Sony HDR-HC3 and Canon HV10 Micro HD Camcorders
DV by Tim Sassoon 
Like many of you, I have a great 3-chip pro HD camera with all the bells and whistles. Amazingly flexible and dripping with accessories, it's capable of making truly superb images. I often see things I'd like to capture on the spur of the moment, be it beautiful lighting or an interesting composition. But I can't, because my professional HD camera is at home. Wouldn't it be great to have a camera you can take anywhere to shoot candid scenes unobtrusively and without fuss, in full HD? You can take it with you Until recently, using a micro-camcorder meant shooting standard-definition only, but no longer. The first crop of HD micro-cams is now available. While it's easy to think of them as consumer cameras, you can just as easily imagine them being used on lightweight jib arms, as hidden cameras, as helmet cams, as handheld B-roll cameras, or as emergency backups to your 3-chip professional HD cameras-basically, in any role for which a bigger camera would be too large, heavy, expensive, or obvious. So to get behind the hype, I tested two of the most popular HD micro-cams: the Canon HV10 and the Sony HDR-HC3. Are they good enough for pro use? Is the resolution really HD? The answer to the first question is complicated, but to the second question, the answer is an emphatic, "Yes." As small as these two cameras are, they're still true HD. read more...
Like many of you, I have a great 3-chip pro HD camera with all the bells and whistles. Amazingly flexible and dripping with accessories, it's capable of making truly superb images. I often see things I'd like to capture on the spur of the moment, be it beautiful lighting or an interesting composition. But I can't, because my professional HD camera is at home. Wouldn't it be great to have a camera you can take anywhere to shoot candid scenes unobtrusively and without fuss, in full HD? You can take it with you Until recently, using a micro-camcorder meant shooting standard-definition only, but no longer. The first crop of HD micro-cams is now available. While it's easy to think of them as consumer cameras, you can just as easily imagine them being used on lightweight jib arms, as hidden cameras, as helmet cams, as handheld B-roll cameras, or as emergency backups to your 3-chip professional HD cameras-basically, in any role for which a bigger camera would be too large, heavy, expensive, or obvious. So to get behind the hype, I tested two of the most popular HD micro-cams: the Canon HV10 and the Sony HDR-HC3. Are they good enough for pro use? Is the resolution really HD? The answer to the first question is complicated, but to the second question, the answer is an emphatic, "Yes." As small as these two cameras are, they're still true HD. read more...
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