Everything you need: unbiased reviews, product specs and great deals.
|
Sony Handycam DCR-HC90 Mini DV CamcorderFor advanced performance with great value, the DCR-HC90 camcorder is Sonys first three-megapixel Mini DV camcorder.The camcorder comes with...
Read More
For advanced performance with great value, the DCR-HC90 camcorder is Sonys first three-megapixel Mini DV camcorder.The camcorder comes with a 2.7-inch Hybrid SwivelScreen Touch Panel LCD display to record and play back in widescreen format. Additionally, it has an intelligent accessory shoe, Super NightShot® Plus, a built-in flash and the advanced multi-layer coating of a Carl Zeiss® Vario-Sonnar® T* lens to capture video and pictures that are more vivid and rich, even when taken in low light.
Minimize
|
|
14 Reviews from Shopping.com
|
Almost professional grade video quality
| Author's Rating: |
|
Pros: Excellent video quality, good audio, very light
Cons: None
The Bottom Line:
This camcorder offers almost professional video quality, good audio, compact size, and great usability
I purchased Sony Handycam DCR-HC90 Mini DV Digital Camcorder to replace my aging 8 year old Hi8 camcorder, also from Sony. The old Hi8 camcorder still works quite fine, it’s just too heavy and bulky to carry around (which is somewhat funny: 8 years ago it was considered quite compact and very light!). The excellent quality and longevity was the reason why I wanted to get a new camcorder also from Sony.
Currently Sony offers only MiniDV and DVD based models, while other companies are starting to explore new emerging interesting technologies, for example embedded compact hard disk drives. So I’ve decided instead of getting a Sony camcorder try JVC Everio GZ-MG20 instead. This turned out to be a huge mistake (see my review on JVC Everio GZ-MG20 camcorder), and I ended up returning the JVC camcorder and buying Sony DCR-HC90 instead.
And boy what a difference this camcorder makes. The video quality is absolutely stunning, especially when shooting under good lighting conditions, in which case the video looks almost professional, especially when filming in 16:9 wide screen mode. The colors are incredibly bright, and very life-like.
The amazing video quality is a result of both excellent optics (professional quality Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* lenses with an advanced optical multi-layer coating), and advanced electronics (3.3 Megapixel Advanced HAD CCD imager).
Sony Handycam DCR-HC90 has both widescreen 2.7" LCD display, and a widescreen color viewfinder. In my experience the viewfinder has very limited usefulness given the small size of this camcorder.
This camcorder is also very light: with the MiniDV cassette and a battery it weighs about 1 pound.
The zooming ability of Sony Handycam DCR-HC90 is somewhat limited in comparison with other camcorders in this class (10x optical and 120x digital).
Other features of this camcorder that I find very useful:
1. It can be used a digital still camera with 3.3 Megapixel resolution (up to 2016x1512 pxels). It also has a built-in flash, and uses Memory Stick Duo storage for the still pictures. The quality of still images is fairly decent, but is not quite as good as a mid-range digital still camera would produce.
2. The audio is very good and clear. When shooting under very windy conditions there is no annoying loud whooping noise.
3. Sony Handycam DCR-HC90 is equipped with both USB 2.0 port (mini-B jack, cable included), and DV Interface (cable not included). Although plugging this camcorder to a computer and transferring images and vide is somewhat complicated.
4. There are very few buttons: The swivel LCD screen also serves as the touch screen.
5. The “NightShot” mode that allows for fairly decent video quality under very low lighting conditions.
Back to all reviews
