Sony DCR-DVD108 Camcorder Reviewby David KenderPublished on Jun 18, 2007 9:12 AM
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Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control (7.0)
Sony camcorders typically exceed in automatic controls and ease of use. In addition to their absolute market saturation and name recognition, this is the reason Sony does so well in the consumer market. Nearly every Sony camcorder has a little Easy button on the side of the body. Once in Easy mode, the camcorder goes into idiot-proof lockdown. The menu is abbreviated, and the buttons get bigger and friendlier. There are surely some people out there owning a Sony camcorder that have never taken it out of Easy mode and gotten along just fine through backyard barbeques and their children’s baseball games.
The auto exposure is quick, yet smooth. Moving from dark to light, the DVD108 (Review, Specs, $339) shows a slight tendency to overexpose, particularly if you’re zoomed in too close to a subject. This usually corrects after a few seconds or if you zoom out a little, indicating that the camera system may be doing a little center-weighted metering. (You do not have a choice of metering options with the DVD108.)
The auto white balance is more gradual than the exposure. It takes up to 8-9 seconds for the DCR-DVD108 (Review, Specs, $339) to shift from an indoor fluorescent to an outdoor overcast temperature. The auto shutter and auto gain (more difficult to assess visually) worked well. They can be monitored during playback, but not while recording. Because the imager is small, it did not take much for the camcorder to max out the 15dB gain range.
Once you leave the safety of Easy mode, there are several other one-touch features that can make your shots better looking while remaining simple to operate. In the function menu (accessed by tapping the button in the lower-right corner), on the second tab, you’ll find the Scene Selection options (often called “AE” or “Program AE” modes by other manufacturers. These are one-touch buttons that customized for optimum shooting under difficult lighting conditions. They include Twilight, Candle, Sunrise & Sunset, Fireworks, Portrait, Spotlight, Sports, Beach, and Snow. The range of choices here is really good. Only a select couple of Canon camcorders can top that list. Scene modes are convenient, especially in a pinch, and often beloved by point-and-shooters.
Also available for the slightly more advanced user is Auto Slow Shutter and Color Slow Shutter. The first, Auto Slow Shutter, allows extends the slowest possible auto shutter speed from 1/60th of a second down to 1/30th of a second. It’s not a bad feature to activate if you plan on doing a lot of indoor or low light shooting. At 1/30th, you’re not going to see much motion blur. However, you’ll want to be more wary of Color Slow Shutter. This feature, once activated, allows the shutter to slow down considerably, as low as 1/4 of a second. At that speed, any motion whatsoever, even the tiniest hand wobble, would render an image blurry past comprehension.
Overall, the DCR-DVD108 has great auto responses. We expect it to be the best in its class in this category.
Overall Manual Control (4.0)
The manual control set on the Sony DCR-DVD108 is pretty sparse. In fact, you may want to avoid Sony altogether in the sub-$800 range if manual controls are your interest. The DVD018 offers basic control of focus, exposure, and white balance… and that’s it. As described above, there are a host of one-touch automatic features that can lend a hand, but they’re not quite manual controls.
All of the controls are operated via a touch screen, which has its adherents and detractors. While access to controls is relatively fast, especially with Sony’s new menu system, the constantly greasy screen is annoying. When adjusting focus, the smudges are downright detrimental. Another problem is that the screen on the DVD108 is particularly small, only 2.5”. The next model up, the DCR-DVD308, and every camcorder above that, have a 2.7” screen, and we were complaining about that being a downgrade from the 3” screens of yore. Pushing the touch screen buttons on the DVD108 is genuinely more difficult that it should be. We found ourselves pushing three or four times before the camcorder reacted. You can read more about the menu here.
The manual controls are described in detail below. As a synopsis, we can say that the zoom is the only satisfactory one.
Zoom (5.0)
You have to hand it to Sony. Even on their entry-level camcorder, they managed to include a pretty good zoom toggle. With the stubby, bumpy grip, you can get about three separate zoom speeds. The slowest gives you a good crawl. The fastest zoom takes about five seconds to traverse from one end to the other. When it reaches towards the end of the 40x zoom, the speed slows down noticeably.
Unfortunately, the figuring out where you are in the zoom is near-impossible. As you shift zoom, a scale appears in the upper-left corner, but there is no numerical indicator as to what the actual zoom power is.
