Vacations are round the corner and it?s time to pack your bags and vroom. And wouldn?t it be a good idea to record your frolics on a video camera and share it with friends once you are back?
But hauling a heavy conventional video camera all the time could be a chore! To save you from this burden, Sony, the Japanese electronics giant, has introduced a very compact and stylish digital video camera ?DCR-SX44E? recently. Weighing mere 190 gram, and measuring 50mm x 55mm x 112mm, it will fit snugly in your palm or trouser pocket.
To start with, the DCR-SX44E boasts of an excellent, professional-quality Carl Zeiss (Vario-Tessar) 60x optical zoom lens, and built-in stereo zoom microphones for Dolby Digital stereo recording. And in case you wish to indulge in some low light shooting, a LED video light has also been incorporated right under the lens.
The 60x optical zoom, coupled with 2000x of digital zoom, means you can even record close-ups of distance subjects like wildlife or mountain peaks with perfect details and sharpness provided you carry a tripod.
The sleek and sturdy Sony DCR-SX44E, priced at Rs 14,990, has a 2.7inch LCD touch sensitive display panel (16:9 aspect ratio) with 230K pixels resolution for viewing clarity. The display panel also rotates up to 270 degrees for convenient viewing angle and easy access to menus and other functions. The recorder does not have a power ?ON? button, simply flip open the LCD display panel and your camera is ready to shoot.
The camcorder comes with 4 GB of embedded flash memory, good enough to store almost three hours of video footage (in LP mode) and it can be expanded further by using either Memory Stick ?PRO Duo? or SD/SDHC memory card.
Sony handycam has been designed for extreme portability and ease of use and it has been preloaded with some very user friendly new applications and features, like ?Picture Motion Browser? for easy management of videos or photos and direct transfer of video recordings to an external hard disk drive (sold separately) without using a computer. You can also use the camera?s playback feature to access videos stored in an external hard disk drive and play them on your HD television.