Sony DCR-SR290 Hard Disc Drive Camcorder With 2.7” LCD Screen
HDD HANDYCAM 40GB H/DR 1/3 CLEARVID 6.1 M/PXL STL REC NS

Customer Review: Excellent camera but only in daylight
When I read the review by Phil Latham below I couldn’t believe the coincidence, I am also replacing an old Sony TRV65 which has served me well for 10 years.

I bought the Sony DCR-SR290 camcorder based on the specifications and the other reviews here but I am sorry to say that after owning it for less than 24 hours I have sent it back, due to absolutely dreadful performance in artificial light e.g. in the house with all the lights on, I am not referring just to low light. The only way to get a focussed picture is to leave the camcorder completely still pointing at something that isn’t moving. If you point at a moving target e.g. a person walking across the frame, or pan the camcorder horizontally or vertically at anything more than a snail’s pace there is just so much jitter and picture instability I could not believe my eyes.

The problem isn’t noticeable on the LCD screen, it’s only when you plug the camcorder into a TV to monitor the shots live or to play-back a recording that it becomes obvious (my Grundig CRT TV is not at fault - I plugged-in my old Hi-8 TRV65 and the images from this in the same room and light levels are perfect - it’s no contest).

Outside in natural light the SR290 is truly outstanding and the auto focus is very quick indeed. Thinking that there must be some sort of fault with it I got a demo of another identical unit in a Sony Centre shop, only to discover that this had the same problem. The salesman was also very surprised.

In addition to the picture problem there is an issue with connecting to the PC via USB2. With the enclosed software installed, my PC will recognise the camcorder as a USB mass storage device, and I can browse the SR290’s internal drive and copy short video files across or use the Sony application software to do the same. But the camcorder does not recognise that it has successfully connected to the PC and will time-out and disconnect after a few minutes, meaning that it would not be possible to copy larger video files across which take more time. My PC is not at fault here, I experienced the same when trying it with my laptop.

You must also not touch (or even breathe near) the camcorder when it is on the docking station as the gravity-reliant connection between the two items is very ’slight’. If you touch the camcorder even lightly this will interrupt the connection, this could possibly corrupt the drive if a file is transferring at the time.

I am so disappointed as there is no other camcorder on the market with similar specifications at this price. If you only intend to use it in daylight then I would recommend it for it’s picture quality, image stabiliser, comfortable weight, handling and ease of use, though the docking station and USB issues could prove very frustrating.

Try again Sony….

Customer Review: Sony have produced another brilliant product!
Last month I decided to buy a camcorder and in order to make my life easier I went for an HDD model to avoid the need of using tapes/discs. I do have to admit here that I am a big Sony fan! Hence, I didn’t have to spend too much time before I narrowed down my choices to 3-4 models. Important criteria for me included: 1) disk space, 2) good image quality and stabilisation and 3) functionality.

Finally, it was down to the DCR-SR190 and DCR-SR290 models. One major difference between them was the type of image stabiliser (digital for the 190 and optical for the 290). And because the optical image stabiliser is better than the digital one (according to the experts!) meant that in the end I opted to invest a bit more money and go for the DCR-SR290.

What a great decision I made! All the previous reviews on this camera posted on the site are spot-on when it comes to the positive points. Personally, I cannot see anything wrong with the camcorder at all! So easy to use, small, light, fantastic LCD screen with great touch-screen menus, plenty of intuitive menus and choices of formats and shooting modes etc. The videos are of excellent clarity and quality, even indoors and under low light conditions, and the night shot is really good, too. The image stabilisation is great and that is so useful when you zoom in a lot.

As for the sound… now that is as amazing as the image quality! Surround sound you’re promised, surround sound you get! The microphone is really good and sensitive. When you play your videos with your home cinema speakers on you can appreciate how good it is! The battery seems to last for a good length of time - as promised by the manufacturer. I also bought a case, my suggestions is don’t go for the recommended case, it looks too big and my guess is one would end up carrying a big case for a small camera! I bought the LSC-VAC Compact Camcorder Soft Carrying Case and it fits nicely, I would definitely recommend it.