Like nearly all Sonys, there is a secondary set of controls on the LCD panel. The “T” and “W” are not touch sensitive. They move the zoom at a fixed speed that corresponds to the medium speed from the toggle.
Zoom Power Ratio (40.0)
The Sony DCR-DVD108 has one of the largest optical zooms to date in a consumer camcorder, 40x. It’s clear that inflated zoom numbers work well on the minds of consumers, because they get bigger every year as manufacturers try to best each other. A 40x zoom is one the DCR-DVD108’s biggest selling points. But it’s not necessarily working to the consumers’ advantage. Here’s the paradoxical problem with big zooms. Because of the way optics work, you’ll generally find small zooms on camcorders with large sensors. Conversely, you’ll find large zooms paired with small chips (not because they have to be, but because it’s possible, and because it’s a relatively cheap upgrade for a manufacturer to include). But these small chip, entry-level camcorders tend to have bad stabilization, making for poor, shaky video the farther you extend the zoom. Meanwhile, expensive camcorders with small zooms often have great stabilization systems. The quick solution: don’t use the zoom past 10x – 15x without a tripod.
The digital zoom (as if you actually need it past 40x), can be extended to 80x and 2000x. This is located in the home menu.
Focus (3.5)
Very few consumer camcorders provide satisfactory manual focus, least of all Sonys. Touch screen interface, by definition, is the worst for focusing, because as you interact with the menu, you’re smudging up the very screen that you need to properly gauge focus. The focus controls are located on the first tab of the function menu. When manual focus is engaged, two little icons appear on either side of the screen: a person and a mountain. To shift focus, tap the buttons. Another icon in the center actually gives you the focal length (in metric), which is great. But did they have to put the measurement right in the center of the screen – right where you’re trying to focus? It seems as if they’ve done everything they could think of to obscure the screen. In addition to the person icon, the numeric measurement, and the mountain icon, there’s the return-to-menu icon, the disc information, an Auto button, a Manual button, and a big lower-third graphic that runs along the bottom explaining the focus control. On a 2.5” screen, this is simply too much. Overall, it’s a terrible, terrible control.
In order, perhaps, to circumvent this flaw, Sony offers a Spot Focus control. Simple by definition, you point at what you want to focus on, and the camcorder adjusts to the that general region. On a 2.5” screen, you can maybe get 4 independent quadrants to select from. This would not work on a very complicated, multi-plane shot.
Finally, the camcorder offers a one-touch tele macro feature which never seems to work. Once activated, the camcorder extends the zoom all the way to 40x and blurs up the picture entirely. “Less than useful” was our final verdict.
Exposure & Aperture (4.5)
The DCR-DVD108’s exposure controls are only slightly better than the focus controls, if only because a smudgy screen can still be used to evaluate metering. Exposure controls are located in the second tab of the function menu. The manual exposure control looks an awful lot like the focus control. There are two touch screen buttons, a plus and a minus, that you use to brighten and darken the picture. A scale in the middle has 29 increments. There is no numerical indicator to tell you where in the scale you are, but that’s less of a problem here than during focusing. If you look at the LCD, you can generally tell if the image is bright enough.
The manual exposure control
The camcorder offers a Spot Meter function, as most Sonys do. It works just like the Spot Function menu. Once activated, you touch at areas of the screen that you want to be properly exposed.
Also located in the second tab of the function menu are the Scene modes (often called “AE” or “Program AE” modes in other camcorders). These are described in detail above in the Automatic Controls section.
Overall, the exposure controls are limited, but effective. Again, the auto controls will generally suffice.
Shutter Speed (0.0)
The Sony DCR-DVD108 does not offer shutter speed control, nor do most consumer Sony camcorders. Many Canon and JVC models do grant you the privilege, as do all Panasonics.
White Balance (5.5)
The white balance options on the Sony DCR-DVD108 are located in the third tab of the function menu. There is an automatic setting, an indoor present and an outdoor preset, and a manual settings, called One Push. Sony’s white balance adjustments tend to be the fastest in the market, but not always the most accurate. Almost invariably, the image looks a little warm. The control is very quick to access, however, which is always appreciated.
Gain (0.0)
The Sony DCR-DVD108 has no gain control. Only Panasonic offers gain control in their consumer models.
Other Manual Controls (0.0)
There are no other manual controls on the Sony DCR-DVD108.