| Brand: | Sony | ||
| Average Rating |
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The Sony Handycam camcorder HDR-SR11 with Face Detection technology captures faces clearly so your videos and photos are recorded more beautifully. The ClearVid CMOS Sensor (with Exmor technology) and BIONZ image processor provides extremely detailed Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution video11, and stunning 10.2 megapixel still images, with long battery life. Super SteadyShot optical image stabilization system reduces blur even when using the 12x optical/150x digital zoom. Moreover, Hybrid recording technology gives you the flexibility to record to the internal 60GB hard disk drive or removable Memory Stick PRO Duo media (sold separately), as well as easily copy video or still images from the hard disk drive to Memory Stick media without a PC. more info
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Great Product
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I took of one star off because It was very difficult to find a proper video editing software for the format this camera stores the video files in. I am still looking for one…..
Other wise i like everything about it and i got it for a great price from Amazon.
Have a major problem
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
I love everything about this camera, except one major problem. I can’t save to dvd and watch in dvd player. You can only view in a blue ray disc player which I do not have. I tried recording to dvd from tv and it looks horriable. I wish I would have known before buying.
Much better than I expected
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The video images you recover from this camcorder are unbelievable. It was like going from a dig 300 SLR Canon to a 1D SLR Canon for still. Software that Sony gives you and what you can buy has a learning curve, but in the end it is worth it for the video you recover from this camera and lens combination. BTW, this will exceed anything on the video end you will find by either Nikon or Canon in their new Dig SLR lines. I was shooting both. If you want video, get a video camera. If you want the performance of a high end dig SLR, get it, but skip the video hype for now. If you can only carry one, well each user needs to decide which is a higher priority, still or motion.
Pretty decent video gear!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Awesome video quality!
I took it to Luke Airforce Base Airshow,It can track the airplane well,and 5.1 sound system make the surrounding sounds real.X.V. color system makes the pic more vivid.
Excellent Camera for MY PRICE!!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
The Sony SR11 is a great camcorder. I am not going to get into extreme detail here talking about all of the little specs and other things because I don’t have time. The camcorder has awesome quality/clarity. The colors are vibrant and the sound is amazing. It sounds like surround sound when I am watching it. I upload a ton of my videos on YouTube and all come up as full HD even when I record in standard to reduce file size. The cam is so clear that the FULL HD isn’t even needed. When I was purchasing this camera, I did extensive research and it definitely paid off. The reason I titled my review as “MY PRICE” is because I bought the camera for around 715 dollars. Now it has doubled, which seems pretty ridiculous. If you can afford the cam, I would definitely get it if it seems like what you want. The 60GB is a lot of room and I am not even close to filling that up. But, if you use your camcorder every day for all HD recording and don’t want to delete things, get the SR12 which has double the memory. The remote control that it comes with is also very handy when doing vlogs or using a tripod. The interface is very easy to use and you will get used to it in no time.
I have noticed that in low light it can get a little grainy, but that comes with practically all cams. With the cam, I bought the NPF100 battery, which is awesome. The battery that comes with it lasts about an hour and a half, but this lasts about 3 hours+! I recommend getting that.- haha Overall, the camcorder is great and I recommend it to anyone. Over time, I have realized that technology is always changing, and better and newer things come out every day. The Sony SR11 beats time, and is a purchase that you won’t regret.
- 9 out of 10
Excellent! Highly recommended. (only one smallish problem)
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I love everything about this camera, except for one small thing:
In medium-lighting scenarios… the camera has a really difficult time focusing… and so a lot of your footage will be incredibly blurry. (outdoors during the day time has been no problem, however.)
Other than that…. it is EXCELLENT. Very happy I bought this camcorder.
I like the way it feels, the quality of video it takes… even the way it looks!
Slow motion video capability is really fun…. although it only records for 3 seconds, period. You have to be quick to capture what you want.
Manual focus knob I have found a little difficult to use. Not sure… maybe it just doesn’t work the way I would expect.
I like the touch screen. I just use my finger nail so it won’t get too smudged up.
The video files you get once you put them on your computer are .MTS format. So it will be really difficult to edit the video unless you have an expensive editing program. Windows Movie Maker CANNOT handle this format. So you have to get something else.
