Sony Image Stabilisation

The main reason I moved from a the Sanyo HD2000 to the Sony XR350E is to see how much better the Optical Image Stabilisation is in the Sony compared to the Sanyo. I suppose the IS in the Sanyo is almost non-existent so any other camcorder would be better. What more, the new Sony range claims to have the latest Optical Steadyshot Active Mode that is supposed to be better than their previous models. This will reduce shakes even when walking and zooming the same time. How does it fare in real life?

Well below is a short clip taken in Hamelin during my holiday in Germany. This was taken using one hand holding the camcorder above the head while walking and moving later down to eye-level. It sure beats the Sanyo hands down.




What about stabilisation at full zoom? Below is a clip of a bird feeding at some flowers taken at full zoom in the field outside my house. This time I think I used two hands and the stabilisation is great even at full zoom.



The lighting and thus the colour isn't that good (as compared to the above video) since I was shooting at the bright sky and the plant is in the shade. You'll see purple fringing on the leaves as well which is pretty common for lens at full zoom. You can also hear dog barking as the mic is quite sensitive and I did not set the mic to zoom mode. Sony should make this a default setting. To get a slow smooth zoom, you should use the button on the touch screen; if you use the toggle switch on the camcorder body, it may be jerky depending on how hard you press the button.

Just note that this optical steadyshot active mode is only available in the 350 and 550 ranges as the 150 range uses not optical but electronic image stabilisation but is still better than the Sanyo from what I have seen on Youtube.

I will check later if I can find a clip that is shot while walking and zooming at the same time but in any case, the OIS works.

Ronald Kwok.

Using Direct Copy

The Direct Copy is new in this year's Sony range of camcorder. What it does is that it will transfer the files (videos and photos) from the camcorder to an external hard disk drive (HDD) directly without using a PC. Actually the Sanyo Xacti camcorders (including the HD2000 and FH1) already had something similar last year so Sony is not the first. But Sony is the first among the big three as Canon and Panasonic have not introduced this feature so far in their range this year. For Panasonic, this is surprising since they have already acquired Sanyo and are already using the 60p resolution in their top range of 700 series camcorders. Actually in my case since I have the XR350 with a built-in 160GB HDD, the Direct Copy is not so useful. This is more for the CX 300 and CX350 with small capacity of internal memory.

Since I wanted to test the Direct Copy function in the Sony and the USB adaptor cable is not provided, I went to Low Yat Plaza and bought the generic cable (the USB AF to 5 pin, F is for Female) to do the connection. But alas, when I hooked up the XR350 to my external HDD, nothing happened. I then checked in the AFS Forum and found that you need to get the original VMC-UAM1 cable from Sony as they must have wired the port differently from the normal. I thought I have escaped from the proprietary memory stick of the Sony but now I still need to get another Sony proprietary item, what a shame.

Not accepting defeat, I thought I can out-smart Sony. Since the same 5-pin port is used for connecting the camcorder to a PC with the USB cable that came with the camcorder, I can use this cable and use a AF-AF converter to connect to the external HDD. Thus I went and bought this converter and did the connection. Again, nothing happened and it looks like I have no choice but to get the cable from Sony. Before doing that, has any owner of this Sony range found another solution to connect an external HDD, other than using the proprietary Sony cable? Please share in the comments and help all the poor souls out there and not make Sony rich.

Below are shots of the cables I tried so it will be clearer.

You may want to try your luck but I think Sony will win. Sigh.

From reading the manual and the AFS Forum, this Direct Copy is an improvement over the Sanyo. In the Sanyo, you must use a self-powered HDD meaning you must use the bigger 3.5" HDD while in the Sony you can also use the much smaller USB-powered 2.5" HDD. This is more convenient in terms of portability. I can only tell you more about the Direct Copy after getting the Sony cable. So hang on there.

Ronald Kwok

Sony

Meanwhile I had great difficulty uploading a 1-minute Sony video in Youtube. Tried several times but it aborted before reaching 100% and the last time at 97%, what frustration! So I trim one to about 25 seconds and this time it uploaded. Here it is.

This clip was taken in Hamelin, the Pied Piper town in Germany. It was shot with one hand while walking and you can see that the image stabilisation is very effective. It cope pretty well with the lighting with both bright and shade areas together. Will upload more later, now time to watch the World Cup match. Cheers.