Sony HC3

[ronrosa]

HDV, $1100 and $1400.....AND they are listed as 2 LUX in the spec sheet.

2 LUX is awesome if it's on the same scale as the other Sony cams.

 

[ScubaBob92651]

Any advanced info on them? Are they HDV or AVCDH? Can I afford either of them?

More from Sony

One push white balance

 

[diversteve]

Firewire and Lanc on both of them. I'm guessing there's little or no retooling needed by the electronic housing mfrs. to support them either.

There's an error in the specs for the UX7 though, the description says records on DVD, the Specs show MiniDV tape as the format. Since it's a UX, I'm guessing it's DVD.

And 2 lux...Sweet

Anybody want to buy an HC1?

(I'm kidding, I like mine too much)

 

[limeyx]

Firewire and Lanc on both of them. I'm guessing there's little or no retooling needed by the electronic housing mfrs. to support them either.

There's an error in the specs for the UX7 though, the description says records on DVD, the Specs show MiniDV tape as the format. Since it's a UX, I'm guessing it's DVD.

And 2 lux...Sweet

Anybody want to buy an HC1?

(I'm kidding, I like mine too much)

So it seems that the UX* are DVD based and so AVCHD, and the HC ones are HDV and MiniDV, right?

 

[drbill]

I just checked out the HC5 specs on Sony's web page at:

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start?CategoryName=dcc_DICamcorders_HighDefinitionVideo&ProductSKU=HDRHC5&TabName=specs&var2=

Looks good at a much lower price.

The thing that makes me unhappy still is that they don't expect delivery until February 12th per their web site yet have discontinued supplying the HC3 to dealers nearly 45 days before that delivery date. Lot of good that does to help those of us who may need one for projects in the interim.

At least I'm happy about what I'm seeing re: the HC5.

 

[limeyx]

I just checked out the HC5 specs on Sony's web page at:

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_DisplayProductInformation-Start?CategoryName=dcc_DICamcorders_HighDefinitionVideo&ProductSKU=HDRHC5&TabName=specs&var2=

Looks good at a much lower price.

The thing that makes me unhappy still is that they don't expect delivery until February 12th per their web site yet have discontinued supplying the HC3 to dealers nearly 45 days before that delivery date. Lot of good that does to help those of us who may need one for projects in the interim.

At least I'm happy about what I'm seeing re: the HC5.

I heard a rumor that they may have made a fixed amount of HC-3's, and then just kept selling them until they ran out (relying on estimating how many they would need until the HC5/7 came along?) Maybe they just guessed a little wrong!

 

[paulpost]

I wonder if forums like this one had influenced the engineers at Sony to come out with this two new joules.
Scrolling through the spects of HC5 IMO there is not much of a difference from HC3 except low light performance(2lux), and bigger size filter diameter (37mm versus 30mm), but still no headphone jack and no mic input. The HC7 is the real champion and for just $300 more you get mic input, headphone input (not that we really need it) and what is the most impressive is the optical stabilization that is available only on the pro models, FX1 and FX7.
My main concern is that the low light of just 2lux might be a typo, and this is why , FX1 has a lens almost 2 times the size of this two camcorders and the low light performance is 3 lux for fx1. Will have a better idea after the guys at camcorder info will get their hands on them.

 

[limeyx]

I wonder if forums like this one had influenced the engineers at Sony to come out with this two new joules.
Scrolling through the spects of HC5 IMO there is not much of a difference from HC3 except low light performance(2lux), and bigger size filter diameter (37mm versus 30mm), but still no headphone jack and no mic input. The HC7 is the real champion and for just $300 more you get mic input, headphone input (not that we really need it) and what is the most impressive is the optical stabilization that is available only on the pro models, FX1 and FX7.
My main concern is that the low light of just 2lux might be a typo, and this is why , FX1 has a lens almost 2 times the size of this two camcorders and the low light performance is 3 lux for fx1. Will have a better idea after the guys at camcorder info will get their hands on them.

From my (limited) understanding, the lux is somewhat directly affected by the sensor size divided by number of pixels ratio

(more pixels in same physical area = less light for each pixel)

So if HC7 has less pixels than FX1, but still has 1/3" sensor, then it should (in theory) be able to have lower lux#.

That is why the HD cams have tended to have worse lowlight than SD I think.

 

[diversteve]

So it seems that the UX* are DVD based and so AVCHD, and the HC ones are HDV and MiniDV, right?

That's how I read it also. Under Specifications if you scroll most of the way down to Video that's what they have under "formats supported".

 

[alo100]

From my (limited) understanding, the lux is somewhat directly affected by the sensor size divided by number of pixels ratio

(more pixels in same physical area = less light for each pixel)

So if HC7 has less pixels than FX1, but still has 1/3" sensor, then it should (in theory) be able to have lower lux#.

That is why the HD cams have tended to have worse lowlight than SD I think.

I also wanted to ask you for your opinion on this topic.
HC5 has about the same amount of pixels comparing to HC3 (2.1 M pixels), whereas HC7 has 3.2 Mpixels.
One of the Nikon user expressed in a forum, saying that, for certain low end lens (limited amount of light) his D50 (lower resolution) seemed to offer better pictures (more crispy) than his D200, when he used the same lens. So, it's not just the resolution of the camera/camcorder, but also the amount of light allowed by the lens.

I heard about this theory, my feedback to him was, in order to trigger a sensor (photo diode inside), you need a certain among of light to do that. Following this context, if you have a piece of photo panel full of sensors, you need a certain amount of light (min) in order to use all the sensors efficiently (i.e. most of the sensor can be triggered).
When you got the next generation of fabrication available and therefore, you have a denser pixels/area, can you tell that you have less light per pixel and therefore cannot deliver an image that is as good as the prev generation?

My answer is, I am not sure.
It depends on the amount of light, the threshold, that is needed to trigger each sensor.

It is possible that the amount of light is still sufficient for the area, just previously the light are aimed at the sensors (being used to trigger the sensors) as well as aimed at the space between sensors ("wasted").
Until a point, when the fixed amount of light (limited by the lens) is not longer sufficent for all the sensors in average, then we would start to see the affect on the overage image.

At that point, we may need to make the lens bigger to allow more light.


In low light conditions, I think it's like what you have mentioned, worse case.