Sony HDR-FX7E

Author's product rating:   

Ease of use	Good
Recording quality	Excellent
Picture quality	Excellent
Sound quality	Good
Value for money	Excellent

Advantages:	HDMI, Manual Settings, Large LCD Screen, Quality steady shot, Battery Life
Disadvantages:	No XLR Input, Battery charges on camera

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

OVERVIEW

As anyone that has read any of my other reviews will probably know, I am very much interested in photography and video editing. After upgrading my digital stills camera to a digital SLR, the next thing on my agenda was my video camera. Since 2001 I've been using the Sony VX2000E camera, which was labelled as a pro-sumer model because unlike a small compact handicam, the VX2000E was the top end of Sony's consumer models. Anyone that buys a car knows that if you are ever fortunate enough to buy a brand new car, you always want to try and stay at that level, well the same is true for me and cameras, I'd got the best that I could afford back then and when considering what to replace it with, I wanted to stay at the same sort of level again.

The Sony HDR FX7E was my answer.

There are numerous settings on the camera, and I would expect that anyone serious on buying a camera like this, would be looking for more detailed technical reviews than I can possibly put here. However, this review aims to be a broad overview of what the camera offers and how it performs in my view therefore I hope it is of use.

CONSUMER/PRO-SUMER/PROFESSIONAL.

The last thing I want to do here is come across like a techno-snob but I have always thought that you get what you pay for, and that you should always get the best things you can afford at the time. When I saved for my VX2000E, it cost a little over £2000 which, lets face it, is a heck of a lot of money. However at the time I was involved in making local tv programmes (nothing very fancy), and I wanted something that had manual settings and excellent picture quality.

As a result of that purchase I sort of ended up in the pro-sumer category and that is basically, the top end of the consumer camera market, but not in the league of the professional market.

When you go into the local electrical superstore, you will be confronted with a huge array of camcorders, many handi-cam's that are compact, offer great value for money and many offer excellent picture quality. However what a lot of these cameras lack is the manual over-rides, e.g manual focus, white balance, exposure, zoom, sound settings etc. I don't want to come across like a techno snob, because I too own a Sony Handi-Cam, the HDR-HC3, and that camera is fantastic, the quality of picture is out of this world, but, it has limitations, especially for the type of video I tend to take, which is usually of aircraft. I found that the lack of manual over-rides and ability to increase shutter speeds make it more difficult to obtain the kind of shots I want.

I guess thinking in monetary terms, Consumer is anything up to about £1,200-£1,500, although you can easily get something like the HC3 for half that. Prosumer is anything £1,500- £2,500 and Professional is "whatever you have to spend, we'll have a product especially for you!".

WHY THE SONY HDR FX7E?

Put simply, this was the best camera that I could afford in the Sony range. I opted to purchase online through Amazon, making sure I went via a cashback rewards website, and I did so taking advantage of a 0% rate on a credit card for 6 months.

The choice of cameras at this price (£1,700) is really limited to Sony and Canon, although Panasonic and others have a few cameras out, Sony & Canon seem to be the market leaders. Canon always have a great write up, and their cameras are especially good in low level light, which is something the Sony ones are not so good at, also after about £2500 Canon cameras offer interchangeable lenses which again Sony do not. However, I have always had a good relationship with my Sony products, they've always been built to an incredibly high standard, and moreover, the quality of the output has always surpassed my expectations.

The HDR FX7E, the "E" meaning PAL version for Europe, has had pretty good reviews, and it seems like the perfect replacement for my older VX2000E because it is the same size, shape, has a very similar layout of buttons, but it's just got far better technology contained within it now.

IN THE BOX

*The camera body, lens hood with built in lens cover, soft eye piece, remote control, NPF570 battery, battery charger lead, USB lead, various phono/video leads, small instruction manual and product accessories leaflets.

Note that you will need to purchase your own HDMI lead separately for viewing HD video. Also and rather bizarrely, no strap was in the box.

FEATURES AND USAGE.

The first thing to note is that you don't have a separate battery charger for the batteries so rather annoyingly they have to be charged on the camera, unless you want to fork out for additional kit. This is something unchanged from the VX2000 and from other Sony cameras. It just means that you can't use the camera whilst another battery is charging.

