Robin, not to be a hard head here, but 'contrasted' and 'cine-look' don't mix. A cine-look, as you call it, is a lower contrast look as opposed to the higher contrast of video.

That contrasted look works against the HF10 as it renders LESS detail in one of the shots you posted. However with that said, I've never seen footage from any Canon camera with as much contrast as those stills show. It looks to me like someone was playing some games with those stills. However, it surely does make my point, you can't use these to determine video quality.

http://www.dv.com/dv/magazine/2006/gamma1.jpg
(source: http://www.dv.com/features/features_...leId=174900673)
can't say it's a like contrast curve (last one) but it's like giving contrast to the middle-range, pushing shadows and highlight without clipping them.

Anyway I agree that it seems a bit overcontrasted here, maybe that guy set HF10's contrast setting a bit high while shoting.

Robin, if ever you've used one of the 'cinema' settings on a video camera, you'd see it gives the overall video a reduced contrast look. Some like it, some don't. Personally for me I prefer the 'you are there', live look of video. Also, your agreement that the contrast looks high and may be the result of a setting by the user, shows what I've been talking about. The only way to really determine which cam suits you best is to do your own A/B on your own HDTV. That way there's no guesswork as to whether someone was setting a camera incorrectly or deliberately...you are in control.

One thing about the SR11 I didn't like is that there's zero control over picture parameters, ie brightness, contrast, sharpness and color.

I dunno, but the first Canon shot made me want to break into "purple haze"...
there seemed to be a distinct color shift on my monitors, and an unnatural one at that...

Tony - you CAN "translate" japanese pages via Google or Babelfish - the trans-(ob)-literations are always comical, but you can sort of figure some of the stuff out.

There's no way those series of shots could be use for comparison - far too much difference in the times and days -it's tough enough to A/B under controlled conditions (same day, time, comparable settings, identical shots) and get reliable results. These two sets of pictures may as well have been "night and day".

And heaven forbid if the reviewer has a bias... I read certain "reviews" of Sony product and shake my head, as I have the camera in hand and can't replicate the supposed "issues", or worse yet can absolutely refute the claims of the review...

IMO you need to spend more than a few hours with a camera (which is probably more than the average "review" gets) to get to know it's features and quirks and set it up to your preference (and if you like a tiny joystick and hate touchscreen, NOTHING will alter your perception... er, bias). I wouldn't pop a new camera out of the box and leave everything "factory" - first thing I do is scroll through the menus and poke at everything!


My experience with shooting the HC7 and HV20 side by side was much what I expect will be found in A/B with the latest generation - the Canon blacks were darker and more contrasty, which looked good against the somewhat noisier blacks of the Sony, but details were being lost. Reds were VERY problematic on the Canon, tending to blow out and "dance". Colors were more accurate with the Sony, although they could be adjusted with the Canon. BOTH cameras were great, but I went Sony... build quality and sound made the difference for me - the PQ was quite acceptable either way!

I'm seeing similar issues from the above pages, but... until one has an HF in hand, it's all navel gazing! I'll have an SR11 shortly, and looking forward to seeing what it can do. I doubt I'll be disappointed, even if I later discover the HF in some opinions is a bit "better"...

I agree Tony, it would have been nice if they gave you that adjustment. Even though I've always kept the adjustments at default in my HV20, it's nice to know they're there. On the other hand the Sony gives you the ability to adjust 'bias' from what the cam wants to do. So it will constantly adjust exposure up or down a pre-set amount from what it would have done alone. This is in addition to being able to adjust exposure for just one shot like the Canon. The Sony allows the same thing with white balance, continuously adjusting warmer or cooler from what it would have done alone. These are features I'd like to see the Canon have.

Dave, I agree with you 100%.

Tony -
Not quite "zero" - there is AE shift which is fairly effective, used it on every Sony I've owned with good results. There is White balance and WB shift, not as many options as I'm sure will be found on the Canon, but workable. And it apears there may be an exposure adjustment of some sort, hard to tell from the manual.

Sure, I'd rather have the more extensive controls as found on the HC9, but I suspect these will do - part of the design of these latest cameras appears to be "intelligence" (like face recognition), that allows the camera to make faster and more accurate decisions than all but a pro could... if the technology works, then it's all the better in my book. Rather shoot and get a good "look" that I can tweak in post than have a bazillion settings and maybe or maybe not get them right while trying to get the shot...

The camera is never more intelligent then the person.

