Review of Sony HDR-HC3 Camcorder

Sony HDR-HC3 Camcorder has undoubtedly emerged as most popular camcorder in the growing market costing under $2000. Significant improvements over the previous HDR-HC1 camcorder have demonstrated the evolution of HD camcorder. Sony commands the easy-to-use lower end camcorders market.

Sensor:

The HDR-HC3 camcorder comes with the 1/3" Clear VID type CMOS sensor with the same chip as used in Sony's top DVD DCR-DVD505. The HDV compression in HDR-HC3 works most favorably, combining both color performance and fantastic resolution. The sensor is most useful for low light performance.

High Definition:

Its HD picture size is 1440 by 1080 mm at 3000 lux covering an area of 16:9, and the imported picture measures 1920x1080 mm. The picture quality is very fine and it is sharp like higher level cameras. The color is balanced with more detectable saturation as compared to HC1. Green parts of the spectrum are more concentrated, whereas red is almost same with a slight variation in yellow. Sony is targeting a different section of users for HC3 and may make adjustments as per anticipations of customers. The glare of the picture is retained.

It gives quite an amount of in-camera sharpening compared to HC1, resulting curved lines which is not acceptable in HD videos, thus it lets down the video quality. The saturation is not too much, but is still detectable. There is some haloing on the edges. There is also more noise. The effect of noise and sharpening is that you get a bit of smearing in high contrast portions.

Comparison:

Comparing HDR-HC3 with top models of Panasonic, Canon and Sony's top DVD camcorders, the Canon Optura creates a less defined image and the picture has a standard definition of NTSC 640 by 480. The color performance is almost the same with more stair steps in a closer view. Optura has higher level of intensity.

Panasonic PV-GS500 has more of in-camera sharpening trouble. Its noise level is also higher, though the noise is like a fine grain type instead of the blockish noise in HDR-HC3. The HDR-HC3 can't produce much better video.

Sony DVD505 is also provided with CMOS imager like HDR-HC3 and gives similar color balance as well as the saturation levels. Due to their significantly low bit rate the DVD camcorders DVD505 produce hazier images.

Other Features:

The HDR-HC3 provides a limited control over picture sharpness and color levels. Every control is represented on a scale that can be toggled up or down. You can obtain more sharpness like Photoshop. The sharpening will occur where you desire, not only it appears adjoining the edges of objects with different colors, but it is also visible along the complete image, which regrettably gives the noise. It is also not clear if the sharpness scale refers to threshold, radius or their combination. HDR-HC3 has a fantabulous performance in low light.

Handling of HDR-HC3 is a much simpler in comparison to HDR-HC1.

In its Easy mode, the auto controls will take over. The user can freely point-and-shoot. Automatic controls as well as the ease to use are strong suits of Sony, and these controls perform well.

Comparing with HD camcorders, the HDR-HC3 is in a tough competition with Sony HDR-SR1 and also HDR-UX1. The HDR-HC3 can be considered as a fine camcorder but it has a tight race with competitors.

Source: Sony HDR-HC3 Camcorder Review