I’ve been on a search for the perfect personal HD camcorder for awhile now. One that uses a hard drive or flash media, and plays nicely with Mac.
The Kodak Zi6 was the first. It was impressive; simple, sturdy, and produced good quality video. When I bought my Canon SD-780 still camera (which also shoots HD video,) I sold the Zi6.
Later, I decided I wanted a dedicated video camera again, so I tried the Flip Ultra HD. Decent quality video footage, but I had battery issues, so I exchanged it for the Kodak Zi8. Oddly enough, it also had battery issues, so I returned it. The SD-780 did a good job recording HD video, so I figured I’d just stick with that.
Two days ago, I got BestBuy coupons in the mail… 12% off electronics. So I hit bestbuy.com and started browsing. Price, features, and reviews all pointed towards the Sony HDR-CX110.
I’ll be honest here… I’m not a Sony fan. My first CD player was a Sony, and it only lasted me about 6 months. Add that to the proprietary nature of the company, and I wasn’t going to touch a Sony product again. I know–I’m a Mac fan, and Apple is proprietary as well. But I love my Mac, and I’m not too proud to admit I’m a hypocrite.
At any rate, after a brief stint with a PSP, and more recently, a PS3, I decided that I didn’t have to hate Sony. So I bought the Sony HDR-CX110.
As soon as I got this camera out of the box, I liked it. It’s small, sturdy, and stylish.
The touch screen is easy to use, but the menu can be a bit difficult to use. There is a custom menu where you can store the features you use most often
Steady shot features are impressive. Even at full optical zoom, the image remains fairly steady. It rivals the image stabilization of the full-sized Canon XL2 I use for work.
“Low Lux” setting does a good job shooting in low light.
The camera accepts both Memory Stick Pro Duo and SD cards, but I had issues using a PNY 8GB card. Often, when I started recording, the screen would go blank and “restoring data” would display. The camera would then reboot itself, sometimes more than once. A little Googling showed me that I’m not alone on this. Other SD cards will probably work, but I went with an 8GB Memory Stick instead. Haven’t had an issue since.
Slow motion mode is limited, but cool. The camera can buffer 3 seconds of standard definition video shot at 120fps.
There’s no input to allow you to hook up an external microphone.
There are 4 HD modes, and an SD mode
8GB Memory Stick allows me to record over 100 minutes of HD video at 9mbps (default HD setting.)
Battery life is good. I charge most of my electronics every night, but it went a full day with quite a bit of use without needing a recharge.
MAC COMPATIBILITY
Apparently, there are no Mac drivers for this camera. You MUST use a card reader to pull the footage off the memory card directly.
The camera records in a BluRay format–assumably so that you can use the included Windows software to burn directly to a BluRay disk. VLC will play the footage on your Mac, but for editing it’s easier to use iMovie.
Drop the memory card into a card reader, fire up iMovie, and import the clips. iMovie quickly imports the footage. You’ll end up with .MOV files in your iMovie Events folder. These clips can then be imported into Final Cut or another editor if you wish.
Overall, I couldn’t be happier with this camera. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of the more expensive cameras, but it does what I need it to do, and it does it well. I’d recommend (and have recommended,) the CX110 to anyone looking for a good personal HD camcorder.
