Sony HDR-SR12 First Impressions Camcorder Review by Alfredo Padilla Published on Jan 8, 2008 7:00 PM

Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control
Like all other consumer camcorders from Sony, the HDR-SR12 (Review, Specs, ) has the Easy button, which simplifies the interface for those who aren't interested in fiddling with manual controls. The Sony HDR-SR12 also supports Spot Focus and Spot Metering via the touch sensitive LCD display. In older models like the Sony HDR-SR7 (Specs, Recent News, $1399) this caused problems as there was a much smaller display and smudges on the screen quickly made it difficult to judge what was in focus and what wasn't. The smudges remain, but the larger 3.2-inch LCD on the Sony HDR-SR12 does give you more room to make fine adjustments.

The camcorder also offers a number of Scene Selection modes (often referred to as “Program AE modes”) that allow you to adjust with one-touch to certain shooting conditions that full auto may not accommodate. They include: Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Candle, Sunrise & Sunset, Fireworks, Landscape, Portrait, Spotlight, Beach, and Snow.

Overall Manual Control
We are thankful that the Sony HDR-SR12 improves the cam control over last year's Sony HDR-SR7. Instead of being on the left side of the barrel you have a dial that sit below and to the right of the lens. Pressing the small button on the front of the dial will bring up the menu of available manual controls including Focus, Exposure, AE Shift and White Balance Shift. You can also reset all of the controls to the default.

The new Cam Control is a step up compared to last year’s in terms of usability. Having the cam control on the side of the barrel meant that you couldn’t really get a grip on it and turn it easily. With the new Cam control you can grip it with a couple of fingers and make both fine adjustments and larger shifts more easily. That’s not to say it’s terribly good. It’s still rather small and those with big fingers will find it fiddly. Pressing in on the button on the front of the control is also a bit fiddly as it’s small and doesn’t give you very good tactile feedback. We still much prefer the rotating dial on the lens that older models like the Sony HDR-UX1 (Review, Specs, Recent News, $729.95).

Zoom
The Sony HDR-SR12 has two sets of zoom controls. The main control is found on the top of the camcorder on the right side for easy access when you are holding it with one hand. The zoom is a toggle with a grooved surface that makes it easy to grip. We found it very easy to use, providing for very fine control. The second set of zoom controls are to the left of the LCD. These are just a pair of buttons and although they may be useful at times they don't provide anywhere near the level of control as the main zoom toggle. The Sony HDR-SR12 supports optical zoom up to 12x, which is higher than the 10x zoom we saw on last year's model. This is due to the new, smaller imaging chip, which allows for a longer zoom range.

Focus
Focus controls are available either via the Cam Control menu or the touch screen menu interface. As we discussed above using the Cam Control is still a bit fiddly but better than using the Cam Control on the Sony HDR-UX7 (Review, Specs, $0.00). It’s also significantly better than using the on screen focus controls. The biggest issue here is that as you make adjustments by tapping on the screen you will inevitably smudge the screen, which makes it a little difficult to judge how well focused your shot is. By contrast the Cam Control is easy to rotate so you can make fine adjustments and you don’t smudge your screen while using it.

Exposure (Aperture)
Standard exposure control is located in the Camera Menu under the second tab. The interface is a scale with plus and minus buttons on either side. In total, there are 30 increments, but because they’re not numbered, it may be hard to duplicate your exposure levels if you have to re-shoot a scene.

AE Shift controls are available via the Cam Control interface, giving you a slider that can be adjusted with the rotating dial. You are shown the shift in increments of +/-1. You also have the option to go in through the menu system, with touch screen buttons allowing you to choose from the various stops. This is found on the second tab of the Camera Menu and you are not given any information about how many stops you are shifting. This is unfortunate as it makes it more difficult to reproduce your settings in the future if you want to.

Shutter Speed
Unlike the Sony HDR-SR7 the Sony HDR-SR12 does not provide you with manual shutter speed controls. There is an option for Color Slow Shutter in the third tab of the Camera Menu, which slows the shutter down so you get better color in low light situations, but this can also cause your video to look a little jerky.

White Balance
You can make fine adjustments to white balance via the Cam Control on the Sony HDR-SR12, allowing you to warm or cool color by a few degrees. Standard white balance settings are available from the camera menu and allow you to choose from Auto, Outdoor, Indoor and One Push or manual modes. Manual mode is pretty fast on the Sony HDR-SR12, taking only 1-3 seconds as compared to the up to ten seconds it takes on other camcorders.

Gain
There are no gain controls on the Sony HDR-SR12.

Other Manual Controls
Face Detection - A new feature in Sony's lineup this year is face detection. A popular feature in digital still cameras, Panasonic is the only other manufacturer to make it available in their camcorder line, having announced it the very same day as Sony. Sony claims that its face detection technology is able to identify up to eight faces simultaneously and automatically adjust focus, exposure and color to correct for skin tone. Sanyo has actually had this present for nearly a year, but the feature went under the radar in camcorder news. In our brief trial it was only able to recognize a maximum of four faces at a time. When the face detection is active you see faces are enclosed in a white box on the screen. As you pan across a room of faces you will see that the boxes jump to new faces as you leave old ones behind. Faces captured via face detection are also indexed so that you can search through your clips for a particular face. Sony also incorporates a new bit allocation feature that is meant to increase detail in faces.

Zebra Stripes - This tool allows you to have a visual guide to monitor overexposed whites. When an area in the scene is overexposed it will be highlighted in zebra stripes that disappear when the exposure has been appropriately adjusted. There are two different sensitivity levels available, 70 IRE and 100 IRE, or you can turn the feature off completely. Controls are found in the last tab of the Camera Menu.

Guide Frames - This is another visual tool that places a grid of lines on your display splitting it into nine sections. It is meant to help you better line up your shots. As with zebra stripes controls are found in the last tab of the Camera Menu.

Tele Macro - Tele Macro is used when you need to shoot a close-up. It will focus on the subject but leave the background unfocused, allowing your subject to stand out.

x.v. Color - x.v Color allows you to record footage with nearly twice as many viewable colors, however this feature is of limited utility as only a few monitors on the market will actually support the additional colors.