Sony DCR-DVD405 Camcorder Review

A well-placed flash above the lens, and MemoryStick Duo slot under the viewfinder.

The still features are unremarkable. We don’t recommend buying a camcorder as your primary capture device for stills anyway, as even the cheapest dedicated still camera is bound to do a better job than most camcorders. However, if you are keen on still features, take a look at the DVD505 (Review, Specs, $664), the next model up in the Sony DVD line. It has a larger maximum still size, 2304 x 1728, and better still quality.

The DVD405’s still features include a flash, well-placed above the lens, burst capture and exposure bracketing. The number of stills you can capture in burst mode is dependent on the resolution size, but in 3MP, it’s only 3 photos. With exposure bracketing, the camcorder takes 3 stills in a row at slightly different exposures, giving you the choice of which looks best.

Still Resolution (7.7)
We tested the resolution of the DVD405’s stills by shooting a standard ISO 12233 resolution chart and running the results through Imatest imaging software. The largest 4:3 still, 2016 x 1512, scored an approximate resolution of 766590.75. The largest 16:9 still, 2016 x 1152, produced an approximate resolution of 375098.88.

This is a decent score for a camcorder shooting at 2016 x 1512, and obviously not as good as the DVD505, which shoots at a maximum size of 2304 x 1728.

Still Resolution
Sony DCR-DVD405	7.7
Sony DCR-DVD403 (Review, Specs, $489)	9.12
Sony DCR-DVD505 (Review, Specs, $664)	12.1
Panasonic VDR-D300 (Review, Specs, $534.89)	6.4
JVC GZ-MG37 (Review, Specs, $384.95)	1.8

Still Performance (7.0)
The DVD405 produced stills that were extremely sharp, though a little flat. The blues appeared strongest, and the green-yellows the flattest. Most color tiles showed a tendency to gradate from lighter to darker tones. The camcorder also did a fair amount of in-camera sharpening, which resulted in some jagged edges along high contrast areas. The DVD405 managed to suppress noise in most areas, but areas of black were excessively noisy.

Comparatively, the DVD505 showed an image with less sharpening, more resolution, and less noise. The 505 also had a slightly better tonal range, which resulted in richer colors and better color variations.

The Panasonic VDR-D300 had richer, brighter colors, though the noise was readily apparent, more so in the grayscale than anywhere else. However, the areas of black were relatively noise free, unlike the DVD405.

We also held up the Sony HC96 (Review, Specs, $516) MiniDV cam for comparison, which had remarkably similar looking stills, because they likely share identical imagers – 1/3” CCDs. In fact, these were near duplicate images.