dakin
Originally posted at end of another stream.....reposting here. :rolleyes:
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Bought the SDR-S200 from Japan on ebay for US$780. Am extremely disappointed and am hoping I discover I am using it wrong (or its defective) but....for my shooting needs*, using the new camera in XP mode in a much-heralded head-to-head competition with my Canon Powershot SD630 (my SD630 looking quite nervous), my SD630 reigned supreme and is once again feeling cocky that it won't be unseated anytime soon.
The test was simple....a 45 second clip from both cameras walking through my house with no lights on, at noon on a bright cloudy day, at the highest resolution.
*Note that 90% of my needs are for shooting dance from 5-20 ft away in inner-city dance studios and nightclubs (where lighting is often far from perfect), so my house conditions were fairly close to my intended use.
With both cameras fully zoomed out and held side-by-side, the first thing that made my jaw drop (in disbelief) was when I noticed how much greater the field of view on my SD630 was. I was actually quite shocked at how much more I could get into close up video with my SD630 than the S200. To use the S200 and capture most of any sort of action in a room, one would need to be on the other side, and that just isn't what you want to have to do to catch every-day life. (That is, at least for my shots, its nice to not draw undo attention to the camera.)
The second thing that stunned me was the output quality. (I renamed the S200 .mod file as .mpg and played it side by side the SD630 video on my plasma TV in Quicktime Pro.) The SD630 video was significantly sharper, brighter and much less grainy. The S200 actually came out significantly darker.
Given that the SD630 fits comfortably and unobtrusively in my front jean pocket, turns on faster, has a much larger field of view and a high-quality three inch playback screen (compared to the smaller low-res one on the S200), as far as I can tell, there is no situation for 90% of my intended use where the SDR-S200 is better than the SD630.
FWIW, I knew the S200 wouldn't fit in my pocket when I bought it -- my criteria was simply that the S200 had to outperform the SD630 in some compelling way for me to make the switch, and that meant overcoming my desire for carrying and access convenience. In the end, however, the S200 wasn't even close. I may still come to love it, but my guess is that I will resell immediately.
FWIW, the S200 does film slightly better in low and very low light than the SD630, but the output in either case was relatively unwatchable because of its graininess, so the difference seemed negligible to me. The zoom on the S200 on the other hand works much more smoothly than the SD630 and of course is significantly more powerful than the SD630. That zoom might be useful to me once in a while (vacation I guess), but really not for most of my use.
And while there is no comparable feature on the SD630, the nightvision on the S200 seems to require a tripod or an extremely steady hand, otherwise it's all a blur....which is too bad because that is the one feature (for me) which might have set it apart, as it would mean you could get much darker shots (even if the people are greenish)!
Finally, I found the interface for the S200 more intuitive and user friendly that the SD630, and that is where I am stopping!
If anyone can think of anything I am doing wrong, please help....otherwise, I hope this info is helpful. It may be the camera for some, but definitely not the killer for which I was looking!
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Bought the SDR-S200 from Japan on ebay for US$780. Am extremely disappointed and am hoping I discover I am using it wrong (or its defective) but....for my shooting needs*, using the new camera in XP mode in a much-heralded head-to-head competition with my Canon Powershot SD630 (my SD630 looking quite nervous), my SD630 reigned supreme and is once again feeling cocky that it won't be unseated anytime soon.
The test was simple....a 45 second clip from both cameras walking through my house with no lights on, at noon on a bright cloudy day, at the highest resolution.
*Note that 90% of my needs are for shooting dance from 5-20 ft away in inner-city dance studios and nightclubs (where lighting is often far from perfect), so my house conditions were fairly close to my intended use.
With both cameras fully zoomed out and held side-by-side, the first thing that made my jaw drop (in disbelief) was when I noticed how much greater the field of view on my SD630 was. I was actually quite shocked at how much more I could get into close up video with my SD630 than the S200. To use the S200 and capture most of any sort of action in a room, one would need to be on the other side, and that just isn't what you want to have to do to catch every-day life. (That is, at least for my shots, its nice to not draw undo attention to the camera.)
The second thing that stunned me was the output quality. (I renamed the S200 .mod file as .mpg and played it side by side the SD630 video on my plasma TV in Quicktime Pro.) The SD630 video was significantly sharper, brighter and much less grainy. The S200 actually came out significantly darker.
Given that the SD630 fits comfortably and unobtrusively in my front jean pocket, turns on faster, has a much larger field of view and a high-quality three inch playback screen (compared to the smaller low-res one on the S200), as far as I can tell, there is no situation for 90% of my intended use where the SDR-S200 is better than the SD630.
FWIW, I knew the S200 wouldn't fit in my pocket when I bought it -- my criteria was simply that the S200 had to outperform the SD630 in some compelling way for me to make the switch, and that meant overcoming my desire for carrying and access convenience. In the end, however, the S200 wasn't even close. I may still come to love it, but my guess is that I will resell immediately.
FWIW, the S200 does film slightly better in low and very low light than the SD630, but the output in either case was relatively unwatchable because of its graininess, so the difference seemed negligible to me. The zoom on the S200 on the other hand works much more smoothly than the SD630 and of course is significantly more powerful than the SD630. That zoom might be useful to me once in a while (vacation I guess), but really not for most of my use.
And while there is no comparable feature on the SD630, the nightvision on the S200 seems to require a tripod or an extremely steady hand, otherwise it's all a blur....which is too bad because that is the one feature (for me) which might have set it apart, as it would mean you could get much darker shots (even if the people are greenish)!
Finally, I found the interface for the S200 more intuitive and user friendly that the SD630, and that is where I am stopping!
If anyone can think of anything I am doing wrong, please help....otherwise, I hope this info is helpful. It may be the camera for some, but definitely not the killer for which I was looking!