I have a question about Sony HD Handycams. (just getting into photography, i dont know much about it.)?

Question

Ive been wanting a camcorder that can take good still images (like it were also a still camera) so im interested in the sony hdr sr11 because of its 10mp still images. I really like the look of this camcorder so far, but im just wondering if anyone has feedback on the camera and if its really worth the highish price ($1200, right?...maybe the price will go down?). so, basically if there is a HD model that is nice but cheaper and at least 6mp stills? I was looking at the hdr hc3 for a bit cause it looks more in my price range and the quality looks great, i just dont like the fact that it only has 4mp stills and it is in miniDV format, which apparantly is annoying...this true?...And one more thing...i went on youtube to look up videos from these cameras and it confuses me that the hc3 videos are very good quality... http://youtube.com/watch?v=5k3sBBIUN4E

and the sr11 videos are not as good... http://youtube.com/watch?v=WIX9_4XxZzU

Isnt the sr11 supposed to be better? should i get it?

Answer 1

I recommend the camcorder  because it has overall good picture quality although the 10mp that it is stating it has is not really an accurate way of measuring the picture quality.  Realistically you'd be getting a decent picture for a 4x6 or 5x7 print although for larger pictures you're going to notice a lot more noise in the picture.  The film quality is great.  The only thing I have against it is that it's a Sony product and you're paying more for name.  I would recommend the Canon HG10 (hard drive) or Canon HV30 (dv).  If you're looking for really nice videos and pictures but editing isn't a huge priority, go with a hard drive camcorder.  If you are really into video editting a dv camcorder will provide you with better picture and more control when editing.  All these camcorders you're looking at are good ones, although using youtube videos is not a good place to look for samples of the videos these take since they compress and convert the videos dramatically.

Answer 2

buy a camcorder as a camcorder and treat the stills as an added function for when you haven't got a stills camera with you, buy a seperate stills camera as it will do a much better job.

Even for HD 1080, the screen resolution is only around 2MP, I'm not convinced that a consumer camcorder lens is going to have the resolution to do a 10mp chip justice.

The second issue is the resolution itself, consumer camcorder chips are tiny, I would be very sceptical of the quality from a camcorder chip boasting 10MP, I can't image it would be good for either video or stills (too maany photosites struggling to grab light on a small sesnor.