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Sony HDR-SR11 10.2-MP 60GB High Definition Hard Drive Handycam Camcorder with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom
Amazon.com Price: $1,799.99 (as of 2010-07-30 15:47:28 GMT) Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon.com at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Product Description
Product Details
Video Reviews
Customer Reviews
Sony won me over in the following areas:
1. Autofocus: Sony seemed more responsive. I have a 2yr old, which can't seem to stay put for more than a second and the Sony seemed to obtain better focus on him. Canon sometimes took over 2seconds to obtain focus outdoors at about 5x zoom.
2. white balance: For some reason the Canon did not look natural to me. The colours were off, with my son's pale skin looking greenish indoors at low light.
3. LCD + viewfinder. The Canon does not have a viewfinder, which I suppose contributes to its light weight. I found the LCD to be more than enough in overcast weather, but Sony's 3.2" screen is a pleasure to work with. It's larger(2.7" v.s 3.2") and much smoother LCD. The display is simply gorgeous. Videos show amazing on it and shooting is very pleasant. I found the touch screen to sometimes need a second push, but fingerprints were never a problem - I got the same amount on the Canon too. The Canon has the joystick/func button which I found was a bit clumsy to use.
4. compression & low light performance. Since I was shooting mostly indoors, I found Sony to work slightly better in low light, focusing a bit faster and producing less noise. I was comparing Sony's 60i v.s. Canon's 30p mode. Canon in 60i indoors at low light looked too alien green for my liking. Sony produced a bit less artifacts too.
5. Storage: 60G v.s. 32G of space. Both are extendible via memory card, sony requires the card if you want to shoot still photos while filming.
6. Build quality. This was a big one. I'd like my camera for which I paid a good chunk of cash to look good and feel good. It is very sad to see Canon produce those cheap feeling and looking cameras, when their SLRs are built like tanks. Sony was impecable with every detail very well thought through.
7 Sound quality. This was also quite noticeable. Sony's sound was much clearer indoors. It also offers a zoom function on the mic, so that when you use the optical zoom, the mic will also "zoom-in" on the conversation.
8. Price. As it stands, HF11 is 150 bucks more and I can't justify it.
9. Both camcorders can be hooked with cables directly, but only the Sony includes a cradle, and it is much easier to work with - just drop it in and pick it up when done. On the other hand, with the Canon I had to plug 2 cables each time I wanted to connect it to my Mac - one for power and one USB (you can't connect to PC without the camcorder being powered by the adaptor).
10. Button operation. Canon has a bad design flaw in their quick start function. You see, if you stop filming, and just close the LCD, the cam goes into standby mode. However, by pressing the start button, you can begin filming again without opening the LCD. On the Sony, the start button is embeded in the middle of the on/off/mode ring. The Canon's button is a big blob sticking out the back. It is very easy to accidentally start filming. It was quite anoying to find that my battery has runout in the car because I've depressed the button. On the bright side I now have 30min of footage of my jacket's pocket.
11. better stills. Canon's 3.2Mpixel shots can't compare to Sony's 10.2MP. Also, Sony's flash is well centered over the lens. Canon's is offset and the light looks off in pictures.
12. Better OIS (Optical Image Stabilization). I found that Sony performs better while walking.
Now some people keep whining about 30p/24p etc. I am no pro, and to me 24p looked a bit blocky, and 30p providing very similar quality to Sony's 60i mode. I found the 60i mode to look very movie-like too (It kept reminding me of an episode of "The Office" for some reason.)
To keep things fair, the Canon's Pros were:
1. Lighter weight and more centered zoom lever position. Sony's HDD,3.2" screen and viewfinder seem to add a bit of weight and the lever seems to go too far back.
2. flash-based recording medium should keep things more durable, though I'm not sure flash can sustain as many writes as a regular HDD.
I think that this unit captures about the best video quality that can be had today in a consumer camcorder. The images are great!
Unfortunately, I find the included Sony software to be deficient in its ability to deal with dual-layer disks.....and generally clumsy in copying files.
Nothwithstanding, I still give this unit an outstanding rating because it serves my purpose of saving high-quality images that I can archive on DVD disc or hard drive and edit later.