Finally, the only fear I had before I bought the camera was whether the software that came with it would be good or not, one of the (few admittedly!) Sony weaknesses sometimes. The software is actually quite good, easy to edit videos and burn them to DVD (you can create menus, thumbnails etc and make some nice compilations…). The camera connected to my laptop (Windows XP) very easily, down-loading the videos is straight forward - I didn’t bother spending too much time reading the manual on this, it’s really easy to do. And speaking of the manual, the full pdf version is 132 pages, but don’t let that scare you! You really don’t need to read much of it, you get the hang of using the camera really quickly.

Overall impression, just three words: well done Sony!!!

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JVC GR-DX28EK F1.2 Lens Digital Camcorder
Customer Review: Simple!!
As a 1st time buyer of a camcorder, i must admit it stayed in the box for a few weeks, as the instructions looked scary!! But i must admit, it is v v easy to understand. Should be renamed- the camcorder for dummies. Simple it may be, but the picture and sound quality you cannot fault. Now i am a camcorder user, there is 1 downside-this model does not have a memory card slot enabling you to send clips via e-mail etc or protect your special files/clips. Saying that, all in all, if you want a camcorder to just switch on, record, play back or keep on tape. This is brilliant!! There are other features you can play around with for the more advanced when recording so for me its a best-buy.
Customer Review: A solid mini digital cam
In a few words ….this is simply a bargain packed with features exceptional quality and small enough to pop in your pocket , unlike the bind of taking other camcorders out with you , I think the family will enjoy using this unlike the larger camcorders that only come out at christmas and holidays etc. Highly recommeded.I got it for an absolute bargain price under ?200!!

JVC GZ-MG575EK Hard Disk Camcorder
JVC 40GB HDD Camcorder
Amazon Price: ?454.98
Used Price: ?431.99
Customer Review: Great piece of kit but
I brought this for my holiday, as we were going to be away for month, we wanted something with great features and a hard drive and we found this. It’s fantastic, easy to use and the sound quality is excellant. However when you download the video clips on to your hard drive it saves it as .mod not .MPEG which most software system uses. Wish life was simple, it took me days to find converters, so if you now how to change the format then this is great, if not then you will be having a hardtime.
Customer Review: good improvement
ive owned 2 everios and bought this one as i like the improvements to handling over the previous models. 5mp photos sounds great but reality is in good light they are v good but become noisy in low light unless you are in flash range. The battery lasts 10mins longer than old model and the lens cover is handy too although manual. No complaints on video quality but dont expect a professional camera as this is an excellent everyday camera with good 6×4 photos. Manual control is excellent and also has a mic shoe and input with a small light too. see reviews on usa gz555 version on camcorderinfo.net. Im happy with this product.

The 2007 Report on Digital Camcorders: World Market Segmentation by City

Canon DC201 Digital DVD Camcorder [30x Optical, 2.7" Colour LCD]
DC201 CAMCORDER 30XOPT.ZOOM UK

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Sony DCR-SR52 Hard Disc Drive Camcorder With 2.7” LCD Screen
30GB Hard Disc Drive. 1.7 megapixel CCD. Carl Zeiss? Vario Tessar lens.
Amazon Price: ?302.20
Used Price: ?260.99
Customer Review: Terrible software and user docs
Camcorder looks Ok and it’s easy enough to record footage to the camcorders HDD. The problems start when you want to transfer the files to computer. As seems to be the norm these days: The software is poor, the user documentation even poorer. It doesn’t work straight out of the box and so you are left hunting through numerous web sites and forums looking for support. I run Windows Vista and still haven’t got the Camcorder working. It will be going back if I have to waste much more time on it.
Customer Review: poor tech support
The camera itself is superb and i cannot fault it…however the software is a different matter. As soon as i loaded it onto my desktop it wouldnt work, so i loaded it onto my laptop.(both running windows xp home edition(genuine))..on my laptop it worked perfect so i knew it was a set-up problem.When iu eventually got through to sony technical support i explained everything to them and was told that the problem was “your desktop computer isnt a manufadtured model, the problem is because it is a custom build”…..What a load of rubbish, but they would not change their opinion and offered no more assistance. i eventually had to take my computer to local pc shop where it was established that the sony software will not work if you have samsung mobile phone software installed as well…simple as that.. I have also now notices aproblem with my nero software since installing the sony software..