Even after getting a nicer program (I went with Pinnacle Studio), the video editing is INCREEEEDIBLY slow, even though I have a fast dual-core computer, tons of ram, and a nice video card. So what I have been doing is I set the mode on the camcorder so it records in the lowest possible quality. Then, when I edit the videos, my computer is capable of providing the previews during the editing process, and it is a much more pleasant experience. Only problem is I am sacrificing the quality of the image by choosing this recording option. Oh well! Until I figure something else out this is what I am doing……..
If anyone else has a suggestion as to how to fix this last problem, I am all ears!
But I like the camera very much overall. I have no regrets in purchasing it… especially since when I bought it, it was selling for about $700 on here! I can’t believe how much more it is selling for now!! I see the price as currently being $1,434.89!!!! Haha…. I wouldn’t have bought it for THAT much. Maybe since the market is improving, the price is going back up!
sony handycam
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
It’s a few weeks now and I have bought this item directly from amazon….it works really great and I am extremely happy with the product let alone the discount on this product. Amazon sells really good, reliable and qulaity goods. I am one very happy customer of yours and rest assured I will continue to buy my stuff from amazon.com
Great Video Camera
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Great video camera. Works well with both Mac and PC. Enjoying the high quality video.
Amazing picture clarity ….
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I got this beauty last month and have used it for a couple of weeks now and I am a believer now. This is my first Camcorder (have used my dad’s earlier). Its an excellent choice for a HD cam with more than adequate HDD space (60GB!). Want more storage space? go for SR12.
I love the camera mode as well, 10.2 mp is a lot of data for your snapshots!!!
I didn’t really compare the video quality of some of the competing products but I am generally inclined towards Sony products (except in Cameras where Canon rules or atleast used to).
I have a Sony DSC-H2 which has a decent video capture ability (12x zoom helps as well) but again the video length is limited to 5 min clips, so I was looking for a handyCam (preferably a high def) and then i stumbled upon this one. After reading lot of good reviews and comparing the prices, I finally bought SR11 from Amazon.
I must say am very very happy with my choice.
Here are my + & – of it:
+++
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- 10.2 Megapixel still picture capability. The highest that I am aware of, on a consumer category camcorder….
- Ability to take a snapshot in the middle of video recording. Is as simple as a click of a button.
- Remote control is a nice added benefit (good if you want to avoid smudging your LCD VF(viewfinder).
- EVF is a great tool if you wanted to save battery.
- Easy to use functions. Well placed buttons, can use thumb 4 pics & to start video recording.
- Excellent resolution on the LCD screen. Playback looks amazing.
- 5.1 channel recording and zoom mic (in layman’s terms good sound gets recorded)
- Mic is in the front below the lens so no obstruction.
- Lens has an automatic shutter which closes when powered down. So no need for a lens cap.
- Batt info function provides immed. battery status update on demand.
- Excellent video quality both SD and HD (haven’t played around a lot with HD yet though)
- Picture quality is very good and the huge HDD allows to store a lot more pictures than your regular camera.
- Memory stick support gives added edge.
- The memory stick slot is also thoughtfully placed in the LCD VF recess.
- Manual settings button on the front bottom right can be configured to do multiple things and I found it useful for manual focus …
- telemacro is excellent, I took some good far end closeups, which i’ll upload later probably.
- In built flash light, makes it a true camera and is a very thoughtful feature.
- Easy to use supplied software (essential for editing your AVCHD HD videos)
- Has a 3 second Super Slow-Mo feature. I tested it for shooting snowfall and butterflies, amazing!!!! I like it a lot. I think it bumps the video sampling rate from 30 to 60 fps.
Minuses(–)
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- Size, this guy isn’t so little as some competing products. Although isn’t too big, still has bulk.
- Supplied battery runs out pretty quickly. There’s a combo-deal avl on Amazon for the HF-70 batterry pack with the handycam case. Highly recommned you to go for it as that batterry pack is recommended in the manual as well ..
- Far end auto focus hunts a bit (again I have no comparitive data so it might be just me being picky)
Haven’t found many negatives yet. I would highly recommend it, even for newbies. The features in this Camcorder have a good balance of convenience and advance abilities.
I used Videospin software from pinnacle to create my own video movie (collage of my videos) and it was a breeze, so you might wanna download that as well.
