Sony Handycam HDR-XR520V Camcorder Review

Manual Controls Summary
• Auto exposure and white balance work well; auto focus is painfully slow at times • Manual control dial is the perfect way to adjust focus; also convenient for exposure and WB or AE shift • Touch screen spot metering and spot focus works well • Exposure and AE shift combine to offer lots of flexibility • No manual aperture, shutter speed, or gain control • Not a lot of extra color or image controls; no focus assist tool
	Compression & Media	(Page 7 of 17)	Still Features

Auto Mode (10.22)

The Sony HDR-XR520's control dial won't see much use in Easy mode, but it's a boon to manual image adjustment.

With so many delicious manual controls to choose from, it seems a shame to rely on the camcorder's automatic adjustments to do all the heavy lifting. We also think that the Sony HDR-XR520V is a bit intimidating for beginning users that will rely entirely upon the automatic controls. However, there are certainly times when you want to shoot in cruise control; fortunately, the Sony does a good job automatically adjusting to a variety of tricky shooting conditions.

The auto exposure is the best of the bunch, taking an average of one to two seconds to adjust for most conditions. For yet another year, we were impressed with Sony’s ability to produce extremely gradual transitions when making slow pans across high contrast areas. The competition simply cannot match it.

Helping out with auto exposure is a backlight compensation feature that can be turned on and off. This adjusts exposure to bring out shadowed subjects in the foreground without drastically overexposing a bright background. If you don't like the way the AE is working, there's also a handy AE Shift tool, which allows you to under- or overexpose the image. This is an uncommon feature on consumer camcorders, but a useful one. Just make sure you don't accidentally leave the AE boosted or dampened, or you could ruin future footage. AE Shift is one of the four possible features you can assign to the Manual dial. There are nine possible increments.

Auto white balance works surprisingly well, even in some challenging situations. When there are multiple lighting sources (like indoor fluorescents and bright outdoor light coming through a window), the camcorder simply picks one and goes with it. Sometimes, the choice isn't the best for your situation. Of course, there's no real reason to rely on auto white balance when the manual white balance is so easy and works so well.

The real weakness of the XR520 is its autofocus, which sometimes took a painfully long time to adjust. Focus is often slow in low lighting situations, but the Sony sometimes took five or more seconds to settle on the appropriate focus—even in easy, brightly lit environments. This is much too long when you're trying to capture spontaneous moments. Five seconds is enough time to capture a blurry baby's first steps or the chorus dancing behind your son's twenty-second solo. Once it finds its bearings, the focus is crisp and accurate, but it sometimes can snap into action suddenly. As with the Canon Instant AF feature, you can't reliably get a smooth focal transition without performing a manual focus. However, Canon allows you to turn Instant AF off if you don’t like the snapping effect; Sony does not.

The HDR-XR520V would hardly qualify as a modern digital imaging device if it didn't have its share of gimmicky auto features. Sony offers the face detection and smile shutter features popular on so many digital cameras and camcorders, but ups the ante by offering some manual control over these features. Face detection can be set to on and off, while you can also choose whether to display the face detection frames on the LCD. Smile shutter comes with a host of options, including dual capture, which automatically captures still images when a smile is detected during video recording. There are also three levels of "smile sensitivity" to choose from (high, medium, and low), and an option to prioritize adult smiles or child smiles.

Low Light Modes
There are no alternate frame rates available to boost low light performance, but there are a couple of separate modes for shoting in low lighting conditions. Low Lux mode is like an auto slow shutter mode—the shutter speed will be lowered to 1/30th second. There is also a Nightshot infrared mode, which also seems to slow the shutter to 1/30, while using a built-in infrared light to help illuminate subjects. The latter mode will make all your videos look like the grainy footage in the Discovery Channel specials about searching for Bigfoot.

Scene Modes
The XR520 has the usual array of scene modes for helping the automatic image adjustments do their thing. Options include: Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Sunrise & Sunset, Fireworks, Landscape, Portrait, Spotlight, Beach, and Snow.

Zoom (5.5)

Zoom on the Sony HDR-XR520V is operated via a traditional zoom toggle, mounted on the top of the camcorder where your index finger usually rests. We found the position to be less than optimal for some hand sizes, but you don't have to strain to reach it. There are no fixed zoom speed settings, but the toggle reacts well to variable finger pressure, allowing you to achieve a good quick clip or an impressively slow crawl—especially if you have a steady finger. Unfortunately, there are no numerical labels on the zoom scale, making it difficult to produce the same shot twice.

The zoom toggle responds well to variable finger pressure

Zoom Ratio (4.34)

As with most high resolution camcorders, the optical zoom range is not overly impressive. There is just a 12x optical zoom, which pales in comparison to the 60x and 70x optical zoom on some standard definition camcorders. On high end camcorders, however, 12x optical zoom is about average. The Panasonic HDC-TM300 also has a 12x optical zoom, while the Canon HF S100 and HF S10 cap out at 10x.

