Sony Handycam HDR-TG1 Camcorder Reviewby Jeremy StamasPublished on Oct 3, 2008 4:45 PM
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Picture & Manual Control
Automatic Control (7.0)
The Sony HDR-TG1 is the kind of camera you want to pull out of your purse or pocket in time to catch candid moments before it's too late. It isn't suited for professional productions where levels and adjustments must be finely tuned and perfectly calibrated. That being said, most users will find absolute comfort with Sony's automatic controls. Like most consumer camcorders, the HDR-TG1 comes with Sony's standard "Easy" setting. Pushing the Easy button found in the camcorder's LCD cavity puts the HDR-TG1 into a completely automatic setting—only allowing the user to point, shoot, and adjust the zoom.
The auto exposure performed admirably, often taking less than a second to adjust to even intense changes in lighting conditions. The HDR-TG1 often tended to over-expose in high-contrast lighting situations (like a car driving in front of the camcorder on a very bright day). Like most Sony products, gradual transitions between varying light conditions worked impressively, with transitions handled smoothly and evenly (rather than in one quick burst like an on/off switch).
The auto white balance worked very well outside, but ran into problems with indoor lighting. Shooting outside, in bright light, the camcorder immediately adjusted the balance settings to produce soft colors with the intense light. The colors looked less saturated than side by side comparisons with the Panasonic HDC-HS100, but they appeared to be more accurate on the HDR-TG1. Under various indoor lighting conditions the camcorder had a number of difficulties. Incandescent lighting gave the image an expected orange hue and fluorescent lighting produced substantial color discrepancies. Overall, if color is very important to you and you do a lot of indoor shooting, it would be very helpful to learn how to manually light balance the HDR-TG1.
In bright and moderately lit areas the autofocus feature performed very well. Most images came into focus in less than 2 seconds. Under low and mixed light situations the HDR-TG1 ran into more problems attempting to focus. We found numerous instances where focusing took from 5-8 seconds. The HDR-TG1 will run into some problems trying to capture crisp images during a night of clubbing or in dark street scenes.
To utilize some of the camcorder's more specialized automatic features, you must turn off the Easy setting and rejoin the realm of manual mode. When the Easy setting is off you can explore the one-touch scene selection features that automatically tailor the camcorder's settings to a specific scenario. The scene selections are found in the Camera Menu and include the following options: Auto, Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Candle, Sunrise & Sunset, Fireworks, Landscape, Portrait, Spotlight, Beach, and Snow.
Other automatic features include Spot Focus and Spot Meter. Both display a large frame around the screen when activated. Simply press the part of the screen you want to focus or expose and the camcorder will automatically adjust the settings accordingly.
Spot Focus tool
The HDR-TG1 has two automatic shutter controls: Auto Slow Shutter and Color Slow Shutter. With both of these modes off, the camcorder will not drop below a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second. Turning on Auto Slow Shutter boosts the camcorder's ability to record in low light situations by allowing the shutter speed to drop as low as 1/30th of a second. With Color Slow Shutter activated, the camcorder will go to speeds as low as 1/4th or 1/2 of a second in low light conditions. These two settings, while boosting low light performance significantly, will distort and blur any motion that comes into frame. Auto Slow Shutter is often workable (although the choppiness of motion is absolutely visible), but Color Slow Shutter blurs motion so intensely that it is barely worth using.
Overall Manual Control (3.25)
Utilizing manual controls with the Sony HDR-TG1 is an unpleasant experience. If you're someone who likes manipulating specific controls while you record video, this is not the camcorder for you. The HDR-TG1 does not come equipped with a "Cam Control" dial found on other recent Sony models such as the HDR-SR12 and the HDR-CX12—giving the user no choice other than the touch screen when it comes to manual control. Touching your way through the convoluted menu system on the small, 2.7-inch LCD just to change a simple setting like exposure or focus can be very time consuming, especially when making fine tuned adjustments. Most users will likely stick to the automatic controls out of sheer annoyance with the touch screen system. The interface also makes fine adjustments excruciatingly difficult, as buttons and icons (not to mention your fingers) clutter the screen and get in the way of the image you're attempting to focus or expose correctly. Sony's HDD camcorders, the HDR-SR11 and HDR-SR12 do offer larger, 3.2-inch LCD screens. The extra half-inch of space does make using the touch screen interface more bearable.
That being said, the HDR-TG1 does allow you to adjust a variety of manual controls, which is better than ignoring the option all together. The manual controls are all accessed via the touchscreen menu on the camcorder's LCD screen. Most options are found in the Camera Menu in the lower right corner—things like focus, exposure, white balance, and effects. Some controls are also found in the Movie Settings menu, which is hidden inside the first tab of the Home Menu in the upper left corner. Here you'll find record mode options, steadyshot, digital zoom settings, face detection, and numerous others.
