On Wed, 12 Jan 2000 16:01:48 GMT, B&SY wrote:

>One thing folks haven't talked about concern the lenses of the cameras, I
>don't care what DV can do if it has a crappie lens. A professional lens on
>either a Hi-8 or SVHS will produce a more satisfying (read well defined and
>sharp) image than a typical cheap lens (fuzzy) on most consumer DV units.
>That's why I'm still staying with my SVHS camcorder, it has a fantastic lens.
>Sure the color might be a little brighter on a DV unit, but I'm not after the
>color as much as I'm after a clear picture.
>Sure the digital can be multi layered without much signal loss, but I can
>digitize my stock SVHS footage anytime and have the advantage of DV, and you
>can pick up used pro Hi-8 or SVHS camcorders for a very low price. The morel
>of this story is just be well educated about what's out there to buy before
>you plunk down your money!

I'm not about to say that this isn't true for you, but in my
experience many consumer-oriented mini-DV camcorders do have
excellent lenses (see the frame-grabs from seven of them
plus one Beta SP with a lens that cost more than some of the
camcorders combined, in a camcorder comparison article on
my web page - under "I babble"...). What most separates
the expensive lens from the good-but-cheap is wide-aperture
edge performance (plus "real" controls...). If the lens is
used knowingly (with the aperture locked at a good stop, if
possible), the mini-DV advantages of higher resolution and
lossless copying can be realized. One may still prefer the
"smoother" look of some analogue formats, but when it comes
to maximizing sharpness, the analogue formats have met their
match with mini-DV...