Great Camera for Family Use!!!!

When my wife and I were expecting our second son, we made the decision to purchase a video camera based on the fact the wish had always wished that we had one during our first sons few years.

Being that neither she nor I are tech-junkies we were a little daunted by the selection of technology out there. We decided to go with Sony because of their impeccable reliability and we are very happy we made that decision.

As we are on a limited budget we treated this as an huge investment and did our homework. After pouring over numerous reviews for various sources we chose the HC42. We found that the price to feature ratio worked in our favor after we did some price shopping.

Once we received the camera, we were a little intimidated by all of the feature and technology. However, after a little tinkering and flipping through the manual, we now operated the camera like pros! It even has an "easy" button making operation virtually idiot proof. I really enjoy the size as we've taken it pretty much everywhere. From Disneyland to Vegas to baby showers the camera never seems to be a inconvenience.

I won’t break this camera down and critique it feature by feature. What I will say is this camera fits our family well. It meets our various day to day needs and then some. It is very user friendly, shoots great quality video, is small enough to travel, and interfaces with our PC well. We haven't had any problems with the battery dimming to early, or being too big. The LCD is a good size and provides a clear picture. The LCD also doubles as a touch screen menu which can be a little awkward (yet not impossible) for those with large fingers, such as myself.

I've used the NightShot as well as its upgrade. I've noticed that the color isn't as vibrant as it could be and is somewhat "Blair Witch Project"-ish. However, I remember reading in the manual about changing some setting or another to counter this effect and testing it soon after. It worked then; unfortunately, I’ve forgotten the process. Good thing I kept the book! I did feel as if the 480x digital zoom is a little excessive, though. The optical zoom is perfect when paired with a small amount of digital zoom.

For you hard-core types, I did notice quite a bit of accessories available i.e. lenses and lights.

All in all, these are small, picky nags that are easily remedied by the average "Joe".

UPDATE: Because of Sony's proprietary software. You can only burn DVD's on a Sony Viao with ilink capability. Pretty upset about that. But it will burn VCD's. However, the VCD's wont play on every DVD player. You may have to figure out how to convert the VCD so that it will play on more DVD players. Also, the picture quality in low light is horrible. Consider purchasing the light that simply snaps on. This made a HUGE difference in picture quality.