Sony HDR-SR1 Camcorder Reviewby John NeelyPublished on Oct 25, 2006 12:00 PM
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Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control (8.0)
The HDR-SR1 is an easy camcorder to operate, and Sony has reworked the menu structure to make manual control options more readily accessible. In automatic mode, the camcorder works as well as we’d expect from a high-end Sony. Exposure and focus respond quickly to changes in the frame, but the HDR-SR1 has its problems areas, just like most camcorders. When contrast is too low, as in a poorly lit scene, or a scene with little color variation, the camcorder struggles to find its focal point (this was more of a problem in standard definition than HD). Similarly, in a dynamic scene with considerable contrast, the camcorder tends to favor the brightest large swath of information in applying exposure adjustments, often with poor results. While in auto, the white balance performed well in most circumstances, although, it too struggled to produce a natural-looking color balance in mixed lighting. These problems highlight the limitations of auto mode in this and any other camcorder, though thankfully, the HDR-SR1 offers a decent set of automatic remedies.
This camcorder features spot focus and spot meter controls that essentially allow the user to tell the camcorder where the subject is in the frame. When one of these spot controls is engaged, a white frame is superimposed on the LCD display. Touching any spot within the white frame will set that spot as the auto focus or auto exposure reference point. As a quick means of overriding auto controls, the spot controls are great, and they are more easily accessible in the menu than on other Sony camcorders. Whether entering the menu and engaging one of the spot controls is preferable to making the adjustment manually is a matter of personal preference.
In addition to spot focus and spot metering, the Sony HDR-SR1 also features several preset shooting modes, or Program AE options. These modes optimize the camcorder’s automatic parameters for specific lighting situations that compromise the accuracy of auto adjustments, and include Spotlight, Portrait, Beach & Ski, Sunset & Moon, and Landscape settings. The Program AE modes may work well, but the presets do not allow for fine-tuning. As a result, they may over or under-compensate for the real-world shooting conditions. If auto mode, the spot controls, and Program AE options don’t produce an acceptable picture, it’s time to bite the bullet and work with the camcorder’s manual control suite.
Overall Manual Control (7.25)
The HDR-SR1 features a better manual control feature set that is easier to use than on most other Sony consumer camcorders because it includes a manual control ring, a more efficient menu structure, and the touch screen interface benefits from the big 3.5” screen. All these factors give this camcorder a respectable suite of manual controls that many users will find appealing.
The control ring is nicely designed, and while its default setting is manual focus, it can also be set to control exposure, AE shift, or WB shift. Now, before you start daydreaming of a camcorder that gives you ring control over all these important settings, we should inform you that this isn’t that camcorder. For this to work, the SR1 would have to provide a mechanism for storing, say, a ring setting for focus, and then allowing you to toggle the control quickly to exposure. Unfortunately, this is not a feature Sony has included on this camcorder. Instead, making multiple ring adjustments requires an onerous journey back into the menu to switch its setting from focus to exposure, AE shift or WB shift. Realistically, this means that while the ring does indeed have multiple functions, you’ll only be using one at a time. We are very pleased to see the return of the control ring after its replacement with an inferior control dial on the HDR-HC3. The HDR-HC1, Sony's first consumer HD camcorder, had a similar ring that controlled focus or zoom. We miss the zoom function, but Sony camcorders have excellent zoom levers, and the option for ring control over exposure is particularly useful for shoots with dynamic light levels.Overall, Panasonic and JVC camcorders still offer more robust manual control suites, but the combination of approachability and prosumer depth found in the HDR-SR1 is unique.
This camcorder and its sibling HDR-UX1 both feature menu structures that are substantially different than the ones found on previous Sonys. Instead of an extensive vertical scroll menu, this menu adopts a row of option tabs across the bottom of the screen. The major upshot of this revamped menu is faster access to menu options including manual controls because settings are closer to the top level. That’s the good. Now for the bad.
Confusingly, there are two distinct menus: a Camera Menu and a Home Menu, both of which are accessed via icons at opposite corners of the LCD. The Camera Menu is where most manual controls live, but there is a good deal of overlap with the Home Menu for options such as zebra and White Balance shift. Other options like SteadyShot on/off are only found in the Home Menu. We’re quick learners, but the distribution of some manual control options in both menus, and others in only one menu led to lots of hunting and pecking for this or that control. To make matters more frustrating, the icons Sony uses to represent each tab offer no clues to their contents. Yes, the new menu structure offers faster access to controls, but with a little more attention to its architecture, it could have been better.