JVC GR-D340EK Mini DV Digital Camcorder
Used Price: ?132.99
Customer Review: Do not buy JVC products - your wasting your money
We purchased this unit in summer 2006 from Amazon, no problems there. The reason for this purchase was because our previous JVC unit GR-D70EK(at that time was only 2 years old) developed a major fault and was unuseable. Put it down to hard labour it endured from us and we were about to go on holiday and needed a working camcorder, so we bought a new one. Big mistake buying JVC again. The Pro’s This camcorder is great for filming and taking pictures (it could do with higher mega pixels to be honest) but we got we paid for and this camcorder did everything we wanted. Its lightweight dinky and nice to look at. The Zoom is great and sound quality very good. The Con’s No matter what we do you can not download the footage or pictures onto our pc which was the primary reason for us buying this camcorder. Firstly a fire wire is not supplied with the camera and the instructions are very cagey about pointing this out. Once purchased and installed, we followed the instructions carefully and began our first editing session with no apparant problems. Until we decided to the carry out further editing sessions and our pc would not recognise the camcorder. Ran diagnostics test on pc, no problems, purchased another fire wire in case that was damaged, nothing. So we looked on JVC technical website to get some advice and found that there was a product recall on our first camcorder beacuse of the major fault we had already experienced. We reported this to JVC and they agreed to repair the first camcorder. We mentioned the problems editing with the newer camcorder and they agreed to investigate this also. Both cameras were sent away for inspection and repair. We received both back and whilst the older camcorders major fault has been rectified and we could use the unit again, the newer camera still did not respond to the DV fire wire. The moral of the story don’t do what we did and purchase two camcorders from JVC. Do your research on user forums. We didn’t when we purchased these units and came unstuck. Looked on leading traders websites to see the going rate for these used camcorders, they are not selling. They can not be given away. We have lost over ?600. Not happy
Customer Review: A delight to use
When my Sony Camcorder ended its life I thought it would be difficult to replace and yet at half the price this item proves to be a more than adequate replacement and it’s half the size and weight too. The manual for any camcorder is frightening - so much complex detail - will I ever learn? No bother with this camcorder - just switch to auto and nothing could be simpler to use and get great results from. Before ending up with this item I bought a Canon model which was about ?[...] dearer. I returned this unit since the picture quality was awful and at that stage I thought that might be the best the mini-DV format could provide. No way - this JVC Camcorder gives excellent quality and it quickly adapts to changing lighting conditions. Flicking away from “Auto” to “Manual” there are a wide variety of features you can use to get top quality shots in more difficult circumstances. Taking them one at a time they are easy enough to master. Ths snapshot feature is a bit disappointing since it does not operate in the 16:9 format mode. Surely everyone has a widescreen TV these days. My only other criticism is the cost of replacement batteries - close to ?[...] - a bit of a rip off I think. I tried a supposedly replacement battery at a much cheaper price off Ebay - it looked the same but kept coming up with the message “communication error” when used. It had to go back. The battery supplied gives about 75 minutes of use and recharges in about 90 minutes so it is not too much of a problem not having a spare. I used Pinnacle software to download, edit and produce DVD discs in formats to suit PC and DV player. Great results were achieved with very little bother and I am no computer wiz kid. This unit may not suit the pro but for mere mortals, like me, it is about as good as I want and I am called a “Grumpy Old Man” by my darling wife.

Sony DCR-TRV480
Used Price: ?499.99
Customer Review: - Wonderful !! -
Being a newcomer to the world of camcorders, I looked for something reasonably easy to set up and use, with the ability to playback 8mm Hi8 and Digital8 tapes, not very expensive and able to connect to my iMac. I did some research, found this unit as a good, reasonably priced option.. .. 15 mins after opening the box, I had it connected to my iMac, importing footage from a Hi8 tape into iMovie !! I think this is a great machine and recommend it to people looking for a good camcorder.
Customer Review: DCR-TRV480E Handycam Digital 8 camcorder. Excellent machine
Since 8mm camcorders have been around I have owned one. The only way I could make an edited film was to put it onto VHS tape. Very time consuming,and frustrating. I was not very pleased with the final film most of the time as it was very limited. Thats all changed now as this camcorder turns all my standard 8, and Hi 8 tapes into Digital AV out. With a Mac G5, burning a DVD is childs play with very professinal results. Well done Sony. You are producing some great products. It goes hand in hand with a Mac.

Samsung VP-DC171W/XEU Multi Format Widescreen DVD Camcorder
Samsung DVD Camcorder with 2.7″ LCD Display
Amazon Price: ?179.99

Removing Spot Scratches in Your Treasured Photos - 5 Minute Digital Fix

Probably one of the most common problems you will be faced with in doing any type of digital photo restoration work will be to do with spot scratches on your old photos.

