[Dave Blackhurst]

Ken -
Good catch on the "lens ramping" or "aperture choke", or whatever you might call it - I know that in the SR you could see it just a tad at the high end of the zoom. As the lens reaches the tele end there's simply no aperature range left to open up, so the image darkened a bit. I didn't notice it in the brief time I played with the Canon at BB, but I was in a hurry, sounds like you had more tiome to observe it in action.

I know the XR seems to somehow manage to hang on and stay well exposed without a noticeable dropoff throughout its range - even the digital zoom at the 24x setting manages to hold it together until the very end of the tele range - you start to get more noise, but still a surprisingly clean image - the internal noise reduction starts to meet it's match, but it's still doing quite well! In a pinch, that ability to use "digital tele" could be useful - I know it was highly regarded in the FX7/V1U, and although I am no fan of using digital over optical, I might leave this pup in the "24x mode", there's a line to warn me if I want to stay outside the digital range.

This is the one HUGE pitfall in many "reviews", they just don't put the camera through it's paces and find all these little "real world" things! That's where to "trust" a review you have to learn what they do and don't test at that particular site... at least this round I felt like CCI got a bit closer, but it was obvious they didn't use the low lux setting and dinged the cam for bad low light... duh, use the functions the camera has before you ding it... they did on the other cams, but obviously didn't on the Sony?

There's another thread here where they mention a little fur wind muff for these small cameras (the SR11 was the main one in question if you run a search), I'm thinking of ordering a few so all my cams have a "soul patch", to avoid wind noise, it's a cheap add on, and if it doesn't cut the audio quality, it'd be worth it.


Darrin -
To say that you'd be using an external mic is no excuse for a camera in this price range having lousy mics/audio... sorry, but if you're paying around $1K, you should expect usable sound for general use or for ambient fill. It's like buying a car and the brakes are so-so - it's designed to go fast, so why would you need good brakes? I remember how disappointing the HV20 was for audio, and that was one of the reasons I moved past that camera rather quickly. Completely unusable with all the camera/body noise IMO. I'd expect better of the HF-S since it doesn't have a tape mech or door to add "special effects".

Yes if you're serious about audio, you'd have external mic capability, commensurate with the job, but I'm not lugging all that gear around all the time. I do pack a Sony HW1 (now they have an HW2) bluetooth wireless - it acts as the center channel in one mode, replacing the center on cam mic. Call it a gimmick if you will, but it seems to work for some situations - I'd really like to add an external mic input, and am looking at the "headphone" jack they put on the HW2... shouldn't be TOO hard to hack that into an "input" <wink>.

I LIKE having surround sound, I have my home theater setup for good surround, why shouldn't I want to have my videos give the feeling of "being there"? It's a small touch, but if your video is "high definition", why should your sound be stuck in '60's stereo??


As for the OIS, if I'm shooting out and about or at an event, the less gear I HAVE to lug the better, and a quality tripod or dolly is a BIG heavy piece of gear, expecially in relation to the camera! I can pack a belt clip and micro-monopod with a neck lanyard and I have a very stable shooting platform with the super OIS. Plus I can move around... Sure if you've got time to get all your settings right and do several "takes", the Canon might give you slightly better resolution, but for "run and gun" and live use, the Sony with that solid OIS wins without a doubt. Mounted on a shoulder or bracket (fig rig style handles) rig, it rivals a full steadicam IMO.



Jack - That's one thing the Canon has... that iAF with the sonar or whatever - snappy auto-focus, no doubt! I find with the Sony a quick crash zoom out and in seems to get it back on track, but yep it's a bit inconvenient. I've been shooting a hummingbird nest on our front porch, and was having some challenges with focusing - tele macro mode worked well, but I decided to try the spot focus, and voila! Worked great, and solved the hunting and challenges where the cam wasn't sure what to focus on - I just pointed to what I wanted, and it zapped right in... nice. It's a lot faster to press a couple buttons and point to what you want in focus than to manually focus... that's one place where the Sony menu works pretty well with easy access via touchscreen to things you might need quickly. It's a matter of learning how to get the most out of a camera and figuring what the engineers put in...

I'd sum it up by saying that Sony put out a pretty amazing camera with the XR, it's a definite step up from the prior generation. Take a little time to learn it, and you can get some impressive results.

I'm sure the same goes for the Canon, but it's a different beast for a different user... so it really depends on what you're looking for when you're camera shopping!

For me the Sony works and makes sense and I'm very happy with it. I want a "pocket cam" that gets excellent results under uncontrolled conditions, that I can accessorize to achive various purposes as well. I'd certainly like to have more control and all that, but I can work with what the camera has and achieve most of what I want, with a better image quality under more conditions than last years model, especially when light is low!



One last question for Ken - how do you feel the XR holds up against the Z5 for color in low light? I'm sure the Z5 is a bit brighter overall image with the big glass, but one thing that's always bugged me in other cameras is how color washes out in low light (you have an image, but it starts to drift off towards B&W) - I'm seeing the XR manage to pull "bright", relatively clean color out when all I can see with my eyes is muddy gray... that's been amazing to me.