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The Camera Menu |
The Home Menu |
The Camera Menu is accessed by pressing an icon that looks like a menu in the lower- right corner of the LCD, and brings up a row of six tabs across the bottom of the screen. The first three tabs, labeled one, two, and three, are designated by camcorder icons. Most manual picture controls are found behind these tabs. The fourth tab is designated by a screen icon, and contains fader, digital, and picture effects. The two final tabs, labeled one and two, are designated by toolbox icons. Behind toolbox one are settings for recording format, video encoding quality, audio recording mode, and still media, and behind toolbox two are guide frame, zebra, flash level and red eye reduction options.
We found it annoying that when you’ve made a selection in a given Camera Menu setting, the menu returns the camcorder to standby mode. Rather than structuring the menu to allow users to tweak multiple settings during one menu visit, Sony ejects you from the menu every time you press OK. This is analogous to being forced to leave and then re-enter a grocery store after purchasing a single item. If you’ve only got one item on your shopping list, a ridiculous arrangement like this might not be a problem. In reality, adjusting a camcorder for a single shot usually involves a checklist with multiple items like focus, white balance, and exposure. If you decide the SR1 is your camcorder, you’d better be prepared to make lots of trips back to the store by way of the Camera and Home Menu icons.
The Home Menu contains other settings used during a shoot including advanced controls, media formatting options, and video quality controls. As mentioned above, there is lots of overlap with the Camera Menu, but you'll be able to figure it out. Even if you have to resort to hunting and pecking, you’ll likely find what you’re looking for more quickly than in previous Sony menus.
Both the Camera Menu and Home Menu are smartly arranged. As the .gifs above show, similar features are grouped together when possible. For example, page 1 of the Camera Menu has all the focus options and page 2 has all the exposure options. It's this kind of attention to detail that makes Sony so good at creating user-friendly camcorders.
The Ring Menu
Finally, there is a little mini-menu for the multifunction ring, which is accessed by pushing and holding the Cam Ctrl button on the left side of the lens barrel. Here is where you set which function you want the ring to be used for. Twisting the ring allows you to scroll through the options.
Zoom (8.0)
The Sony HDR-SR1 offers two zoom controls, a primary zoom lever on top of the camcorder, and zoom buttons along the base of the LCD frame. The lever is a big control that extends well above the body for easy access. The feel of this toggle’s action is smooth and responsive like most consumer Sony camcorders. It is pressure sensitive, offering three or more controlled zoom speeds. The alternate zoom control is the pair of buttons beneath the screen labeled “W” and “T,” presumably for Wide and Tight. The buttons are not pressure sensitive controls, and move the zoom at a fixed medium speed. Prosumer camcorders often allow control over secondary zoom speed, and it’s something we would like to see on the many Sonys that feature on-screen zoom buttons.
Zoom Power/Ratio (10.0)
The Sony HDR-SR1’s optical zoom has a power of 10x, and the digital zoom can be capped at 20x, 80x, or disabled. Zoom settings are found in the Movie Settings submenu of the Home Menu. The relatively modest 10x zoom is typical of a consumer camcorder with a 1/3 inch imager. Smaller imagers such as the dime-a-dozen 1/6-inch variety allow for higher optical zoom powers, but their image quality can’t match that of a 1/3-inch CMOS or CCD imager. Due to the fact that digital zooms degrade the recorded image, the option of capping the digital zoom at 20x is a useful quality control measure. To ensure the best video recording, however, we recommend disabling digital zoom entirely.
Focus (8.0)
The main manual focus control on the HDR-SR1 is the multifunction ring, but the camcorder also includes the same touch screen interface found on Sony’s other consumer camcorders. With the option of using the ring, it’s tough to imagine resorting to the LCD interface for making focal adjustments, but the option is there. The ring feels substantial for a camcorder of this size, and allows for quick movement through the camcorder’s focal range. It also allows for reasonably quick fine focus adjustments which is especially important when shooting in HD mode, given the sharpness of the picture.
To assist with manual focus, the HDR-SR1 includes an Extended Focus feature, similar to focus assists on more expensive HD camcorders. With Extended Focus engaged, the center of the image displayed on the LCD is enlarged about 2x whenever the ring is moved. The enlarged image allows for faster and more accurate manual focus. Moments after you release the ring, the image on the LCD returns to your true framing. The HDR-HC1 had a similar feature turned on via an external button, which is preferable to this iteration's automatic engagement, which can be distracting, but the HDR-HC3 dropped the feature entirely. We’re glad to see it back, albeit in a slightly less flexible form.If you are inclined to use the touch screen focus control, it is reached on tab 1 in the Camera Menu. When engaged, icons that will be familiar to Sony users appear of a nearby man on the left, and a distant mountain on the right. You tap the icons to move through the focal range. The problem with this touch screen control is that much of the screen is blocked by icons and graphical interface. Inevitably, this type of focus control obscures what’s in the frame, and very likely the subject you’re attempting to focus on. For this reason, we have always found touch screens to be poor interfaces for manual control adjustments so our advice is: stick with the excellent ring, or use the spot focus option.