A nice feature of the native ACVHD that this unit saves in is that you can view it directly on the Playstation 3 without rendering. Given the size of HD video files, this is handy.
Edit as of May 3, 2005: Having seen comments re. other HD camcorder software, I must have expected more than the industry can deliver right now. So please revise my review to acknowledge that the software is about as good as can be had right now.
I would purchase an extra battery and charger. Got mine from us1camera for $1k, case, camera, extra battery and charger, 2 lenses, 3 filters, bag, tripod and more. Free shipping. Excellent camera, deal and service.
As far as quality goes, it is stunning. I have a 50" Pioneer plasma HD deisplay and this camera really makes it shine. It is amazing that for this amount of money my home movies look 10x better than my local networks SD newscast. As a matter of fact, it's really not that far behind the HD video being broadast; especialy when considering the money involved! This camera is the difference between watching home movies that look like 10 year old tapes on America's Funniest Home Videos and watching your newborn baby on blu-ray. Money well spent IMO.
It has strong additional features as well. The facial recognition feature is very effective. The 5 channel (not 5.1) microphone works surprisingly well too. The soundstage surprised me on the first clips I replayed on my home theater. Sound panned as I panned the camera; all this on a consumer grade cam is amazing. The hybrid recording is a plus in my opinion too. Pepole get scared at the thought of walking around with a hard drive getting bumped around. This has not been an issue with these cameras so far but lets consider the possibility. The key advantage of Sony's hybrid system is in case a failure does occur. The Canon's I looked at were either flash memory or hard drive only. If either fails you are done. With Sony's system say the hard drive does die, just slap in some stick memory and keep on rolling video. The flash memory only camcorders appear to be much cheaper but add in the cost of getting the stick media and see that advantage almost disappear. Toss in the fact that the biggest stick media is around 50% of the capacity of this camera's hard drive and 25% of the big brother SR12 and you're gonna be switching memory cards or uploading to the laptop much more frequently. Plus there's the possibility you could misplace them juggling them around while on vacation.
Again in summary, money well spent and hard to believe this level of quality is finally within reach of us end-users.
I've had it for about a month now and I'm still discovering new features and experimenting recording in different lighting conditions. I'm really impressed with the playback quality on my 22" LCD screen (1680x1050 max resolution) but it really screams on my 42" LCD @ full 1920x1080i, never fails to put a grin on my face! :D I'm new to HD video and being able to record every moment in HD is truly priceless! I originally wanted the SR-12 but decided I could live with the 60GB hard drive on the SR-11 and got a really good deal elsewhere so it was a no brainer. The battery that comes with the camera lasts up to 1.5 hours @ everything turned high which is OK! As a matter of fact, I just purchased the NPFH100 H Series Actiforce Hybrid InfoLithium Battery from Amazon, which supposedly gives you something like 5-7 hours of continuous recording time which is ridiculously awesome!!
The 5.1 surround sound is also excellent, the nightshot feature is VERY cool, letting you record in complete darkness and cooler still, the SUPER night shot option makes objects in total darkness even brighter and lets you see farther! When this option is turned on, it drains a little more battery but it's negligible and I like to use the b/w picture effect when nigh shot's turned on...
This camcorder also takes 10MP pictures and 7MP stills on the fly, even while you're recording! I'm so very happy with this camcorder that I take it with me everywhere. Only 2 things I can find (and I have to look real hard) that I kinda don't like is the fact that you have to touch the LCD to access menu and options and it leaves fingerprints but I can live with that. The other thing is, the unit accepts a mini HDMI connector so I had to get a HDMI to mini HDMI adapter to be able to use it to hook it up to my 42" LCD and it's kinda lose, I don't know if it's the adapter or the camcorder itself, not to mention when the cable's plugged in with the adapter, it kind of sticks out, but again, a small gripe, nothing major.
I experimented recording leaves and insects in nature real close up, only an inch from the lens and it was able to focus no problem and let you see incredible detail, like a macro shot! 12x optical zoom and image stabilization are awesome as well, I can still see details pretty clear when it switches over to digital zoom and I can keep zooming in up to 150x!
