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Sony PC-100 Thoughts
Don't mind me...I'm going to use this thread for miscellaneous ramblings about my newly purchased Sony PC-100 Camcorder. Good things and not-so-good things about it. (I know it's not traditional to even dare to suggest that there's something you don't like about a purchase you made, but what the hell!) If anyone's considering buying one and would like to know something speciic about it, give a shout. I'll be asking some questions too, in case someone out there can help.
Keep in mind that I don't have extensive experience with other camcorders or digital cameras, so keep these ramblings in that perspective.
This first post is more about the physical characteristics than image quality. So, here it starts...miscellaneous, long-winded ramblings!
I like the "feel" when recording video. It's an upright model where the zoom rocker is operated by the index finger. Easier for me to use compared to say, the Elura where the zoom is operated by the thumb. One quibble so far: on occasion, I have pressed the "backlight" exposure button on accident -- not while actually recording but while changing some other setting between recording sessions.
Portability: It's not in the same "stick it in your pocket and go" class of the Sony PC-1,2,3, or JVC 50, 70 types. On the other hand, it's more portable than any other small "horizontal" mini DV models (like the Sony TRV8 or JVC 9500.)
Menu system: Menus are intuitive enough, and it features the quite common "select & push wheel" found on many models of the similar class. My one gripe in this area is that to access the menu screen, you have to open the LCD to get at the menu button. I would prefer at least the option to have the menu brought up from a button on the outside (such as pressing the wheel, which I've seen on some other units). I guess sony figures that most people will view the LCD when using the menu, but for those of us with the manual dexterity to operate the menu wheel and look through the viewfinder at the same time, it's an inconvenience.
Using the PC-100, It's very easy to navigate and view / delete still images stored on the memory stick. There's also a simple slide-show mode which cycles through all photos on the stick, hands off. (Shows each pic for a few seconds, then moves to the next.) You can pause the slide show, but can't modify the delay between pics. Another small gripe: In slide show mode, there is text on top of the images ("Slideshow" at the top, and navigation text on the bottom) that I'd rather not be there...it detracts from the pics.
There appears to be enough manual control to keep me happy should I decide to stray away from fully auto. Full manual exposure option, and manual focusing ring. White balance settings for "auto", "indoor", "outdoor", or "hold". There are also several AE settings like "sports", etc.
Memory Stick comments:
I'll first say that a camcorder that takes digital stills without some type of removable flash media makes very little sense to me. I've seen some cameras that have a fixed 2MB internal memory, or only store photos on the tape. Practically useless if you ask me. If you are considering a video camera and wish to have any usable still image capability at all, get a camera with removable media. (Memory Stick, Smart Media, CompactFlash, etc.)
You can capture directly to the Sony memory stick at 649x480 or 1152x864. Images can be stored with three different levels of compression 1/3, 1/6, and 1/10 at either resolution. Taking photos is a little more awkward than I'd like. For one, the photo "button" is not in as comfortable a position as I would expect. Taking a photo to the memory stick requires you to first press the button "lightly" on your subject (I believe sets the exposure, focus, etc), and then when the camera beeps (about a second) press it harder to actually take the photo. With the photo button on the barrel of the camcorder, combined with having to press the button "hard" to snap the photo, this can lead to "pushing" or tilting the camera when opening the shutter. (Not hard to avoid, but you need to be aware of it.) I'd would have preferred the "photo" button be on the rear of the camera accessible with my thumb.
With the PC-100 it's easy enough to transfer images from tape to stick or vice versa. There is an operation that will scan your entire tape for stills and copy them to the stick.
Of course, Sony provides only a 4 MB stick, and a serial port (read: slow) memory stick reader for PCs. That's 6 photos at the highest quality setting, or 60 at the lowest. You would think that for Sony's "top of the line" consumer model, one that takes megapixel images, they would throw you a bone with a 16 MB memory stick. (Enough for a "roll" of film on high quality mode.) I also don't understand why they included a serial adapter rather than the floppy adapter. Not only would the floppy adapter be faster, but it seems to me that it would be much easier to operate and install, and on top of that cheaper. It seems like they threw in the serial adapter to purposely be annoying.
Having said that, the memory stick reader did install without any problems (yet another device hanging off my PC, and another power transformer to plug in....) The PictureGear Lite software is simplistic but gets the job done...transferring images both to and from the stick, albeit slowly.
What it doesn't do, unfortunately, is allow you to delete images from the stick. (At least I haven't found a way to do this.) On the PC-100, you can delete one image at a time....which is fine for deleting that image you just took that you don't want to keep. However, if you want to "keep this bunch of photos, but delete that bunch of photos" there is no convenient way to do this. Either delete them one at a time on the PC-100, or download them all to the PC, format the stick, and upload the ones you still want back onto the stick. The latter wouldn't be too bad if the serial port wasn't so slow. With a 32 MB stick, downloading a full stick would take about an hour over the serial port.
So, it's pretty obvious to me that I'm going to be upgrading my "memory stick adapter" pretty soon. I'll probably get an internal ISA to PCMCIA adapter, and use Sony's PCMCIA memory stick reader. Very fast, and the fewer cables outside my box the better. Cost about $150 for that set-up though.