When we first look at those old black and white or early colour photos they often have small scratch marks and spots on them from being stored incorrectly.

These small spot scratches are easily perceived by your eye when you are looking at the photo, detracting from the overall subject matter.

Here is a very easy quick fix using Adobe Photoshop’s History Brush tool.

Our example “before” image on our web-site has numerous small spot scratches on the old sepia toned photograph.

The basic removal method described here can quickly and effortlessly bring those scratched photos back to (almost) their former glory using the History Brush Tool found in Photoshop.

This basic technique works extremely well for those types of images that have spot scratches in areas of the photo that do not contain a lot of detail.

As you can see in our example image on the web-site, the spots tend to be primarily on the background of the photo, making it ideal for this correction method.

Step - 1

Having opened up the image in Photoshop we will first apply the Dust and Scratches filter by selecting Filter->Noise->Dust & Scratches …

Set the Threshold to between 1 and 4 (I generally start with 1) and then increase the Radius until you see the spot scratches disappear.

Our example image on the web-site finally made the largest spot scratch on the left hand side of the photo disappear at a Threshold of 3 and Radius of 10.

All well and good but our image is now totally blurred!! Not really what we wanted to see is it?

This is where the History Brush tool comes into play.

Step - 2

Open up the History Palette by selecting Window->History if you cannot see the window already open.

We are going to create a “Snapshot” of the current state of the image in question by clicking on what looks like a little image of a camera at the bottom of the History Palette window (see the red arrow on the web-site image).

After clicking you will notice that the History Palette now shows an extra image icon called “Snapshot 1″.

This is a snapshot of the image that includes the effect of apply the Dust & Scratches Filter in Step 1.

Now click on the little square box to the left of Snapshot 1.

You will see a little “brush” icon appear which is now telling us that the “Snapshot 1″ image will be used as our “source” when we paint with the History Brush.

Remember … this snapshot image actually has none of the spot scratches on it because we made them disappear by applying the Dust & Scratches filter in Step 1.

Step - 3

Make the original (un-touched) history snapshot active by clicking on it (in the case of our example image this is “Restore-Before-Image.jpg”).

Select the History Brush from the main toolbar (this has the same icon as the little “brush” icon that appeared in the History Palette window).

We are now ready to “paint away” those spot scratches!!

Step - 4

I’m going to zoom in on the largest scratch on the left hand side of the photo to show you how we use the History Brush.

We selected the History Brush in Step 3.

Select an appropriate brush size and soft edges.

We now need to decide how to apply the brush to the scratches in question.

You will notice that the scratches in our example image are “lighter” than the surrounding image.

Step - 5

We need to paint “darker” pixels and as such we set the History Brush Mode: to “Darken” (Top Menu Bar option when you have the History Brush as the active tool).

This has the effect of “telling the History Brush” to only replace pixels on the original image with pixels from our snapshot if the snapshot pixel is darker.

Start to paint over the scratches and see what happens.

The scratches start to miraculously disappear as you paint over them.

They are being replaced with the underlying snapshot image pixels you created in Step 1.

The benefit of using this techniques is that you have complete control over which parts of the original image you “paint over” so as not to blur important details of the image had you just applied a Dust & Scratches filter to the whole image.

Now what if your scratches are darker than the surrounding image, I hear you ask?

Easy!! … just use a History Brush Mode: of “Lighten” instead of “Darken”.

You can experiment with all of the History Brush options - Mode, Opacity and Flow until you get the desired result.

The resulting “After” image has had all of the spot scratches removed easily without compromising on the photographic detail of the image.

And there you have it!!Less than five minutes of digital image manipulation to remove those unwanted spot scratches.

If you find the steps taking are a little hard to understand in this text based article, you can click on the link at the end of this article to see the same method explained on our website with the aid of example graphical images.

? Gary Wilkinson 2005 - All Rights Reserved

You can see this removal method complete with example images at Basic removal of Spot Scratches in Photos

Feel free to re-print this article provided that all hyperlinks and author biography are retained as-is.

Gary Wilkinson is a photographer, photographic restorer and the owner of a photographic retail business.

