Sony Handycam - DCR-HC20E

[nzmikey]

Hi everyone,

im just wondering if anyone has had any experience with this model of handycam by sony.. ill be using it for video mostly but take the pics also... is this camcorder ok for taking pictures?.. has anyone got any sample pics they could share so I can judge if its worth buying or not.
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thanks in advance.
mike

[Richard_G]

Virtually all camcorders that take stills take them in DV format resolution, 720 x 576 (as this is a PAL model). Most mobile phones can do far better than that. A camcorder is for video, a digital camera for stills.

[nzmikey]

thanks for that... damn i was hoping for a 'all in one' solution..

[Richard_G]

Sorry, many claim to be all in one but as far as I know, none can do a good job at both. I have seen a test report somewhere that compared different camcorders that also do stills and cameras that also do video. The final verdict was no matter how good they were at their primary task, the secondary one was well down. Two units I'm afraid......

Think of the problems I have, camcorder, Sony VX2000E, camera, Fuji S2Pro (with two additional lenses). That's an awful lot of gear to cart around!

[thecoalman]

Virtually all camcorders that take stills take them in DV format resolution, 720 x 576 (as this is a PAL model).

Most of the ones I've seen record to a flash memory card at various resolutions and settings. Similar to what you would expect from a still cam. Perhaps it's the limit you are referring too is because the image is interpolatewd to those specs? I really don't know how they achieve the higher resolutions for still images. My ex's old sony used to record "stills" right to tape... just the same frame repeated over and over...

Anyhow having said that i haven't seen a digital camcorder yet that takes good stills. I have a Canon GL2 which i a very good video camera and I'd compare the stills to what you would expect from a cheap 1MP camera. Nice fortaking a few stills in pinch but I'd never use it iff i had access to a real still cam.