Sony HDR-SR7 AVCHD 6.1MP 60GB High Definition Hard Disk Drive Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom
by Sony
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Our Price: $884.00 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $449.00 (click here) Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sony HDR-SR7 AVCHD 6.1MP 60GB High Definition Hard Disk Drive Camcorder with 10x Optical Zoom
Customer Review: Great camcorder that can still be improved
Summary: 4 Stars
Picture quality is much better than the last camcorder I bought which was a JVC non-HD camcorder. In good lighting, this camera looks really good. In low light, sometimes it looks decent. In really low light, you need the night vision turned on; you can see everything but it looses almost all color. I did get an "Buffer overflow" error filming a loud rap performance. My film major friend tells me it happens to all digital camcorder with loud music. The build-in mic captured sound well and seemed to cancel out most of the noise during the concert. I really enjoy the fast frame rate filming, it allows u to slow down time, but only last about 12 seconds. Overall it has been great. I've decided to use this camcorder and make home movie on my wedding coming in 6 month than to hire professional videographers. I think this camera will be fine for that. Oh last problem with this camcorder, and all other AVCHD camera is that I don't know how to share it with friends yet. I can burn it on DVD, but I don't want to have to burn one for ever one of my friends, and YouTube seems to public and looses a lot of quality. I'm still waiting for a web service that can handle AVCHD. I would recommend this to anyone. Btw, I bought this for $999 in Nov 07. I'd wait for price drop if you can. The older model is now like $600, so I imagine this model will be too in another 6 to 9 months.Customer Review: Great HD camera, although with some questions from an amateur
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm not a camcorder expert, and frankly have taped my first footage just 15 days ago, when my son was born... With that being said, this camera stores a very very large amount of footage which is hugely convenient - I can't imagine switching different tapes or discs in and out, and figuring out a place to store them so they don't get lost. Here, the hard drive lets you carry for a long time.
The HD characteristic seems accurate and I may even say comparable to HD footage you watch on your television, yet I'm not sure if it's my filming or that the HD quality on camcorders is still coming into its own, but my footage doesn't look mind-boggling. On the one hand, everything is fairly crisp. On the other hand, the color clarity is far from ideal (which could be due to my lack of understanding of how to use natural and artificial light)... Also, while I say that everything is fairly crisp, the clarity of the video is not quite the 1080p clarity that you'll see with HD footage on your television, possibly due to the light issue mentioned above.
Overall a great camera for an amateur, as it stores a lot of video, and as I understand takes better video than most cameras out there, but don't expect to record 1080p, TV-type footage with this camera as an amateur...
Customer Review: Almost there!
Summary: 4 Stars
Good camcorder but needs more work in the following departments:
1- Indoor performance in not up to an HD standards. Grainy videos in regular lighting conditions. I had to buy an HVL-HL1 video light to get it to an acceptable level. So if you are planning to shoot lots of indoor videos make sure you get that video light for $39.00 or something more powerful. In this case saying "the more the better" works.
2- Auto focus often gets confused and does not focus right a way, you have to toggle zoom button back and forth to get it to focus which is kind of annoying. I hope its a software related issue and they can come up with an update for it.
3- Bigger LCD screen would be a plus, although it may not be possible considering the size of this camcorder.
4- "Back Light" button is located in an awkward place. I wish they would put it somewhere else where you don't have to feel for it.
5- Better editing software would be good too.
Other than that I really like this unit and what it can do in outdoors. Amazing results when conditions are right. I also do not mind not having the USB port on the unit itself as I always carry the base in the pouch with the camcorder.
Overall its a money well spent!
Customer Review: Takes outstanding video but sometimes hear hard drive clicking
Summary: 4 Stars
This camera takes great video. I originally ordered the HC7 but couldn't deal with the tapes. It took me back to the VCR days. It took great video as well but I can't say I noticed much of a difference between tape and HDD. I'm sure the professional can but it satifies my needs and then some.
Low light isn't a big issue. If the lighting is too low it does have a lot of noise but simply turn on your indoor lights and it's plenty of light. Outdoor video is spectacular. I took some video of some flowers in my wife's garden with the Telemacro function on to blur the background. It looked like some of the video on Discovery HD. Everyone I show it to is very impressed.
You will need an external hard drive to store this stuff. One hour of AVCHD video is approx. 7 gigabytes so your computer hard drive will run out of space fast. I still have a Pentium 4, 3.0 Ghz processor with 1 GB RAM. It's fast enough to use the stock software but I will probably have to upgrade if I'm going to do any serious editing. This stuff can be taxing on your system.
Overall great and I would recommend this camera. Also impressed with Amazon's return policy on the HC7. No restocking fee like the brick-and-mortar stores.
Customer Review: Great Camcorder, always ready to go and easy to use!!!
Summary: 4 Stars
I had the Sony hdr-sr1 for about a month before sending it back to get the sr7. The sr1 had a great picture, but for some reason the sr7 is a little better. I liked the bigger screen on the sr1 and the use of a regular hdmi wire for ease of use. The sr7 has hdmi but you need a mini to regular hdmi wire or adapter which doesn't have many uses that I know of. This camcorder is very light and easy to use. There is plenty of hard drive space to last thru your longest vacation and get the birthday party when you get back. The question is will you have enough battery to get it all. Bottom line...The mini hdmi and short standard battery are the only things keeping me from giving it a perfect score. Other than those two things, I couldn't be happier. It helps to have a blu-ray player as that is how you can play your hd video once on dvd. You can get about 45 min. worth of hd video, in its native format of AVCHD, on a regular DVD. You'll get more on a recordable blu-ray disk. You can put video back on the camcorder even after you have taken it off to use the camcorder as a means to play back in HD. If you like to edit your video, make sure your software can handle AVCHD. I also purchased a Sony tripod that plugs into the camcorder