On Sat, 15 Jul 2000 00:30:29 GMT, d_ruether@hotmail.com (Neuman - Ruether) wrote:

Some further observations, mixed in with my earlier
comments...

>Uh, I just got a VX-2000 today....;-)
>And I did ring it out today, before the storms set in...

I have now had it almost a week...

>Pluses: good color (after fixing things with the custom
>controls - the color is a bit blue-magenta straight out)

I prefer CP adjustments: +2 notches color balance; +2
notches sharpness; -2 notches AE bias; 0 for color
saturation and AGC. With the DWB preset, pulling the
warming back to +1 notch is adviseable on my sample.

>, a
>tad sharper than VX-1000/TRV-900 (but not as good as some
>'net images would have you believe...),

A tad sharper at infinity, and noticeably sharper at
room interior distances - overall, a sharper, smoother
picture with better color (but not "like night and day"
different/better).

>really good color in
>low light, though the low light limit doesn't appear lower
>than others;

Uh, REALLY good color in low light, and the low-light
limit is considerably below the other cameras. The
difference is "like night and day" in low light. ;-)

>minuses: finder isn't as nice as VX-1000's and
>you can't dial out the color,

Getting used to the VX-2000 VF... It is OK.

>the zoom ring is
>uncontrollable for me;

Still true, but I'm glad it is there for subtle zoom
shifts. I haven't figured out how to use it for smooth
long zooms, though (but the rocker switch works well
for that).

>undecideds: the audio levels are
>unusual and make adding mics on the AGC impractical (darn!),

But switching to manual gain works with external mics
(as might a pad with AGC), and the VF meter makes it
easy to keep track of manual audio-gain needs.

>the AF focus shift is slower than usual (may be an advantage
>for some things, but not others).

AF in general appears excellent, if a bit different from
what I'm used to...

>Battery placement is good.

An understatement...;-)

>I was able to add a Sony VCL-ES06 WA successfully with a
>58->52mm step-down ring, and one of my many fisheyes (for
>full-circle short the cutoff at top and bottom, but not full
>frame, darn!). No zoom-through WA converter that is really
>wide yet also fits and doesn't vignette, alas...

I'm still looking for a good, sharp, non-vignetting
zoom-through .5X or .6X WA converter for this camcorder.

>I was able
>to hear both high hiss levels and irregular "ticking" noises
>(the "rain" noise people have described, I presume...) when
>mis-setting recording and playback gain levels - but neither
>was a problem with normal settings (though I did have
>problems with all my external mics when using auto gain - it
>appears the built-in mics have unusually low gain, so other
>mics are forced into limiting and sound bad on auto-gain).

Both internal mics and external mics have produced good
sound for me, with one exception: dual MKE-300s hum
loudly until the left-channel one is turned off - odd,
but I can live with this limitation...

>Ah, well, nothing is perfect...
>The above are very early observations, and may change with
>more experience...

Likewise...;-)