Moreover, even if the reviewer is making an honest attempt to be as unbiased as possible, he or she will have their own set of perceptions and their own weighting of what aspects of an image or camera performance are more important and what are less important. The reviews are great for finding out whether a camera has a manual override for this or that, and for lab measurements like lines of resolution or color saturation, but you have to disregard much of the subjective conclusions unless you know from years of experience that you always tend to agree with a certain reviewer on subjective matters.

It is always best to try things first hand, although unfortunately, most of us will not be able to spend two hours or more with a camera without actually buying it. As Ken said, it's always good to buy from a dealer who will accept returns.

No, but the camera is almost always *faster* than the person under changing conditions, and sometimes that can make a big difference.

Tony -

Don't use that reasoning with a modern day fighter pilot... or the guy whose airbags saved his life by deploying when there was no way he could have done it himself. I'll reserve comment on the previously noted "translator"...

I'm pretty sure that the guys who design this stuff and program the algorithms aren't "perfect", but I'm inclined to suspect they might know a thing or three! Collectively maybe a tad more than I do <wink>?

These new cameras detect and track multiple faces simultaneously, and from all accounts reasonably accurately adjust the camera for best results - are you seriously suggesting you can achieve that? I'm looking forward to that myself!

We are entering a time when our technology, thanks to huge amounts of computing horsepower and "artificial intelligence", has to be reckoned with, and can augment and enhance our abilities.

Sure I'm "smarter" than my parent's old "Brownie" box camera (or at least I like to think so...), but I've got more computing horsepower under my desk than was probably available on the entire planet 50 years ago... and I'm pretty sure my video camera is WAY more advanced than my first computer - it has more memory by a factor of 1000+, that's for sure! Times change... and our technology has definitely come a long way.

Yes, manual override is good, and sometimes I use it, but if you can "point and shoot", what's the problem with that? I doubt any of us is so fragile as to not be able to accept a camera that can improve our results even if it won't let us play with the settings quite as much as we'd like (and dang it Jim, I LIKE to play with settings!!!)

Look at most of the "complaints" about various cameras - they aren't whining (as much) about the inability to set an F-stop, they are wondering why autofocus can't adjust properly on the black cat in the dark room!!! Or why the IS twitches under some circumstances... or why one color isn't just perfect... or this is too sharp or not sharp enough...

Don't get me wrong, I'm as picky as they come (just ask my significant other!!), but let's switch to "practical mode" for a moment...

<click>

Call me silly, but I was looking at some old B&W photos (oddly, probably from a Brownie!) - they were terribly crude by comparison to anything I can shoot with all my digital "toys", and yet they were ever so wonderful - they told a story, they captured a moment, they showed people now old and wrinkled, and some long passed, in another time and moment... THAT'S THE PART WHERE THE SHOOTER COMES IN!! The technology is just a tool, and the smarter the tool the better in my book.

You don't go out to the "icebox" anymore or do laundry in a washtub do you?

Just some straight talkin'... GRAB WHATEVER CAMERA YOU'VE GOT AND SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOT! Tell a story, capture a moment, change the world for the better, put something down for posterity, make someone SMILE!

Next year when a new and better camera comes out... well... did you shoot, or did your camera sit in a bag?


<was that a rant?>...

It's probably been said here somewhere before, but this is the main reason to get a camera that YOU like. A camera that you like is more likely to be with you instead of in the closet.

I've bought many cameras over the years that weren't the most popular, nor the ones the reviewers liked the best, nor the ones that were Popular Photography's camera of the year. I bought them because there was something about them that I connected with, or that just felt better about them. A piece of equipment that feels good to use and provides images that you like is one that you'll have much more fun using, and you'll use it more.

Tony, the nice thing about the Sony is that it does give you a plus and minus bias control over exposure and white balance. The Canon doesn't have this. Bias adjustments enable a constant camera adjustment to suit your taste as opposed to being able to do it for just one shot.

I wonder if the brightness setting in HF10 (custom image effets) could do the same thing as SR12's AE shift. Given the picture is probably 12bit before being converted down to 8bit, that may do the trick -if highlights are not already internally clamped, of course-. Can any HV20's owner confirm this ? Plus, does this custom effect reflect on screen while recording, or is it post ?

I agree that we should take advantage of the technology available to us. It's nice to have the capability to make a multitude of manual adjustments but how often do you need them or really use them? And life won't stop and wait for you to make all the adjustments you may want to capture the perfect shot. So, if the camera is smart enough to help me get some good footage I say, thank you very much.