There is no way I can put everything I love about this thing on here and there are still options I haven't touched or used on this camcorder... I highly recommend this unit to anyone who's serious about recording every passing moment as your own eyes see it and then some, guaranteed!
Buy the biggest battery you can find for this unit... the one that comes with it doesn't last long at all.
Also remember that to enjoy HD video you shoot, you'll have to keep it on the camera or spend quite a bit of extra cash on a blu-ray burner.
Better image quality in low light. Some may complain about this cameras quality in low lighting conditions, but let me tell ya, it's a lot better than what I got with the HC3! Comparing shots side by side, you notice a whole lot more artifacts and "dirtyness" in the footage captured with the HC3.
Optical image stabalizer. This is something that wasn't offered at the time I bought my HC3, at least not in Sony's line (I think Canon's comparable model had it). Having an optical image stabalizer is way better than having the image stabalize digitally. I can see a great improvement in the footage captured now with the SR11.
Tapeless. Although, now not spending money on tapes, I'm spending money on hard drives, 'cause the captured footage is pretty big - but if I'm getting that much better of an image then I'm okay with it. Tapeless is way convenient and so far I'm digging it. I'm using a mac, so the capturing process is a little different. I have to use my intel macbook pro with Final Cut Studio to capture it, then I plug the external drive I captured to into my quad-core G5 to work with it (the ppc mac's won't capture the AVCHD footage unfortunately). It's an extra step to do this, but sooner or later I'll get a desktop intel mac and it won't be a problem any more, and so far this method is working fine for me.
Bigger lcd screen. It's a fair size larger than my HC3 and it's much appreciated it. Just nicer to use and review what you shot before you get back home.
The camera is rad. If you choose to go with it you won't be disappointed (even if you're using a mac!)
I bought the SR11 after returning the Canon HG10 and I am totally satisfied with the SR11. The SR11's video quality is amazingly good---extremely high resolution and vivid color. It has everything you need for excellent quality HD family videos in every event of daily living including low light situation.
I did not expect a camcorder can produce good still pictures but the SR11 surprised me. The still pictures taken by this camcorder are also very good although they cannot compare to my Nikion D80 DSLR. I would not use the SR11 as the primary device for still picture but I will definitely have no problem with using it for still pictures when my Nikon is not around.
The SR11 has exceeded my expectation. I highly recommend this camcorder to anyone.
The software came with SR11 can do only limited editing but this is in line with the industry standard (i.e. feature of software came with other brands). I use Pinnacle 12 Plus for editing. However, the AVCHD disc burn by Pinnacle was not recognized by the AVCHD player software came with the SR11. This same disc can be recognized/played by the other AVCHD player I installed in my computer. I am contacting Pinnacle trying to figure out what the problem is. If you buy the SR11 and don't have an editing software and want to invest in one, perhaps Sony Vegas is the way to go.
I did not do a side by side comparison with the hf11 for image quality. Most of the consumer review sites give the edge to Canon in terms of pure resolution but I assure the Sony SR11 does not disappoint. I chose the Sony because the image is excellent and the color is so much more natural..While it is impossible to discern resolution through the viewfinder,it is easy to see the color....I challenge anyone to pick up the Sony and the Canon at best buy...point them at any object in the store(at any frame rate)and compare the images... one accurately resembles what you are looking at and one does not.The Canon alters the colors in a way that I suppose some find pleasing but I just find annoying..When I see the beach and the sunset I want to capture it just the way I see it, not the way Canon's engineers see it. Also if you buy Sonys stand alone dvd recorder vrd-mc5 you can record in HD right on to DVDS and play them in hd on your PS3 or blu ray player...Then you can pop the disk right into your mac and import into imovie WE are talking the ultimate in simplicity...another reason I bought the Sony.. All of these cameras are small..The sr11 is slightly larger(but still small) with a much bigger and higher resolution lcd the lcds on the others are so small its hard to know if you are focused...... also the sony has a much better system of manual focus...The Canon is terrible for manual focus.The images from the sr11 easily fill my 40inch screen with razor sharp goodness
These are not professional cameras and no one should expect professional video....These will produce stunning tack sharp video. I highly recommend tis camera ...get the recorder too, the sony vrd-mc5
This little camcorder does it all and more. The image quality is superb, even on the lowest setting. I don't have a blue ray player, and we don't own a high def television, so I'm not concerned so much with the currently less common HD format. Therefore, I keep mine on the standard "high quality" mode - sometimes normal quality - to conserve space. But even that produces video far superior to anything I've ever owned in the digital video realm. My mother has a 40 inch plasma flat panel HD TV and even the video I shoot in "standard" mode looks awesomely crisp and clear.