Zoom (5.0)
While zoom triggers are traditionally manipulated by the index finger of the shooting hand, the design of the HDR-TG1 shakes up this age old concept. The HDR-TG1 zoom ring is positioned around the record button and is meant to be manipulated by the user's thumb. The ring's grip is strangely positioned on the left side of the camcorder and could make zooming very awkward for those accustomed to normal, right-sided zoom toggle placement.
Zoom Power Ratio (10.0)
The HDR-TG1 has a 10x optical zoom, which is the same offered by nearly all upright compact camcorders including Sanyo's VPC-HD1010 and VPC-HD700, Canon's HV10 and TX1, as well as Sony's older DCR-PC1000.
The digital zoom can reach all the way out to 120x or can be limited at 20x in the camcorder's settings.
Focus (5.5)
The manual focus feature is accessed via the first tab of the Camera Menu on the LCD touch screen. Focus is adjusted by pressing the "near" and "far" icons until you get the desired focus. Focusing is often a precision-oriented task and Sony makes things even more difficult with the touch screen system. The 2.7-inch screen display simply doesn't offer enough room for easy focus adjustment. With all the buttons, icons, and text, you're left with about half of the screen with which to focus your image. Clicking on the Display button won't help either as it does nothing to clean up the screen. Sticking with autofocus or experimenting with the Spot Focus feature is probably a wise decision.
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| Using Manual Focus with the HDR-TG1 | Adjusting the exposure on the HDR-TG1 |
Exposure & Aperture (4.75)
Exposure adjustment controls on the HDR-TG1 are located on the second tab of the Camera Menu and are adjusted in the same way as manual focus. Pressing the plus and minus buttons raises and lowers the brightness of the image until the desired effect is obtained. Just as with focusing, adjusting the exposure is a crowded affair. The HDR-TG1 offers 32 exposure increments, which is comparable to other Sony camcorders.
The HDR-TG1 does not have a setting for adjusting aperture—a feature found on Sanyo's VPC-HD1010 and VPC-HD1000.
Shutter Speed (0.0)
The Sony HDR-TG1 does not offer any manual control over shutter speed, an option offered by most other HD camcorders, but absent from the HDR-TG1 as well as the Sony HDR-CX12. As with aperture, Sanyo's VPC-HD1010 and VPC-HD1000 both offer the ability to adjust shutter speed.
White Balance (5.5)
The HDR-TG1 offers a manual control over white balance with the One Push feature found in the third tab of the Camera Menu. Focusing the camcorder on a white or neutral colored object and then activating the One Push button will manually adjust the white balance to the object the camcorder is focused on. While the One Push feature worked well enough, the HDR-TG1 is lacking overall with white balance controls. It doesn't have a WB shift feature that allows you to bump the color temperature up and down a few degrees (a feature found on Sony's HDR-CX12, HDR-SR12, and HDR-HC9), nor does it have the plethora of white balance presets offered by Canon on their HD camcorders. The HDR-TG1 offers indoor and outdoor white balance presets, a far cry from the seven separate presets offered by Canon.
Gain (0.0)
The camcorder does not offer any adjustments in gain control. Only Panasonic offers this feature on consumer camcorders.
Other Manual Controls (6.0)
Tele Macro – This feature allows you to focus in on extremely closeup macro shots from a distance. When activated, the camcorder's zoom is automatically fixed at the maximum 10x. Tele Macro does help bring extreme closeups into a solid focus, but it is not a relevant tool for the casual videographer. Any adjustment to the zoom toggle while in Tele Macro mode automatically disables the feature.
Face Detection – The Face Detection feature locates people's faces in the frame and automatically adjusts the image settings to focus, illuminate, and color them correctly. You can set the feature to use frame guides while detecting faces allowing the user to follow along as the camera finds faces within the image. It is difficult to notice any change in image quality, but with the frame guides on it is clear the HDR-TG1 is capable of locating the faces being recorded. Sony claims the HDR-TG1 can detect up to 8 faces in a single frame, but in trying the feature out we were never able to get it to detect more than 4 faces in an image.
Guide Frame – This setting displays a tic-tac-toe-like grid on the screen in order to assist with framing and shot placement. The grid is only there to assist the user and does not appear in the final shot.
Zebra – Turning on the Zebra control adds the display of black and white stripes to areas within the image that are overexposed and too bright. The sensitivity can be set at 70 or 100 with both of these settings consistent with IRE levels.
x.v. Color – This setting allows the HDR-TG1 to record in the xvYCC color standard, which is a new color standard for HD broadcast. You will only notice a difference if the footage is played back on an xvYCC compatible television. If the camcorder is connected to a television that does not support xvYCC the information is ignored and the TV displays the regular image.
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