Exactly..... However if your aim is take your time and make creative projects then somtimes the control over the image is needed since it provides a much better image to work on in post (a better image meaning that the image you were trying to obtain from the start without post processing).

When shooting normal daily lfe events (i.e homemovies) I don't have time to use the manual controls. I do however use the AE shift on my SR12 alot. I find this to be on of the best features for shooting. It is like having all of the manual settings in a single easy one.

It might work a little bit, but it's not nearly as good as exposure compensation (or AE shift as Sony calls it). I've dealt a lot with raw files from digital still cameras, and although it is true that occasionally a blown highlight can be recovered by using raw, that highlight is usually still overexposed and washed out, and it is difficult to get proper color balance and contrast as if it were exposed properly in the first place.

Of the camcorders being discussed here, only Sony seems to have the AE shift feature, but most of the other cameras have a scene mode called "spotlight" or something similar. It's designed to to keep spot-lit subjects, such as are common in theatre, from being blown out. What it basically does is alter the exposure algorithm's priorities to heavily favor highlights even if most of the scene is darker. There have been some times when I've used this feature on my current DV camcorder in normal lighting situations (non-spot-lit) when I really wanted to keep highlights at the expense of shadows.

The AE shift feature, however, is still nicer because rather than all-or-nothing, you get control over how much to favor highlights (or shadows).

The HV20 and HV30 both have exposure compensation...

Tony, we're actually talking two different things. The HV20 & HV30 both have exposure compensation, but that's on a per shot basis. The difference in the Sonys is that they have the same exposure compensation, but also an exposure 'bias'. What that does is tell the camera that whatever it sets the exposure to be, you want it + or - from that point (depending on how much you've set it up or down). It will do that continuously, always adjusting the amount you set from what it was going to do without the 'bias'. So this is a dynamic compensation, always changing whereas the exposure compensation is a 'one shot deal'. The camera is 'locked' in to that exposure.

There's "exposure" and "exposure compensation."

Exposure compensation is intended to compensate for specific problems, such as strong backlighting from a window behind your subject.

Exposure (bias) on the other hand, just raises or lowers the brightness scale.

The control mechanism is the same, a combination of shutter speed, aperture and gain, but the metering algorithm is different. Compensation targets a condition identified by the light meter, whereas bias just raises or lowers the brightness scale.

Tom, I don't believe that's how the Sony's 'bias' control works (just a simple raising or lowering of brightness). I believe it is a combination of aperture, shutter speed and gain done in a dynamic way. I know where I've used it I've certainly seen it change shutter speed. Once you get in to a lower ambient lighting conditon and the available shutter speed is 'used up', I'm sure it would revert to aperture and then gain.

But the major difference is that a simple 'exposure' control sets in 'stone' the exposure at that time. It will not vary. Thus, if you zoom in to something after you've set the exposure zoomed out, the picture will darken since your original setting was based on lighting in a 'pre-zoom' condition.

Now if we take that same scenario and apply it to a 'bias' control, the setting would be say 1 stop less (assuming that's how you set it) in your wide angle setting. However the big difference now is that as you zoom, the camera is now adjusting to the reduced lighting as the result of zoom. It will still end up being 1 stop less than what it would have been had you not set the bias control, but it will be correct since the camera is allowed to alter its settings.

Okay, I see what you're saying. The Canon exposure button locks it into manual when used, plus or minus the stops.

When using the bias on the Sony, it would remain in automatic plus or minus the stops.

Does that sound about right?

Bingo, you got it! So the Sony has the same control as the Canon plus the bias control just as you described it.

As Ken has said, this is correct. Sorry for the confusion. I come from primarily a still photography background, and on still cameras (digital or film) the term exposure compensation always means the plus-or-minus bias; locking the current setting is called "AE lock"; and other modes are just called "manual exposure". This is also the case on my older Panasonic AG-50E DV video camera, so I thought the terminology was universal.

I didn't realize that Canon had re-defined the term "exposure compensation" to mean "AE lock plus manual exposure" for their video cameras! No wonder Sony had to call it something else, like AE shift. Too bad Canon did that, resulting in a plethora of different names for the same thing. Consumers aren't already confused enough, I guess ;-)

Got an SR11 in hand, still got lots of testing to do on it. Initial impressions are it's got good ergonomics, and very good build quality. Very nice overall design.

