On Wed, 17 Jan 2001 11:07:03 GMT, nujuko@utu.REMOVE.fi (Nuutti Koskinen) wrote:

> Oh and how do these cameras compare in high contrast
>situations? Look at the first interior picture at:
>http://www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/sony_dcr-vx2000.htm
>The bright light from the window diffuses on to the person's
>face. Not much but it does not happen at all on the vx1000
>or trv-900 pictures. Is the vx2000 worse or better than
>XM-1 in handling high contrast?

As the author of the review article, I may be able to add a
few details and opinions... All the Mini-DV camcorders tried
were both remarkably similar in their performance from
casual observation, and remarkably different in particulars
with careful observation, so the above comments are valid.
As to what was noted about the VX-2000 flare, though, I
can only explain it by the possibility that the exterior
light was changing, and was brighter when the VX-2000 sample
was shot (one of the frustrations of testing gear in
real-world conditions in Ithaca, NY, is that sky
conditions change rapidly here most of the time, making
constant-condition shooting difficult - rare are the days
that are either cloudless or evenly overcast [you can see
the problem in the VX-1000 vs. VX-2000 exteriors - it
was difficult to get roughly the same type of light in only
part of the image, let alone the whole...]). From
extensive use, my experience with two VX-2000s shows their
flare (and lens ghosting) level to be unusually low. In
terms of contrast, you can check in other examples for
comparative dark-to-light tone-relationships. There are
differences in inherent contrast among the various
models, but it isn't extreme...

> And BTW since there is a memory stick slot in vx2000, can
>you save different custom picture settings in to the stick? So
>that you could quickly recall your favourite settings for
>different shooting conditions.

No, but you can set a different set of settings (!!! ;-)
in the custom controls for stills than for video. I now
have two sets of control settings for video, and another
for stills. Since my two favorite sets of video settings
produce similar results, I may drop one...

>Other than that, I don't think
>I would find the memory stick useful - for stills, my old 35mm
>is a much better choice...

Yes, I agree - or would have...;-) I have ranted lots here
about the silly still-photo feature on video cameras, BUT,
a recent need for a cheap (I already own the gear...;-)
digital still camera with wide-angle capability for a new
web page project led me to try the VX-2000 still-capability.
To my surprise, I liked it! Though the images are only
640x480 and therefore useless for printing, for web use,
the images are remarkably sharp. The VX-2000 optimizes
the progressive-scan mode for stills (it is useless for
motion, with peculiar artifacts in addition to the usual
shortcomings of PS-mode motion-video images), and they
are SHARP! I may add some samples to the review, since
they look better than the motion-video frame-grabs (which
already look unusually sharp for video frame-grabs...).