Go ahead and buy this you won’t regret …
Image Quality and Usabilty are Key
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I was a bit reluctant to buy Sony after Dr. Larry Thorpe left as the chief technology for Sony motion imaging about three years ago for Canon. To make matters worse, I had to decide which camera to buy in a hurry, while standing in a retail store, with no access to the internal technical specifications that would have allowed me to predict the camera’s behaviours under various light conditions that were not present in the retail establishment. I got lucky… I chose this camera. Here is what I found:
– Image quality is nearly as good as a professional camera. Lens performance exceeds the ability of the focal plane array to detect any lens abberations, chromatic or otherwise (perhaps one should expect this from Zeiss). Instantaneous dynamic range is very good for a low-cost camera: At least 5.5 f-stops still produces shadow and highlight detail. Blacks were not crushed nor were facial highlights blown out at this dynamic range. No dead pixels (a bane of previous Sony equipment). No ringing of the optical anti-alias filters and apparently nospatial pre-emphasis processing was used either, because I can see no edge enhancement artifacts. Over-bright objects produce saturated white pixels, not black overflow pixels as occur on cheaper cameras. I can see no compression artifacts at all. This may be the result of writing at high data rate to the onboard disk drive; I speculate it may be writing at 19.4 Mbps or faster.
– Zoom and focus controls are far too small and sensitive for professional studio work such as when there is a need to get back to repeat a set-up with a known focal length or to do a pull-focus shot. This is largely the fault of the small size of all cameras in this class. It takes a physically large piece of equipment to mount a pull focus dial, for example. However, compared to a previous Sony product, which had a totally unusable zoom control (the slightest touch would cause it to move almost from one stop the other), this is much, much superior and controllable.
– Menus are logical. Many digital video and still cameras have incredibly poor menu design. I would have to give this one a 4 on a scale of 5.
– I find that it to be hugely aggravating that this machine puts out a proprietry format that cannot be read directly into a professional software editing package, such as Adobe Premiere CS3. I think it is horribly arrogant of Sony management to believe that standards are for other people, not them. But, you can fix the problem by downloading conversion software (for a price, of course). I use a package called VoltaicHD from a company called ShedWorx.
– If image quality is your primary selection criteria, then this is the best of all the small consumer-level HD cameras that I have examined.
Pricy but awesome camcorder
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is a great little camcorder. You can set it to SD or HD mode. This is a major benefit when you need to record a video for the web is standard definition. HD footage takes a very long time to render.
Points to consider. All digital camcorders suck in low light–you get a grainy picture. Also, digital camcorders perform very poorly in action shots where there is fast movement.
I record videos for business, so this camcorder is perfect. Because it records straight to its onboard hard-drive, I can drag-and-drop the clip(s) directly to my desktop and edit them straightaway.
Very good camcorder
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I have not tried the other camcorders on the market. So I cannot compare them in detail. Before I bought this camcorder, I read all the reviews of several camcorders I was interested in (Sony SR11, Panasonic, Canon) and compared the specifications and features. Basically I decided on SR11 because of its superior sensor. (ex. Sony SR11: Megapixel ClearVid(tm) CMOS Sensor vs. Canon VIXIA HF100: 3.3 Megapixel CMOS sensor.) I also went to a electronic store to check out all those camcorders. Sony has by far the best LCD monitor of them all. The picture in its own LCD screen (of SR11) was crystal clear. The LCD monitors on the other camcorders all had very blurry images.
After I bought the SR11, I took some video clips and connected the camcorder to my Sony 46″ LCD HDTV, I was satisfied with the quality of the images. The only thing that bothered me a little was that the red objects are unusually red and super bright.
The thing that bothered me the most is that when I uploaded the video to my computer, the files became extremely large. I am not sure if it has anything to do with this camcorder or it’s just my computer. I shot everything in HD FH mode. According to the manual, this camcorder has 60 GB hard drive and can shoot 7 hrs. 10 min. of video in HD FH mode. There was 202 min. left on my SR11 hard drive. So I used about 53% of the hard drive space. But when I upload the video through i-movie 09 program to my external hard drive (Seagate 500GB), it took up 206GB of the hard drive space. I was shocked. I was expecting something around 40GB. I am using a MacBook Pro I just purchased few weeks ago. I am hoping someone here can tell me whether this is normal.
Pleased with this camcorder for recording sports
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I’m glad my wife and I did the research before purchasing this past fall. We bought this camcorder to record my son’s lacrosse games. We also purchased a new pc with a dvd burner at the same time. I use a tripod to record the games, and immediately save the games to an external seagate drive with oodles of memory. (Each game is about 4-4.5 GB) I have used the included pmb software to burn dvd’s. The memory stick integration to the ps3 works fine. Last night I successfully burned a avchd dvd that plays on my office sony blu ray player, high def. So far I haven’t had any compatibility problems you see in some of these reviews, I believe going pure with Sony products helps in this respect. The 48 min lacrosse games fit on 4.7 G standard DVD. The games take about 1.5 to 2 hrs to burn, so I just do it before bed. Hope this helps.