So far I really like the big LCD, interestingly when I switched on guideframe I got little corner brackets that I presume are "safe area" markers - they correspond to the area on my 2.7" screen almost exactly! That said, the recorded video is definitely "wider", showing a wider field of view, but height sure looks about the same amount larger too... so this camera takes in a bit more, that could be nice. Given the wider field of view, the VF is seeming very tiny and inadequate by comparison - good for those times when the LCD wouldn't work, but far preferred the pull out one (HC7/9) to the tilt on this model.

The front control button/knob is also a huge improvement - having seen one on a UX7, was glad to see this - it's not a focus ring, but is better that the wheelie thingy. That you can press and hold and switch functions as needed is pretty handy.

No histogram, but zebras are there, good. Facial recognition seems like a good thing, and looking forward to fiddling with that further, but it appears to be disabled if you are in digital zoom or if exposure is enabled (the latter makes sense given the the FR feature is supposed to auto adjust to faces...)

Now for the initial impressions - I took one still, and hope it's not indicative of the quality - looked like an oil painting, hoping that is an aberration. Lots of patterned artifacts - maybe it was the scene or the flash, but saw them everywhere...

Video looks pretty good, but the CX7 still beats it significantly in low light, with better color and detail - sure wish I knew why the CX7 seems to beat everything else I've tested against in low light, including it's direct siblings - got me puzzled. Comes darn close to being able to focus on a black cat in a dark room. The SR11 was hunting under conditions where the CX could still lock farily well.

SR11 video looks pretty good, but I am seeing some strange color shifts in the blue/green area that I haven't seen in the 7 series, more tests to do no doubt...

Dave, your older model had a larger sensor which probably explained the better low light. But I'm sure you'll see in better light it will look a lot nicer than the CX7.

By the way, I'm sure you've seen me say a number of times that the still quality is in no way indicative of the video quality. But with that said, using the "photo" button, I've gotten some very impressive, detailed shots in 1920X1080 that look great on my 60" Pioneer plasma.

I've been very impressed with still pictures taken in good light. Good enough to leave my point and shoot at home.

In poor light or when the flash is needed, the still pictures leave a lot to be desired. Red eye is a huge problem given the location of the flash. I'm sure an add-on flash would improve this.

There's not a whole lot of difference between the CX7/HC7 sensor and the SR11 sensor in size, but the CX7 even beats the HC7/9 (same sensor) by a small margin - it's cleaner and better colors in low light conditions. Got me puzzled, but it's there...

I bought the CX7 for that reason, as the specs stated it was better, and it's proven to be the least noise and best low light performance so far - we're talking split hairs, but something is going on there.

I may post two short clips of a low light indoor test I ran... not perfectly side by side, so I should run it again "scientifically", but the CX is slightly cleaner - I also discovered that the CX7 LCD "underscans" (overscans?!? I think that's the right one, I get it mixed up). I set the cams up so that I was framing based upon the SR11 brackets and the edge of the CX7 screen - surprisingly when dropped into Vegas, the height and width actually showing were identical - the CX7 LCD "crops" the video on all sides so you actually get more than you see on the LCD, where the SR11 shows more accurately what you will get...

I shot some outdoor stuff, but when I dragged all but the first clip into vegas it locked up - looks like the latest PMB software is needed to view ANY clips with this model, though I need more tests... I'm not sure that having to have a software interface to use a camera is a step ahead - firewire/miniDV were more universal, but these new cams mean don't lose the disk...or else...


As for the "still" function, I'm actually testing the "still" function of the camera, which as advertised is significantly higher res than a 1920x1080 screen grab... and so far, I'm seeing some pretty ugly artifacting in the stills from this cam, both at the "10.2M" and the "7.2M" it shoots while video is running (it does however shoot stills fairly continuously, and I will be testing with a MS Duo later - with video running it sometimes has to wait for the still to become available again). I'm sure the stills would look OK in 4x6 or 5x7, but when you zoom in on them (or if you blew them up larger), I'm not sure how the results would turn out - I've had a fair amount of experience cleaning up stills, and these have some things going on that don't filter out... the CX7 stills (6.1 & 4.6M) show no such noise or artifacting - in fact they are very clean, as are stills from the HC7. I'll take some side by side and post, but there is a distinct artifact pattern that is NOT something that I expect - it was actually a big surprise to see what I can only describe as an "oil painting" type of look to the stills - it's noise, not detail.

Not to worry, I'm not going to compare apples and oranges - it will ultimately be the still function of one cam vs. the still function of the other, same for video...