Has anyone out there used PCMCIA adapters with Sony memory sticks? Do they (or the floppy adapter) allow you to delete images from the memory stick? Any compatibility issues?
....oh...and are you still reading this? Good lord!
-- Joe
Keep in mind that I don't have extensive experience with other camcorders or digital cameras, so keep these ramblings in that perspective.
This first post is more about the physical characteristics than image quality. So, here it starts...miscellaneous, long-winded ramblings!
I like the "feel" when recording video. It's an upright model where the zoom rocker is operated by the index finger. Easier for me to use compared to say, the Elura where the zoom is operated by the thumb. One quibble so far: on occasion, I have pressed the "backlight" exposure button on accident -- not while actually recording but while changing some other setting between recording sessions.
Portability: It's not in the same "stick it in your pocket and go" class of the Sony PC-1,2,3, or JVC 50, 70 types. On the other hand, it's more portable than any other small "horizontal" mini DV models (like the Sony TRV8 or JVC 9500.)
Menu system: Menus are intuitive enough, and it features the quite common "select & push wheel" found on many models of the similar class. My one gripe in this area is that to access the menu screen, you have to open the LCD to get at the menu button. I would prefer at least the option to have the menu brought up from a button on the outside (such as pressing the wheel, which I've seen on some other units). I guess sony figures that most people will view the LCD when using the menu, but for those of us with the manual dexterity to operate the menu wheel and look through the viewfinder at the same time, it's an inconvenience.
Using the PC-100, It's very easy to navigate and view / delete still images stored on the memory stick. There's also a simple slide-show mode which cycles through all photos on the stick, hands off. (Shows each pic for a few seconds, then moves to the next.) You can pause the slide show, but can't modify the delay between pics. Another small gripe: In slide show mode, there is text on top of the images ("Slideshow" at the top, and navigation text on the bottom) that I'd rather not be there...it detracts from the pics.
There appears to be enough manual control to keep me happy should I decide to stray away from fully auto. Full manual exposure option, and manual focusing ring. White balance settings for "auto", "indoor", "outdoor", or "hold". There are also several AE settings like "sports", etc.
Memory Stick comments:
I'll first say that a camcorder that takes digital stills without some type of removable flash media makes very little sense to me. I've seen some cameras that have a fixed 2MB internal memory, or only store photos on the tape. Practically useless if you ask me. If you are considering a video camera and wish to have any usable still image capability at all, get a camera with removable media. (Memory Stick, Smart Media, CompactFlash, etc.)
You can capture directly to the Sony memory stick at 649x480 or 1152x864. Images can be stored with three different levels of compression 1/3, 1/6, and 1/10 at either resolution. Taking photos is a little more awkward than I'd like. For one, the photo "button" is not in as comfortable a position as I would expect. Taking a photo to the memory stick requires you to first press the button "lightly" on your subject (I believe sets the exposure, focus, etc), and then when the camera beeps (about a second) press it harder to actually take the photo. With the photo button on the barrel of the camcorder, combined with having to press the button "hard" to snap the photo, this can lead to "pushing" or tilting the camera when opening the shutter. (Not hard to avoid, but you need to be aware of it.) I'd would have preferred the "photo" button be on the rear of the camera accessible with my thumb.
With the PC-100 it's easy enough to transfer images from tape to stick or vice versa. There is an operation that will scan your entire tape for stills and copy them to the stick.
Of course, Sony provides only a 4 MB stick, and a serial port (read: slow) memory stick reader for PCs. That's 6 photos at the highest quality setting, or 60 at the lowest. You would think that for Sony's "top of the line" consumer model, one that takes megapixel images, they would throw you a bone with a 16 MB memory stick. (Enough for a "roll" of film on high quality mode.) I also don't understand why they included a serial adapter rather than the floppy adapter. Not only would the floppy adapter be faster, but it seems to me that it would be much easier to operate and install, and on top of that cheaper. It seems like they threw in the serial adapter to purposely be annoying.
Having said that, the memory stick reader did install without any problems (yet another device hanging off my PC, and another power transformer to plug in....) The PictureGear Lite software is simplistic but gets the job done...transferring images both to and from the stick, albeit slowly.
What it doesn't do, unfortunately, is allow you to delete images from the stick. (At least I haven't found a way to do this.) On the PC-100, you can delete one image at a time....which is fine for deleting that image you just took that you don't want to keep. However, if you want to "keep this bunch of photos, but delete that bunch of photos" there is no convenient way to do this. Either delete them one at a time on the PC-100, or download them all to the PC, format the stick, and upload the ones you still want back onto the stick. The latter wouldn't be too bad if the serial port wasn't so slow. With a 32 MB stick, downloading a full stick would take about an hour over the serial port.
So, it's pretty obvious to me that I'm going to be upgrading my "memory stick adapter" pretty soon. I'll probably get an internal ISA to PCMCIA adapter, and use Sony's PCMCIA memory stick reader. Very fast, and the fewer cables outside my box the better. Cost about $150 for that set-up though.
Has anyone out there used PCMCIA adapters with Sony memory sticks? Do they (or the floppy adapter) allow you to delete images from the memory stick? Any compatibility issues?
....oh...and are you still reading this? Good lord!
-- Joe