He is also the publisher of the http://www.restoring-photos-made-easy.com website, where other methods of correcting common photographic restoration problems are discussed.
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List Price: $549.95
Amazon Price: $479.99
Used Price: $470.00
Customer Review: What a bang for the buck!
I haven’t owned too many digital cameras, but I’ve researched more than most. I have however, been able to compare many picture files and prints between Canon and Nikon, and between the Nikon D40, Nikon D40x, Canon Rebel XT, and the Canon Rebel XTi, I was stunned by the amazing quality of the Nikon D40. I always thought that a higher megapixel resulted in better quality, especially the difference between 6.1 and 10.2 megapixels … not really the case here. For example, the picture quality between the D40 and the D40x is not much different. In fact, the pictures from the D40 had more warmth and body to those from the D40x. The D40x had slightly more depth, but if you compare full-resolution RAW picture images, there’s really not much difference in depth. And for the money, you can’t get a better product, hands down! The only complaint that I have is that the D40 Auto-Focus (AF) mechanism is not within the camera body but must be within the lens. The lenses therefore, are more expensive than what you would normally pay. You would have to purchase the Nikon D80 to have the AF mechanism within the body. Aside from that, this is an AWESOME camera and a definite smart buy!
Customer Review: Nikon D40
This camera was purchased after alot of research and it deserves all the praise given it by professional reviewers. Access to the menus is quick and its use is almost intuitive. The quality of the images is splendid, even at high ISO’s. The lack of depth-of-field preview has not presented any inconvenience, although I used the feature on my Nikon N 80. The editing features “in camera” are helpful. It is also very rugged. While travelling on a bus tour, the camera rolled out of my lap and bounced onto the floor of the bus and continued to roll for several feet without any apparent damage.I would recommend a slightly longer zoom lens.
Read more..

List Price: ?13.99
Amazon Price: ?9.79
Used Price: ?1.54
Customer Review: Bringing out the best
Having recently upgraded to an EOS 30D I wanted to get the best out of it, with this excellent book Charlotte has helped me really start to understand what my camera can do - a must have book.
Read more..

- 100% protection against scratches and dirt - Exactly fitting form - Self-healing surface - Blow, shock and scratch resistant - 5 years guarantee against scratching of the foil - Easy handling - No colour or contrast distortion - Self-adhesive and removable without residue
Read more..

Optimize Your Photos for the Web

It doesn’t matter if your emailing photos of your grandson or putting images of your latest product on your online store. Too many people don’t consider optimizing their photos for the web. We’ve all been on too many web pages where it seemed that the photos would never load, and sometimes they didn’t. So here are some steps to make sure that your photos show up on your site.

1. Always have a back up original format copy of your image. Never alter the original. Believe me you will regret it.

2. Crop to size. Make sure that you crop out any extra information that isn’t needed. Remember the larger the photo the longer it takes to load or send.

3. Resize to reduce pixels. There should be an option to resize according to pixels. You’re going to want the largest size to be no more than 250 pixels or you can reduce the dpi to no more than 96.

4.Reduce the color palette. Many images have millions of colors so the first thing that you need to do is reduce the colors to 256. You will lose some depth with this.

5. Save the file in a standard format. JPEG is the most common for photos and you can compress the image with a JPEG for further reduction in file size. It’s not unusual to see GIF or PNG as well.

Remember that with a 56k connection a 150k file will take 20 seconds to load. If you’re creating a web page every photo that you add will add to the time it takes to download all of the images. If you keep the images small in size the smaller resolution will not be as obvious.

About The Author

Copyright 2004 Kelly Paal

Kelly Paal is a Freelance Nature and Landscape Photographer, exhibiting nationally and internationally. Recently she started her own business Kelly Paal Photography (www.kellypaalphotography.com). She has an educational background in photography, business, and commercial art. She enjoys applying graphic design and photography principles to her web design.

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Nikon D200 (Magic Lantern Guide) (Magic Lantern Guide)
List Price: ?14.95
Amazon Price: ?6.99
Used Price: ?6.18
Customer Review: Not much use
Infortunately this book is just an expanded version of the D200 manual that is supplied with the camera. A few tips and advice are given which are helpfull but if you own a D200 already you will already have most of the information contained in this book.
Customer Review: Disappointed!
If I’d realised it was in black and white, I wouldn’t have ordered it. Technically good but still very disapointed.

Ulead Photo Explorer 8 - Digital Photo Album
List Price: ?24.99
Used Price: ?9.89