I happen to find the dual use capability handy, so the quality of that function actually has some value for me. Vegas pulls great stills off the timeline, but it would be nice to have a higher res file to work with.

I'll run more tests, but so far I'm not seeing any big jump in quality over the "older" cameras, which is a bit of a surprise. Motion is one thing I'll be testing for if the wind keeps up tomorrow, though I've had no issues with the CX7 in that department either...

I'm not going to knock the SR11, in fact it's got a LOT to like about it, I'm just seeing it as an incremental evolution of some already excellent cameras, and I'm nitpicking where most anyone would probably never notice. And I'm going to qualify these observations as "early impressions".

As long as the pictures are clean, redeye removal in post is no big deal. So far, I'm happier with the stills from my older HC7 and CX7, both of which have been excellent for stills, but more tests are needed... got to shoot side by side and see what happens - apples to apples.

SOME of the stills seem pretty good, but they all defnitely have this "oil painting" look when you zoom in - I've never seen anything quite like it in ANY camera I've owned, and the photo retouch programs I've used to retouch sucessfully don't know what to do with it... and this includes a few shots in excellent lighting conditions.

I've just pulled up a bunch of stills from a variety of cameras both still and video/dual mode, and the stills from the SR11 are the ONLY ones that exhibit this noise/artifact pattern. I'm taking a sampling of nearly a dozen cameras - everything from VGA res stills up to 10.1M shots from a Sony R1...

HDD? I thought that's in the Cons list. :-)

I was actually surprised how good still outdoor shots look on a 60" plasma. In fact, it does look like a high quality freeze frame from full HD video. Pretty impressive actually. Unlike Dave, I'm seeing zero noise, I mean no noise at all when viewed on my 60" 1080p plasma. But these were all outdoor shots.

I don't ever see using a video camera to replace a dedicated still camera, that approach is always going to be a compromise. It's really no different than taking your digital still camera with 'video function' and expecting to get great results taking video...you won't. One camcorder may be somewhat better or worse than another camcorder for a picture taking function, but all will pale by comparison to a good digital still cam.

Dave, sounds like you're doing something wrong or are perhaps missing a codec. I can play the SR12 clips in virtually any media player or editing program. Programs I've tried and that have worked include: Windows Media Player, Windows Media Classic, Vegas, Canopus Edius and ULead Studio 11+. I have the Core AVC Codec which I highly recommend if you're going to get serious with AVCHD. You can download it for around $15.


My only testing with the CX7 was in a couple of Best Buys with memory stick in hand. In my testing the SR12 was significantly better under those conditions. I found the CX7 to be somewhat soft under those conditions...certainly relative to the SR12. But I never got to test a CX7 outdoors.

By the way Dave, even though the CX7 does not have a significantly larger chip than the SR11/12, it's probably enough of a difference to show a bit better quality in low light. The chip size numbers may not seem that different, but keep in mind these sensors start out really small to begin with, so sometimes a small difference may be larger than you think. But with that said, the SR12 holds up very nicely in low light to my HV20...better at times in fact and the HV20 has a pretty good low light reputation (at least for HD cams which are actually all pretty poor). :)

If you're looking for huge internal storage for almost non-stop shooting, it's a 'plus'. If you're looking for maximum shock resistance, it's a 'con'. ;)

I'm not fully agree with you, Ken, the Canon HV20/HV30 (and I presume the HG10, HF10/HF100) have some 'bias' adjustments for the exposure, color, contrast and sharpness.

Only the latitude of each set is more limited: instead of the possibility to adjust from -4 to +4 on the Sony consumer camcorders, the Canon cams offer only -1 to +1 (so only 3 choices: less, default, more!).

With my past Sony HC1, I've in fact never used all the latitude proposed by Sony because when you select more than 2 ticks in - or in +, the result is totally unusefull. So the only -1 or +1 on the Canon seem a little frustating, but, in fact... are enough in 90% of the cases.

I don't remember the exact setting of all these adjustments on my own HV20, but I thing that at minimum the exposure (named 'Brightness' in the menu) is at -1 to restrict as much as possible the oversatured whites, and, if I remember well my test on the colors, the color setting is at -1 too (giving a little cooler image that matches better my HC1 videos that have been shot at 'Color shift' +1 on the Sony side).

For sure, as I said already, the possibilities are more limited, but, you cannot say that the Canon cams have no 'bias' adjustments at all.

