Scores Autofocus

Hitachi

This camcorder had a little difficulty with this exercise. First off the image is faded and the sky is completely overexposed. The unscheduled appearance of the sun might make this the case, but it’s no excuse. Even in the dark areas the grain lacks contrasts. This model has the smallest aperture of the selection (I’m sure the other Camcorders are all laughing behind its back Ed.). With the zoom, the stabiliser quickly shows its limits, it shakes and becomes practically unusable. We also regret that the relief details are automatically smoothed for some reason. Score 1.8/5

The setup becomes crazy

Exercise 3: This third exercise allowed us to test the autofocus capacities of the camcorders as well as their ability to make a setup on several plans. The Autofocus (AF) is centred at the middle and the detail levels are obtained by zooming in on the image.

Canon

Once the setup is done, it isn’t affected by the movement of the leaves. The AF is made at the centre of the image and the wall behind becomes blurry. The image looks very nice. The level of detail is impressive. The contrasts accentuate the precision of the images. There is a really high definition feel to them. Score 3/3.5

Sony

The setup is excellent. It had a tendency of putting the autofocus on the wall; we had to force the AF to focus on a leaf at the centre of the screen (by zooming on it in auto mode. The setup is excellent and is no longer affected by different movements on the screen once the AF is set. All’s forgiven though with the Sony because it has a larger aperture and the wall took up a large amount of the frame. The important thing is that it isn’t persistent in putting the AF on the wall once we told it what we wanted it to do. It responds very well to commands which is an admirable trait! The depth of field obtained is better than the Canon’s and the image precision is good, not great though. Score 2.8/3.5