Sony DCR-SR40 Camcorder Review

The Sony DCR-SR40 is very limited in its still capture offerings compared to most camcorders on the market today. There is only one still resolution, 640 x 480, which equates to about 0.3MP. The average low-end digital still camera therefore offers about 20 times that resolution. 640 x 480 is good for very low-end web pictures, and even that is becoming a thing of the past.

 

The camcorder does offer the choice between Fine and Standard qualities. Like the DCR-SR60 and DCR-SR80, there is no MemoryStick Duo slot, but both of those models offer a higher resolution of 1152 x 864, as well as bracket and burst shooting modes not found here.

 

Nearly all the manual controls you find in video mode are also found in still mode: exposure, focus, white balance, zoom, along with all the digital effects.

 

In playback mode, the camcorder offers a slideshow feature. Stills appear as thumbnails on the LCD. If you want to see them full-size, simply tap on them and they fill the screen.

 

 

Still Performance (3.25)

As mentioned above in Still Features, a 640 x 480 image is good for one thing and one thing only. As soon as you can tell us what that is, please post it below; we have no idea. In bright light, the DCR-SR40’s stills were a grainy and drab. The image lacked fine detail and was too dark. Not that it looked any better or worse than most of the competition.

 

 

The DCR-SR80, the two models up in the Sony HDD line, is able to produce a larger image (1152 x 864), which increased the fine detail but did nothing to improve color performance. The actual color interpretation was quite different from the DCR-SR40. While the SR40 was dark and dull, the SR80 was bright, with certain colors washed out (red and green) and others (yellow and blue) taking too much dominance. Both camcorders produced an abundance of noise.

 

The Sony DCR-DVD105, their entry-level camcorder, produced stills more or less identical to the DCR-SR40. The JVC GZ-MG37, an HDD camcorder slightly more expensive than the SR40, produced an image that was more washed out but was less noisy. That’s not to say that the noise levels were acceptable (they were quite high), but they looked better. Finally, we looked at a peak performer for comparison’s sake. The Panasonic SDR-S150 produces much larger stills, up to 2048 x 1612. The still performance is excellent, with clean lines, low noise, and bright, well-defined colors. This camcorder far surpassed any other model in this line-up, though you’ll pay for it, with an MSRP about $400 greater than the DCR-SR40.