The other difficulty is to found the right entry point into the Canon menu (espacially when you use, or have used, a Sony cam): it's in mode 'P', under 'Image effect' --that's confusing with what is 'Image effect' on a Sony cam...--, and under 'Custom'.
The mode 'P' ('programmed' mode) doesn't mean that you loose the automatisms: all the other settings can stay on their Default value or in Auto mode: theses 'Custom' adjusments work really as 'bias'.

Bruno, the limited adjustment of the Canons (brightness, contrast etc.) are not the same as an exposure adjustment. Exposure controls aperture, shutter speed and gain. I don't beleive the Canon works that way by controlling brightness and contrast.

Yes, but we don't talked about the Exposure control itself (it's clear that in everycase these parameters are treated), but the way to 'bias' the control by an adjustment of the automatism.

The setting options proposed by the manufacturers have some 'names' that make you believe that their action is more or less targeted on 1, 2 or more technical parameters. And the wording 'AE shift' used by Sony seems more powerfull than only 'Brigthness' used by Canon...
But the problem is that the manufacturers don't say too much about 'how' works each of their options.

On the Sony side, the 'AE shift' is only described as 'making a darker image' when you select the - side, and 'making a lighter image' when you select the + side. The exact impact of the Sony option 'AE shift' on the aperture, shutter speed and gain is not known, as it's not known too what does exactly the Canon 'Brigthness' option on aperture, shutter speed and gain...

The only way to appreciate the result is to set the 'bias' options -/+ and to see what is the behaviour of the cam with the automatism left 'on'.
Regarding the 'Auto exposure' and its possibility to have a 'bias' adjustment, I see that the 'Brigthness' option on the Canon does the same job that the 'AE shift' on a Sony cam (I own both cam: canon HV20 and Sony HC1): the automatism takes care of the aperture, shutter speed and gain, and the -/+ moderate or inflate the result... Only the latitude of the setting is limited to -1, 0, +1 on the Canon cam, instead of -4 to +4 on a Sony Cam.

You was regretting to not have a way to a have some 'bias' adjustments on your Canon cam, but, Ken, you have already some ones!

Regarding the other 'bias' settings: the 'Contrast', and 'Sharpness' work closely as their countreparts 'bias' options on a Sony cam. The Canon 'Colors' option is less close (what is really a "Color shift"? Question of taste maybe...). No direct "White balance shift" on the Canon (the Canon 'Colors' - or + can be used too depending on what you want).

Bruno, since I have both the SR12 and the HV20, it was very easy to test both and report this info on a factual, no guesswork basis.

The SR12 does control shutter speed, aperture and gain via the exposure control. It is easy to see since all parameters can be called up on the Sony while the video is running. Once shutter speed is 'used up', it moves on to aperture and then finally gain. So all parameters are adjusted and you do have a + or - 4 adjustment range, considerably greater than the Canon's + or - 1.

On the Canon, shutter speed and aperture do not change even though the brightness is clearly changing. You can see both parameters adjusting while the tape is playing. The Canon does not show the gain on the fly like the Sony, but it is highly unlikely that gain is being adjusted since I've seen the brighteing and darkening in outdoor videos where the gain would be 0.

Additionally, the exposure bias can be adjusted on the fly with the Sony whereas the Canon must be paused to readjust any of these parameters.

So, as you can see, there is quite a difference between the two. ;)

Yes. I maybe still not fully agree with you, but your last sentence sounds better than saying that the Canon has no 'bias' adjustment at all... ;)

PS: But I nothing against Sony: as you, I'm very interested by the new Sony SR11/SR12 that will maybe be my first 'w/o tape' camcorder... And even if the new canon FH10 as a comparable PQ, the lack of a view-finder is a no-go with the Canon, and, after a change from Sony HC1 to Canon HV20, I'm ready to go back to Sony...

And the ability to change settings "on the fly" while recording can be rather important - and Sony allows it, Canon...? I recall running into that roadblock on some HV20 settings, left me scratching my head.

I think the easiest way to view this is whether the adjustment takes place before or after the exposure is captured on the sensor. The AE shift function on the Sony is a true exposure adjustment that takes place *before* the image is captured, whereas the brightness (and contrast, etc.) adjustments on the Canon are image processing functions that take place *after* the the image is captured.

While various improvements can be made by processing the image after it's been captured, there is only very limited exposure latitude in the raw data. If the exposure is off by more than a half an EV or so, you will have trouble fully correcting for it with post-capture processing, especially for high contrast scenes where highlights may have blown out.