A Digital Video Camera to cherish (Sony Handycam DCR-TR7000E)

Member Name: danfreedman

Product:	Sony Handycam DCR-TR7000E
Date:	25/09/00 (2932 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Digital Video on Hi8 tape

Disadvantages: No Titler

The Sony DCR-TR7000E is one of a new breed of cameras from Sony. In many ways this camera is an excellent compromise and offers the novice or advanced user a range of facilities which will cause it to remain the camera of first choice for many years to come.

Digital cameras are appearing at a relentless pace, yet one thing remains a perenial problem for this breed of unit. Storage. There are numberous standards for storage media, all of which are relatively expensive. Sony has solved this problem at a stroke by combining a camera which uses Hi8 tape but records digitally. On a 90 miniute tape you can record in DV standard 60mins of film. At a cost of about £5 per hour, this is excellent value.

The camera has no swing out viewer - but no real drawback since they consume batteries at a frightening rate, and are almost impossible to see in bright light - the very light you ought to be filming in. The TR7000e and its replacement the 8000, can record in light as low as 0 lux, has a range of simple digital effects and exposure tricks. Sony does seem to have skimped in this area, there is no Titler for example. It seems that they expect digital camera users to have a PC or Mac on which to edit and title their productions.

The battery life is excellent, there are a range of proprietary Lithium Ion cells which Sony make that provide the camera with a good expectation of how long they will last. You can buy cells for up to 10 hours.

The Super Steady shot, in my opinion, works only so so. the 'Super' label is a bit too optomistic.

Other features include, the Sony Laser link, only really useful if you have an appropriate Digital Video recorder. The Zoom is a useful 80x - beyond that the picture shakes and trembles all over the place. In the hand the camera feels really comfortable. All the facilities fall comfortable to hand (or should that be finger). There is a nice Single shot Camera mode, which takes a perfect still pictu
re. This is so good that I found I did not pack my SLR on the last vacation. There are the normal fades and overlaps, and some exposer compensation settings for beach scenes or strong backlighting.

It is possible to find this camera at knock down prices - I heartily recommend it to you.

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