This camcorder does include one additional improvement to manual focus control over most other consumer camcorders. There is an on-screen display of your approximate focal distance in the LCD’s lower left, i.e. 0.1m, 0.5m, 40m, etc. The distance display appears in either manual or auto modes, and though we didn’t pull out a tape measure to check its accuracy, it’s a useful addition to the camcorder’s feature set.
Exposure (Aperture) (7.5)
The exposure control resides on tab 2 of the Camera Menu where you’ll also find spot meter, AE Shift and Program AE options. AE Shift alone can also be found in the Home Menu under Movie Settings – why Sony chose to place only AE Shift in both locales is a mystery to us.... Of all these exposure options, only manual exposure qualifies as a true manual control, while AE Shift and Spot Meter are hybrid controls that allow control over aspects of the camcorder’s automatic exposure adjustments and Program AE is a set of global automatic settings.
The exposure control, as it appears on the touchscreen
The exposure control interface looks much like the one found on other consumer camcorders from Sony. When a user engages exposure, two choices for Auto and Manual appear on the LCD. Pressing Manual causes a sliding scale to appear, with a minus icon on the left and a plus icon on the right. By tapping either side of the scale, it’s possible to lower (left) or raise (right) the exposure of the shot. The control presumably moves in EV steps, and there are about 28 steps in total from one end of the scale to the other.
AE Shift is a very similar control with the same slider-type interface, but has a much smaller step range of 8 steps. Used in Auto mode, AE Shift raises or lowers the master exposure of the camcorder’s automatic exposure adjustments. This setting can be controlled via the touch screen in the Camera Menu, or assigned to the multifunction ring. Spot meter, mentioned previously in automatic controls, permits the user to tell the camcorder what portion of the recorded image to meter for exposure. It’s a very useful shorthand control, and yields decent results.
Shutter Speed (0.0)
The HDR-SR1 does not have a manual shutter speed control, but the camcorder does include a feature called Color Slow Shutter. The feature can be turned on, or set to off which is the default. When Color Slow Shutter is engaged, the camcorder automatically slows the shutter according to available light levels. The results of this control can be unpredictable if moving through dynamic lighting, because the camcorder shifts in and out of slow shutter mode. When the shutter slows, the recorded image appears to stutter and blurs as you’d expect from shutter speeds below 1/60.
White Balance (9.0)
The HDR-SR1 includes the same white balance options found on the HDR-UX1 and HDR-HC3, found on tab 3 of the Camera Menu. The button labeled White Bal produces a screen with presets for Auto, Outdoor and Indoor light, and One Push, which is Sony’s branded manual white balance control. One Push is similar to other manual white balance controls. When selected, a button designated by a standard white balance icon becomes active. Pressing the button sets white balance within a few seconds.
The second white balance setting is labeled “WB Shift,” for white balance shift, on tab 3 of the Camera Menu. Pressing this button brings up a sliding scale that’s nearly identical to the AE Shift display. Like AE shift, this control is not a true manual control, but allows you to adjust the overall color temperature of the recorded image to your liking. Intuitively, pressing the minus side of the scale cools the image introducing more blue and pressing the plus side warms the image, adding red. In addition to the Camera Menu interface, WB shift can be assigned to the multifunction ring.
Gain (0.0)
The Sony HDR-SR1 does not allow for manual control over gain. Panasonics are currently the only consumer camcorders to offer this manual control.
Other Manual Control (5.0)
Sony has included a few useful advanced settings on both this camcorder and its sibling HDR-UX1. Better described as prosumer features, these options offer assistance when making manual image adjustments.
Guideframe - Guideframe is an option located in tab 6 of the Camera Menu, or on page 2 of Movie Settings in the Home Menu. Engaging guideframe superimposes a grid on the displayed image to assist with framing shots. The guideframe grid does not appear in recorded video or still photos.
Guideframes in action
Zebra - Zebra patterns (sometimes called zebra stripes or just zebras) are moving diagonal lines superimposed over parts of a shot that surpass a certain exposure level. Zebras are an extremely useful tool for detecting “hot spots” in an image that are overexposed, and are generally used when setting a camcorder’s exposure manually. The HDR-SR1 provides two zebra settings: 70 and 100 IRE, and the camcorder’s default setting is off.
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