the paddle switch selects whether you?re in volume or exposure modes. Audio quality is surprisingly good, sounding better than any camcorder I?ve heard outside the HDV realm. However, because the mics are situated just behind the focus/zoom ring, it?s also difficult to get great audio using the camera-mic if you?re going to be manually focusing anyway.

The lens hood can be removed, but the glass is very close to the front of the lens facing/bezel. This alone is good reason to leave the lens hood installed/intact. It would be entirely too easy to accidentally scratch the glass lens face.

Truthfully, in my test of this camera, I predominantly used the Beachtek DX8 anyway, since I needed the XLR capability for the audio and video tests/shooting I was performing. The camera sounded great by putting the HC1E in manual level mode, setting it to about 60% of level, and then using the Beachtek to set my levels. Interestingly, but not surprising, is that the audio sounds substantially better with on-board mic use if the built in flash is engaged/in the up position. Keep in mind the flash isn't useable for video.

Not surprisingly, audio sounds best when the still-camera flash is engaged.

I particularly like the spot focus and spot metering modes of this camcorder. Being able to use a PDA pen to tell the camera what to focus on, should the camera be only focused on the center image is really sweet, and the same can be said for the spot metering, instructing the camera on what part of the image it should be basing exposure. I do wish that there was a display indicating the aperture and shutter speed that the camera has selected based on what point of the image I?ve told the camera to use for exposure and/or focus. But, this *is* a consumer-oriented camcorder, so it?s probably asking too much for such a feature in this price class. The camera is LOADED with special effects such as Sepia, Fade, Color Correction, and more. I didn?t really test these modes beyond flipping through them, as these aren?t features that I?d likely use, since all NLE?s offer these sorts of functions in post-production.

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