As always, the Sony HDR-XR520V also offers digital zoom, which can be limited to 0x, 24x, or 150x. When digital zoom is activated, there is a tiny line in the zoom scale that indicates the break between optical and digital zoom. Any amount of digital zoom can degrade your image, so we suggest you just leave the digital zoom turned off.

Focus (7.0)

Focus can be manually adjusted using either the touch screen or the excellent manual control dial. We don't recommend using the touch screen, since you'll have to block a good portion of the view in order to make your adjustments. It's also more difficult to stop at exactly the right focus level. The dial, on the other, is a buttery smooth control that will give you incredibly precise control. Whether you use the touch screen or the dial, the XR520 gives you a smooth, theoretically infinite number of focal choices: you're not constrained to a set number of increments like you are on some camcorders. Some helpful numerical labels will give you an idea of where you are in the overall focal range, but it's not an exact measure. These labels mark the approximate distance, from 0.1m to 65m and infinity (with more precise distances offered when your subject is within 4m of the lens).

Manual focus includes some enumeration to guide you and works well with the control dial.		It's easy to switch the function of the manual control dial on the fly.

If the full manual focus is too intimidating (or too bothersome), you can utilize the touch screen spot focus. The XR520 offers a joint spot focus/metering tool or independent spot focus and spot metering. Using the touch screen to select the area you want in focus is often quicker than the camcorder's slow automatic focus and is often easier than trying to do a manual focus without the use of focus assist—a feature present on several camcorders from competing manufacturers.

Exposure (8.5)

The Sony HDR-XR520V offers a very simple, but effective exposure adjustment tool. There are thirty possible increments—a good healthy amount for a consumer camcorder. Exposure can be adjusted via the touch screen or the manual control dial. Unfortunately, the scale is not numbered.

Exposure can be manually set to one of thirty steps.

If you don't want to bother with full manual exposure operation, there are two choices for a simpler exposure adjustment. The easiest and most useful is the touch screen spot metering, which lets you tap on the area of the screen that you want the camcorder to meter. Exposure will quickly adjust to light the image appropriately. This is very useful when you're trying to record high contrast scenes with unusual mixed lighting conditions. Spot metering can be achieved with the joint spot focus/metering tool or with the independent spot metering option.

The AE Shift tool gives you added control over Auto Exposure.

You can also leave the XR520 on full auto aperture and use the AE Shift tool to tweak overall brightness. (There are just nine increments to choose from in AE Shift, compared to the 30 steps available for manual exposure.) AE Shift is one of the four possible features you can assign to the Manual dial.

Aperture (0.0)

Direct aperture control is a major missing link in Sony's quest to draw in experienced manual control aficionados. True, the exposure controls work well and give you plenty of options, but exposure has nothing to do with depth of field—something some videophiles find essential, even in a consumer camcorder.

Shutter Speed (0.0)

Strangely, the HDR-XR520V does not offer any control over shutter speed, apart from the 1/30 shutter speed that can be engaged in low light mode. This is a lamentable exclusion that has been a part of all the high def camcorders from Sony for years. Leaving shutter speed in the hands of auto controls can often result in blurry, trailing footage, when aperture, exposure, or gain could have come to the rescue. On the other hand, not having the option to increase shutter speed can really hamper flexibility in low light. Every other major manufacturer allows some kind of shutter speed or aperture control. Why not Sony?

White Balance (7.5)

There are very few white balance presets available on the XR520, which doesn't really detract from the camcorder's value. The options are limited to auto, outdoor, indoor, and manual. Presets are rarely as accurate as a good manual white balance; fortunately, the Sony's manual white balance is easy and accurate.

There are only two white balance presets, but the manual white balance works well and is easy to use.		To counterbalance the lack of white balance presets, there is a WB shift tool.

If you want more control than a manual white balance or indoor/outdoor presets can offer, Sony is once again offering a white balance shift option. As with last year's models, there are nine separate increments, allowing users a small degree of control over the color tone of their footage. WB Shift is one of the four options you can assign to the Manual dial.

Gain (0.0)

Gain is yet another setting that is unavailable on the Sony HDR-XR520V. It used to be that gain was a rare setting for consumer camcorders anyway, but it's actually becoming increasingly prevalent. Panasonic still offers its iris control, Canon has an AGC limit control, and Sanyo lets you alter the ISO, even in video mode.

Color & Image Controls (2.0)

There are very few other color and image controls available on the Sony HDR-XR520V. No color depth, sharpness, etc. There is a handy white balance level adjust, which is rare for consumer camcorders. You can read more about that in the white balance section, above.

Other Manual Controls (3.5)