Sony DCR-SR300 Camcorder Reviewby Michael PerlmanPublished on May 16, 2007 3:28 PM
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Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control (7.0)
Sony makes camcorders that are hard not to like – they look good, handle well, and in auto mode, they make smooth adjustments that instill confidence. The SR300 (Review, Specs, $761.95) is a good example of the state of Sony camcorder design, beginning with the ubiquitous Easy Mode button above the LCD cavity along the lens barrel. Easy Mode is Sony’s branded idiot-proof version of auto mode that literally locks you out of making any changes to settings that could get you into trouble. Everything shifts into full auto, including exposure, white balance, and shutter speed. The menu list is also shortened, leaving only language, camcorder sounds, clock settings, and HDD formatting operations active. In other words, only those options that have nothing to do with control over the quality of your image. For novices, Easy Mode is a nice feature that guarantees that no errant setting is engaged while shooting.
The most notable characteristic about the DCR-SR300 (Review, Specs, $761.95)’s automatic adjustments is that they work quickly, smoothly, and with adequate accuracy. Exposure works well, though in very bright conditions, it tended towards slight over-exposure. Focal adjustments also work well in bright light, but in lower contrast and darker settings, it struggled, often requiring several seconds to lock in a crisp focus. This was especially apparent at the telephoto end of the zoom range. Another control that was notably spotty in terms of accuracy was white balance, with the image tending to appear more washed out than with manual white balancing. This is an effect we noticed recently on the HDR-HC7 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1128.56), the only other Sony we’ve yet reviewed this year.
The weaknesses noted above are shared by any camcorder in auto mode. Any situation with high- or low-contrast, varied lighting sources, or complex information is difficult for a camcorder’s processor to gauge. To assist with situations like these, the DCR-SR300 includes a number of automatic assists including a generous sampling of Program AE modes. Program AE (the AE stands for auto exposure) tailor the camcorder’s automatic adjustments for specific shooting situations that are known to create problems for Easy Mode. They include Spotlight (for any scene where the subject appears against a much darker background), Portrait (optimized for a single nearby subject in the center of the frame), Sports (for fast motion), Beach & Ski (for darker subjects appearing against a much brighter background), Sunset & Moon (for dark environments), and Landscape (for shooting distant subjects).
Spot Meter and Spot Focus offer a way of defining what part of the screen the SR300 uses to meter exposure and set focus respectively. The spot controls are set by touching the part of the screen you want to meter or focus on, but they must be set one at a time. While they can yield much better results than auto exposure and auto focus in many situations, they still may not produce optimal results – in which case you are better off adjusting the image manually.
Overall Manual Control (4.0)
The DCR-SR300 offers a respectable suite of manual controls and assists, all of which are accessed via the touch screen. Overall, however, Sony camcorders almost always lack the finer manual controls that power-users want, like shutter speed and gain. The touch screen interface has a few advantages but many disadvantages as well. On the plus side, touch screens require virtually no ramp-up time for novice users as they are entirely text-based. If you can read the screen and touch the corresponding buttons, you can find your way to every option and manual control offered by this camcorder. As an interface for making manual control adjustments, touch screens are generally inferior to other physical controllers, like joysticks or rings.
The interface buttons for making white balance, focus, and exposure adjustments, for example, are overlaid on top of the image. As you can imagine, buttons and indicators in front of the picture hinders your ability to assess the live view while making adjustments. In addition, touch screens are less precise than physical controls, and pick up finger grease that reduces the clarity of the screen. In other words, while touch screens are extremely user-friendly and accessible, they are poor interfaces for making precision adjustments.
Most manual controls are found in the Option Menu, accessed via a button at the lower right corner of the LCD. The option menu is divided into five pages accessed by tabs along base of the LCD, the first three of which are identified by camcorder icons. These tabs contain basic manual image controls, including Focus, Exposure (in EV steps), and White Balance. The fourth tab contains fader and effects, and the fifth tab includes recording setup options such as video quality (labeled Rec Mode). The Option Menu keeps most shooting options very close at hand, which at least gives you ready access to the key manual controls.
