Sony Handycam DCR SR45

At only 14 ounces with battery and 3.1 inches high by 3 inches wide by 4.5 inches deep, the silver and black SR45 is compact and lightweight. Sony improved the body design over its predecessors, the DCR-SR42. The power, movie, still dial sits more in line with your thumb, while the dead center record button lets you start fast without much thought.

Above it are power and activity lights topped by a Quick On button that takes the camcorder quickly in and out of a standby mode.

On top sit the camera shutter button for taking stills and the rocker switch for the Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 40x zoom lens.

The switch operates smoothly as does the zoom, allowing for stutter free close ups.

However, since it lacks optical image stabilization, those extreme close ups will require a tripod.

At the front above the lens sits a stereo zoom microphone it attenuates with the lens to better capture the audio coming from the subject that performed much better than expected. Under the lens is a switch to open and close the built in lens cover. There are no mic or headphone jacks, which would be welcome, but manufacturers tend to jettison them for budget models.

What you will find under a sliding door on the right side is a mini USB port and an AV out designed for use with the included cable. Another sliding door on top hides a Memory Stick Pro Duo card slot it looks very similar to an accessory shoe cover, but those are rare in this price class while a flip down door below the main control dial hides the jack for the power cable. All the cover ups make for a clean appearance.

Also, hidden in plain sight off on the inside of the grip is the switch for the camcorders Nightshot Plus infrared light, which lets you capture creepy night vision video of people sleeping or whatever else you choose to shoot in complete darkness.

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Sony Handycam HDR SR7E

Along with its trio of siblings the tape based HDR-HC7, the flash based CX7, and the DVD based UX7 the SR7 uses Sonys 1/2.9 inch, 3.2 megapixel ClearVid CMOS sensor, recording video at 2.3 megapixel (HD) or 1.7 megapixel (SD) resolution before down sampling and encoding to 1080i HD (1,440x1,080) or SD (720x480), respectively.

It also shoots photos at native 2.3 megapixel (16:9) or 3 megapixel (4:3) resolutions, despite the grandiose 6 megapixel claim on the body, which refers to a maximum interpolated resolution. It sports a 10x zoom Zeiss T*-coated lens and 5.1 Dolby surround sound recording. If all you plan to do is play the video back on an HDTV, the SR7 is a great fit. For editing, though, there are still some hurdles to jump.

Most important, the AVCHD format used by Sony, Panasonic, and Canon for file based HD recording faces some glitchy to nonexistent software support.

In Sonys case, it really should drop the feeble Picture Motion Browser software bundle and include the more functional Vegas Video Movie Studio Platinum Edition, at least for the folks who drop over $1,000 on the HD Handycams.

Other cutting edge pitfalls include a mini HDMI connector (Type C), which requires a cable thats not yet ubiquitous and support for the mostly still unviewable x.v.Color (xvYCC) color space.

Thats all unfortunate, because the SR7 otherwise delivers a very good HD experience. From a design and operation perspective, it has everything we liked about the HC7. It weighs a bit less 1 pound, 5 ounces with battery but feels similarly comfortable to hold and shoot only using the touch screen requires an awkward two handed balancing act. Though inconvenient for menu navigation, the LCD otherwise works well and remains visible in harsh lighting.

I generally prefer shooting with an eye level viewfinder, though, and wish Sony had padded the hard plastic eyecup. Like most of Sonys consumer models, the SR7 incorporates the love it or hate it touch screen interface I fall more into the hate it camp, especially on the SR7s smaller 16:9 2.7 inch LCD. Within the menus youll find eight scene modes 24 step exposure shift manual, indoor, outdoor, and auto white balance and manual shutter speed adjustment between 1/2 and 1/500 second.

Spot Focus and Spot Meter take advantage of the interface by letting you literally point at your subject. You can assign one shooting adjustment setting manual focus, exposure compensation or exposure shift, white balance shift (toward red or blue), and shutter speed to control via the rather slippery CAM CTL dial.

For shooting convenience, Sony provides its excellent SuperSteadyShot optical image stabilizer and Active Interface Shoe, plus Super NightShot infrared mode for when you need to record in the dark. Other niceties include a built in electronic lens cover and a flash for still photos.

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