I've had my sony since January and have used it in a variety of situations - evening, prom atmosphere, beach at night, beach at day, fireworks, cloudy day, midnight, regular day, indoors, low-light, and even fluorescent walmart type lighting.
PROS
* Small, lightweight, easy to handle
* LCD rotates full 180o vertically and horizontally
* Touch screen with easy to navigate menus (they don't have too many levels)
* There is an "easy" button if you want to turn off all the more technical aspects
* Video looks cinematic (as if you're watching a real professional movie) when shown on tv
* Surround Sound is outstanding, even at the beach.
* The zoom microphone setting works very well - tried it sitting halfway back in the audience at a high school theater play. Could barely hear the people on stage in real life, but the camcorder picked up everyone's voice vividly.
* Regular nightshot and slow motion works great, and is just FUN, fun fun fun.
* Quick on / quick off (stand-by) button
* Take photos WHILE video is recording
* Auto-focus with an easy to switch to manual dial on front
* You can change the Megapixel level of your photos (10MP, 7MP, 3MP, etc)
* Auto-self timer
* The division of photos vs. video in the menu
* Docking station for charging
* Wireless remote control (I LOVE this feature!)
* The LCD screen is super sharp - I could even see it perfectly at the beach.
* The picture motion browser software is very useful, although I did have a high learning curve with it. Once I figured it out though, it makes importing, sorting, and burning video fast and easy.
As with everything else, there are a few things that do annoy me though, but I can live with it. :)
CONS
* The twilight & "super nightshot" settings are TERRIBLE if you move around and causes a strobe-light movement effect. They are best used on a tripod with very little scene movement.
* Image stabilization could be a lot better. It doesn't get terrible though unless you're in digital zoom - then it's almost impossible to get a steady shot if you're holding it.
* Slow motion records less light - produces darker video than normal.
* Really low light photos have to be manually focused & adjusted to ensure a clear shot.
* You can't view previously shot high def video when you are shooting in standard (and vice versa).
* Flash should be turned off in most shots as it seems to always produce red-eye. It does offer a red-eye reduction setting (but I don't like using the double delayed flash). Daylight photos actually look better without a flash anyway.
* The auto focus on the video has a hard time focusing in low light. I've found that zooming out then slowly zooming back in helps auto focus. I don't have this problem in bright light.
All in all, I couldn't speak more highly of my little sony. I have it beside me at all times (awaiting my son's first steps, and everything in between). It's just so nice to have it available at all times, without having to worry about switching to a blank cassette or DVD every 30 minutes (like I use to do with camcorders)! The handycam utility software also makes it a breeze to import video to my 160GB computer, so I can free up space on the camcorder any time I want to.
I would suggest getting a spare battery and a wall charger to go with it. That way you will always have a charged battery. I did get a 2nd bigger battery, but the original battery will get you through a minimum of 70 minutes of filming, even on HD - your battery life varies depending on the quality of video you are shooting.
I'll also mention that mine is a tough little camera too - my son tugged it off the table one day and it crashed on the kitchen floor. I about had a heart attack, but luckily it was perfectly fine!
If you're on the fence about this camera, head over to youtube and search for Sony SR11 tests to view some of the video it produces (especially the slow motion tests). Previewing those beforehand is what cinched the deal for me when I bought in January.
Tags: 10.2mp • 60gb • camcorder • definition • drive • handycam • hard • hdrsr11 • high • image • optical • sony • stabilized • with • zoom