This camcorder does include zebras, a feature that makes manual exposure much more practical on the SR300 than on touch screen Sonys without zebras. Zebras are in the Home Menu under Movie Settings, and allow you to monitor a fixed IRE level onscreen. With zebras enabled, the liability of an interface that blocks much of the image is reduced, because they allow you to monitor brightness against an absolute measure. This addition helps the SR300’s lot considerably for making exposure adjustments – but manual focus in particular remains frustratingly tough.
Zoom (5.0)
Sony zoom controllers generally feel pretty good. The one on the SR300 has the same smooth responsive feel found on other Sonys, though in this case the placement is slightly awkward. We found that the most comfortable grip left the zoom toggle right between the index and middle fingers. It took only a slight modification to operate the zoom control with either finger. The raised toggle design is the best one commonly found on consumer camcorders because they respond well to even subtle pressure. Like most other camcorder zooms, this one is pressure-sensitive, and zoom speed changes with finger pressure.
The W and T buttons on the outside edge of the LCD frame offer a second fixed-speed zoom option. A few camcorders, notably from Canon, allow you to set a fixed zoom speed.
Zoom Power Ratio (10.0)
The Sony DCR-SR300 has a 10x optical zoom lens, and a digital zoom that maxes out at 20x. The optical zoom power of this Sony is much lower than many available on lower-priced consumer camcorders because optical zoom power is a function of the length of the lens element relative to the size of the imager. With a very large 1/2.9” CMOS sensor, the SR300’s compact body can only accommodate a modest optical zoom. A camcorder with a smaller 1/6” inch sensor in a similarly sized body can support much higher optical zoom power – but record a lower quality image.
In addition to the 10x optical zoom, the SR300 has a digital zoom that can be turned on or disabled. We think it is generally a good policy to eschew digital zooms because of the dramatic drop in image quality that results when they are used. However, this digital zoom maxes out at only twice the optical zoom max and the camcorder has a very high effective pixel count. At 20x, the pixels recorded by this camcorder are only twice the size of those available at the optical max of 10x (digital zooms magnify pixels to give the illusion of greater magnification). Furthermore, there is no hyper zoom option on the SR300, so you won’t run the risk of zooming all the way to an absurd 500 or 1000x digital zoom level. Check out the image quality recorded by this camcorder when the digital zoom is engaged and you may find that it’s acceptable to you.
Focus (3.5)
Touch screen interfaces have their strengths (simple interface and no ramp-up time) and weaknesses (pretty much everything else). For some manual control adjustments, touch screens are a fine control, but they are poor focus controllers. Unlike some of Sony’s higher-end HD camcorders, which have a multifunction Cam Control dial, the SR300 does not include any physical controllers. Focus and other image adjustments are all made via the touch screen, accessed via the Option Menu where there are Auto and Manual focus buttons.
Upon selecting Manual focus, a horizontal bar appears on the screen above the Auto and Manual buttons. On the left side of the bar is a person icon, and at the right side is a mountain icon. Pressing the person icon moves the focal plane closer, and pressing the mountain icon moves it further away. During manual focus, a numerical display at the center of the screen shows the approximate distance of the focal plane from the lens. While this display is a great addition to the camcorder, allowing for accurate rack focus moves, the interface itself is wanting.
The most obvious issue with touch screen manual control interfaces like this one is that the buttons and focus bar obscure much of the image you are recording. This makes it unnecessarily difficult to assess focus accurately. The other issue is that you cannot speed up or slow down the rate at which the camcorder moves through the focal plane, as you can with a physical controller like a dial (found on the Sony HDR-HC7 and Canon HV20 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $903)) or ring (JVC GZ-HD7 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $1529)). This makes it difficult to make fine adjustments. Add in the fact that the LCD screen is bound to pick up finger prints, and you’ve got one frustrating zoom control.