The main attraction to me for this camera is that it is High Definition, full HD 1080i and it has a 3CCD chip sensors. This means that there is one ¼" chip for each primary colour, Red, Green & Blue. Almost all consumer models will have one chip that covers all three colours. Arguably, the difference in quality is probably not something that most people would recognise, but it's certainly there.

The camera uses CMOS sensors, which is a newer technology, and something that is cheaper to produce, but that doesn't mean that quality is sacrificed! In fact it could help to explain that this camera cost nearly £500 less than the one it is replacing even though on the consumer-pro-sumer-professional scale they are virtually identically placed for their respective release times.

The camera is well designed, it feels solid, but doesn't feel excessively heavy, and could be used comfortably for an extended period of time without any aches and pains. One particularly nice feature with this camera, and others of a similar size, is the carry handle on the top of the camera, this lets you be more creative with the camera because you can hold it in a variety of ways rather than just at shoulder level. The handle also has a zoom button and record start/stop button on it.

In order to use the camera in the way outlined above, you need to open the LCD screen, and you are presented with a high quality 3.5" wide-screen. Like all screens it may be hard to view in extremely bright light, so it may well be worth investing in a screen shade for use in those conditions. The viewfinder is also full colour and very sharp.

The camera has a Carl Zeiss lens which again, offers excellent quality, along with a really useful 20 times optical zoom, making close up shots easier to obtain whilst retaining all of the quality, unlike digital zoom. You'll need a tripod though, because even though there is a really effective image stabilisation built into the camera, any slight shake or jerk will be magnified hugely if you are zoomed in on a subject.

Built into the camera lens are 2 neutral density filters which again may be used in bright light conditions to create more natural looking colours.

This camera is packed full of manual settings, and that's a must for a serious video buff, therefore you can zoom manually and focus manually using the manual zoom/focus rings, one for each. These are really smooth, alternatively, the auto focus is very effective in normal lighting conditions. The darker it gets, and the further the subject is from you, the more likely the auto focus will try to hunt for something to focus on, however that is in very low light - dusk/night conditions.

You can change the shutter speeds i.e slow it down for low light conditions or speed it up in good light conditions to capture fast moving objects, this is done using a small dial on the back of the camera. White balance can be set, to ensure the right lighting i.e contrast and exposure settings.

The camera has an easy to use menu system for making changes to the camera performance settings, e.g turning on/off digital zoom, audio levels, recording modes etc, it's all very intuitive and clear, although personally I am not keen on the sound effects as they sound a bit cheap, but those can be turned off.

This camera records footage digitally to MiniDV tape, and personally I prefer this over direct DVD recording or recording to hard disc because the tapes are cheaper, and the footage will be digitised and edited on a PC prior to burning to DVD.

Sound is recorded via the microphone mounted on the top of the camera. This camera does not offer XLR inputs for connecting external microphones but there is a phono socket.

Numerous connections are included, phono, Lanc (for connecting to external operating devices like tripod), DV, HDMI and others.

Like I said at the outset, this is a complex piece of kit, and I could ramble on and on about every feature of the camera, but the above gives a good overview of what it offers.

OUTPUT QUALITY

One word - amazing, really, truly amazing, however you need to have a HDMI cable and a HD (High Definition) television to really appreciate what I mean. I tested my camera out by filming aircraft, being situated about ½-3/4 of a mile from the airport, most of the shots were on the full zoom, using a tripod. However, when I watched back the results it was immediately clear why everyone is raving about HD, the only way I can think to describe it is like the best Digital SLR digital stills pictures you've seen, but physically moving. You can make out everything, the lines are sharp, the colours are extremely rich and well reproduced, it almost looks "more real than seeing through your eyes!"

Text is clear and easy to read, leaves are pin sharp on the trees, the sunset looks stunning.

CONCLUSION

It's still early days for me with this camera, but so far I have not been disappointed, the numerous manual settings mean that I am unlikely to reach the limits of the camera any time soon and certainly for the subjects I am filming this camera is perfect for me. The quality speaks volumes, and I would certainly recommend the camera for anyone with more than a passing interest in video, after all £1700 is a lot of money but in my view, this is money that I have saved up and spent wisely because I know that the video footage I take now will preserve memories and experiences in the best quality that is around at the moment, for years to come.

I hope this review was useful.