Amazing, Amazing, Amazing
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I am a typical home video shooter – a 26 year old stay at home, computer geek mom who just wants some nice, lasting shots of my baby & family vacations to burn to DVD.
This little camcorder does it all and more. The image quality is superb, even on the lowest setting. I don’t have a blue ray player, and we don’t own a high def television, so I’m not concerned so much with the currently less common HD format. Therefore, I keep mine on the standard “high quality” mode – sometimes normal quality – to conserve space. But even that produces video far superior to anything I’ve ever owned in the digital video realm. My mother has a 40 inch plasma flat panel HD TV and even the video I shoot in “standard” mode looks awesomely crisp and clear.
I’ve had my sony since January and have used it in a variety of situations – evening, prom atmosphere, beach at night, beach at day, fireworks, cloudy day, midnight, regular day, indoors, low-light, and even fluorescent walmart type lighting.
PROS
* Small, lightweight, easy to handle
* LCD rotates full 180o vertically and horizontally
* Touch screen with easy to navigate menus (they don’t have too many levels)
* There is an “easy” button if you want to turn off all the more technical aspects
* Video looks cinematic (as if you’re watching a real professional movie) when shown on tv
* Surround Sound is outstanding, even at the beach.
* The zoom microphone setting works very well – tried it sitting halfway back in the audience at a high school theater play. Could barely hear the people on stage in real life, but the camcorder picked up everyone’s voice vividly.
* Regular nightshot and slow motion works great, and is just FUN, fun fun fun.
* Quick on / quick off (stand-by) button
* Take photos WHILE video is recording
* Auto-focus with an easy to switch to manual dial on front
* You can change the Megapixel level of your photos (10MP, 7MP, 3MP, etc)
* Auto-self timer
* The division of photos vs. video in the menu
* Docking station for charging
* Wireless remote control (I LOVE this feature!)
* The LCD screen is super sharp – I could even see it perfectly at the beach.
* The picture motion browser software is very useful, although I did have a high learning curve with it. Once I figured it out though, it makes importing, sorting, and burning video fast and easy.
As with everything else, there are a few things that do annoy me though, but I can live with it.
CONS
* The twilight & “super nightshot” settings are TERRIBLE if you move around and causes a strobe-light movement effect. They are best used on a tripod with very little scene movement.
* Image stabilization could be a lot better. It doesn’t get terrible though unless you’re in digital zoom – then it’s almost impossible to get a steady shot if you’re holding it.
* Slow motion records less light – produces darker video than normal.
* Really low light photos have to be manually focused & adjusted to ensure a clear shot.
* You can’t view previously shot high def video when you are shooting in standard (and vice versa).
* Flash should be turned off in most shots as it seems to always produce red-eye. It does offer a red-eye reduction setting (but I don’t like using the double delayed flash). Daylight photos actually look better without a flash anyway.
* The auto focus on the video has a hard time focusing in low light. I’ve found that zooming out then slowly zooming back in helps auto focus. I don’t have this problem in bright light.
All in all, I couldn’t speak more highly of my little sony. I have it beside me at all times (awaiting my son’s first steps, and everything in between). It’s just so nice to have it available at all times, without having to worry about switching to a blank cassette or DVD every 30 minutes (like I use to do with camcorders)! The handycam utility software also makes it a breeze to import video to my 160GB computer, so I can free up space on the camcorder any time I want to.
I would suggest getting a spare battery and a wall charger to go with it. That way you will always have a charged battery. I did get a 2nd bigger battery, but the original battery will get you through a minimum of 70 minutes of filming, even on HD – your battery life varies depending on the quality of video you are shooting.
I’ll also mention that mine is a tough little camera too – my son tugged it off the table one day and it crashed on the kitchen floor. I about had a heart attack, but luckily it was perfectly fine!
If you’re on the fence about this camera, head over to youtube and search for Sony SR11 tests to view some of the video it produces (especially the slow motion tests). Previewing those beforehand is what cinched the deal for me when I bought in January.
Great Buy
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I absolutely love this camcorder. It is easy to use and compact. The video and still pictures are high quality. I highly recommend this product.