Small is beautiful
David Phelan turns the lens on Sony’s tiny new camcorder
If you are going to use a camcorder, you want the quality to be great, but the device to be small. Welcome to the Handycam HDR-CX6EK, the smallest high-definition camcorder (for now, at least ). It’s high-definition because it uses the AVCHD format pioneered by Sony and Panasonic – and it’s so small because it records to a tiny medium: memory card rather than hard disk, tape or DVD.
The US$1,800 CX6 comes with a 4GB card, enough for just over one hour of high-definition footage. It is remarkably little – you might almost think it was a toy until you see the results. Sony’s advanced colour capabilities make the footage you shoot look vibrant and the surround-sound makes it sound good, too.
It records at “Full HD 1080”, which means the images have 1,080 horizontal lines, the same as an HD television. For playback, you can connect this tiny camcorder to a huge HD-ready TV to view what you’ve shot at its most impressive. You can even slot the memory card into a PlayStation 3 games console and play it on a TV through that.
The excellent Carl Zeiss lens is assisted by an optical image stabiliser, so even if you are not steady, the image will be.
Other features include Super NightShot, so when the light is completely gone you can still film. And there’s a six-megapixel digital camera built in for great still images.
It’s an easy-to-use, remarkably powerful package – it’s just so small it may take you some time to believe it. www.sony.co.uk |
