Sony Handycam DCR-PC9 Mini DV Camcorder
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- Recording System: NTSC
- Camcorder Type: Digital
- Recording Media: Mini DV
- Optical Zoom: 10x
- Weight: 1.06 lb.
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Perfect for video artists, excellent, reliable, hi-quality
Pros
solid and compact, tough metal body. Feature reach, manual controls. Selective shutter speeds. Quality mic.
Cons
Can't selectively turn off LCD icons. No assignable physical dials/buttons.
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
This is more than a video camera for messing about at home. Once the features and manual controls are worked out, you will have an excellent piece of video equipment.
I'll get straight to the point. There's enough manual controls and settings to get original, white-balanced, well exposed, filmic smooth footage from this very compact camera. I use the custom shutter speed of 25fps to get that film look while retaining resolution. Switching to 16:9 recording mode helps this even more.
The PC9 is in my experience a milestone video camera. I've used many from the Sony line and this one is a very strong favourite of mine. Even its successor, the PC109, while some new features were added, the body was built using more plastic and less metal than the PC9. I always prefer a solid metal chassis on any type of camera.
Few people realize that the PC9 also doubles as a digital video to analog converter - a device some poeple need to buy for hundreds of dollars. And with most other brands of video camera, you can't connect a VHS player to the camera and convert that to mini-dv then output that signal to your computer. But you can with the PC9. Very handy if you ever want to convert your old VHS or video-8 tapes to the computer for archiving or burning to DVD. I've used that a lot.
The LCD screen is very clear, and the touch screen is surprisingly easy and natural to use. I was skeptical at first that the touch screen was a gimmick, but soon found it a pleasure to use. Would be nice to have more custom settings to choose what icons and symbols to display - if any - on the LCD screen and viewfinder as you shoot. This is ony one minor gripe, but didn't stop me from shooting some of the best video I've ever shot. The compact size meant I could hang it off my wrist and only bring it up when needed... which is very handy when in crowds and cramped places.
Get a wide angle lens accessory with it. You wont look back once you try the wide lens in 16:9 mode at 25fps on the PC9. Edit it all in Premiere or your editor and it will look impressive. The manual exposure settings are handy too. I would've liked a physical roll dial to adjust exposure rather than get to it through the menus, but you can't have everything I suppose.
Excellent sound quality too. I was very impressed at the bass response the little on-board mic picks up. You can always plug an external mic in too.
Digital still photo ability is nothing special - however is quite fine and very suitable for the kind of image size you'd send in an email for example. So for that reason, you might find the digital still feature quite useful. And remember that the zoom lens on the video gives you an advantage over most dedicated still digi cameras, even if the quality isn't as good, you get the telephoto as a compromise. The memory stick in my PC9 usually gets full quickly with photos. Just plug camera into USB port to download them to computer.
The PC9 is in my experience a milestone video camera. I've used many from the Sony line and this one is a very strong favourite of mine. Even its successor, the PC109, while some new features were added, the body was built using more plastic and less metal than the PC9. I always prefer a solid metal chassis on any type of camera.
Few people realize that the PC9 also doubles as a digital video to analog converter - a device some poeple need to buy for hundreds of dollars. And with most other brands of video camera, you can't connect a VHS player to the camera and convert that to mini-dv then output that signal to your computer. But you can with the PC9. Very handy if you ever want to convert your old VHS or video-8 tapes to the computer for archiving or burning to DVD. I've used that a lot.
The LCD screen is very clear, and the touch screen is surprisingly easy and natural to use. I was skeptical at first that the touch screen was a gimmick, but soon found it a pleasure to use. Would be nice to have more custom settings to choose what icons and symbols to display - if any - on the LCD screen and viewfinder as you shoot. This is ony one minor gripe, but didn't stop me from shooting some of the best video I've ever shot. The compact size meant I could hang it off my wrist and only bring it up when needed... which is very handy when in crowds and cramped places.
Get a wide angle lens accessory with it. You wont look back once you try the wide lens in 16:9 mode at 25fps on the PC9. Edit it all in Premiere or your editor and it will look impressive. The manual exposure settings are handy too. I would've liked a physical roll dial to adjust exposure rather than get to it through the menus, but you can't have everything I suppose.
Excellent sound quality too. I was very impressed at the bass response the little on-board mic picks up. You can always plug an external mic in too.
Digital still photo ability is nothing special - however is quite fine and very suitable for the kind of image size you'd send in an email for example. So for that reason, you might find the digital still feature quite useful. And remember that the zoom lens on the video gives you an advantage over most dedicated still digi cameras, even if the quality isn't as good, you get the telephoto as a compromise. The memory stick in my PC9 usually gets full quickly with photos. Just plug camera into USB port to download them to computer.