Also available is Spot Focus, found on page 2 of the Option Menu, and works in the same way as Spot Meter. After selecting the Spot Focus option, a frame appears around the image, and touching a point within the frame will force the camcorder to adjust focus automatically to bring that point into focus. As with Spot Meter, this is a time-saving but inexact tool.
Exposure & Aperture (5.5)
On the one hand, manual exposure on the DCR-SR300 suffers from the usual issues that plague touch screen interfaces. On the other hand, unlike manual focus, this control benefits from the addition of an extremely useful assist that makes up for some of the touch screen’s drawbacks. Like Sony’s HD camcorders, the SR300 includes a Zebra option, located in the Home > Movie Settings submenu. With Zebras enabled, it is much easier to assess your subject’s exposure despite the fact the exposure interface obscures a good portion of the screen. This is a critical difference when focusing manually, because zebras offer a way to check key areas of the frame against a fixed brightness setting, represented by zebras at 70 or 100 IRE.
Without zebras enabled, exposure is just as difficult to get right as focus, and the manual interface is identical to the manual focus interface. After entering the Option menu and selecting the Exposure option, Auto and Manual buttons appear. Pressing the Manual focus button brings up a horizontal focus bar, this time with a minus icon on the left, and a plus icon on the right. Pressing the minus icon lowers the exposure, and pressing the plus icon raises the exposure. After you are happy with your exposure setting, pressing the exit arrow at the top left corner of the screen returns to Record Pause mode.
Also available is Spot Meter, found on page 2 of the Option Menu. When the Spot Meter option is selected, a wire frame is superimposed on the image. By touching the “spot” on the image you want the camcorder to expose properly, you are able to lock in a custom automatic exposure level. Spot metering can speed up the process of adjusting your image, but we found it to produce mixed results – and that touching a millimeter in any direction would drastically change the brightness of the image.
Shutter Speed (0.0)
The Sony DCR-SR300 does not include a manual shutter speed control option, and only the high-end HD camcorders in Sony’s 2007 lineup do. There is an Auto Slow Shutter option that can be enabled or disabled, in the Home > Movie Settings submenu. When Auto Slow Shutter is enabled, the floor of the camcorder’s auto shutter speed range (set by default at 1/60) drops out, allowing the shutter speed to go as low as ¼ second based on available light.
White Balance (5.5)
The DCR-SR300 features the standard Sony white balance presets, for Auto, Indoor, Outdoor, and One Push – or manual. The white balance presets are located on Option Menu page 3. The manual control is very easy to use. After selecting the One Push option, the button immediately below, marked with a white balance icon, becomes active. Pressing the highlighted button sets the white balance, and it works faster than most camcorders, often within a fraction of a second. To assess whether your manual white balance setting was successful, however, you will need to exit the Option Menu and return to Record Pause mode. The reason is that the five white balance preset buttons obscure most of the screen, making it impossible to assess color. This can be time-consuming, and is another case where the touch screen interface impacts an otherwise good control negatively.
Gain (0.0)
The SR300 offers no manual control over image gain, but that is not surprising given that Panasonic is the only consumer camcorder maker to offer independent gain control as a standard feature.
Other Manual Controls (2.0)
Zebra Pattern – The Zebra option appears in the Home > Movie Settings submenu. Like other Sonys with this feature, the SR300 includes Off (the default setting), 70 IRE, and 100 IRE. On a camcorder that relies on a touch screen interface for making exposure adjustments, zebras are a welcome addition, making it easy to accurately assess exposure based on an absolute IRE - even when the interface clutters the screen.
Guide Frame – Guide Frame is found in the Movie Settings submenu of the Home Menu. When this option is selected, a nine-box grid is overlaid on the screen. Guide frame serves as a useful assist for shot framing or maintaining a horizontal shot.
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