No Better Camcorder in this Price Range.

I'm a military journalist and had the pleasure of dragging one of these cameras around Iraq for a year. It sure beats the old Sony Beta camera that I had before.

It's light weight made it easy to pack along on missions to An Najaf, Sadr City, and Fallujah.

My previous Beta camera weighed 13 lbs. The Anton Bauer battery weighed in at 5 lbs and was like two bricks with only about an hour worth of battery time. When you're carrying that camera, three batteries, and a few 30 minute tapes, that made for quite a load. Add that to my helmet, body armor, ammo, rifle, night vision device and life sucked.

The Sony weighed about 5 lbs. Batteries for the camera weighed barely 1 lb each and lasted for almost 8 hours.

As pointed out in other reviews, the light gathering ability of this camera is impressive. Even taking video by flashlight worked surprisingly well. Try it; I think it will exceed your expectations. The auto white balance works well; even under changing light sources.

At first, I wasn't too impressed with the flip out screen. In the very bright sunlight of Iraq, it often got washed out. It was too bright for tactical use at night. But where it came in really handy was using the camera like a periscope. I would poke it from around or above a wall and shoot video with only hands exposed. I even saw one guy shoot video with the camera mounted on a monopod. He turned it on and off with the remote that comes with the camera. I thought it was too much trouble but it sure seemed to make a lot of sense when the bullets were flying.

I have had other cameras malfunction when the temperatures got over 105 degrees. I can tell you that my PD-170 worked fine at 130+ degrees.

Now a couple of things I didn't like about the camera. It has the capability to take a digital still photo. The photo (shutter) button is right between the battery release and the zoom toggle. When you're distracted (like someone is shooting at you), it's easy to accidentally hit that button. While its taking a photo, that camera will "lock" for about 15 seconds. When the action is fast, that is an eternity. Someday I'm going to read the owners manual to see if that feature can be bypassed. I once accidentally hit that button just as we launched a raid. The soldiers blew the door in and got into a fight with the occupants. It was over by the time the camera cycled.

The camera also has a "steadycam" feature. It does help the image quality. But when dust gets into the camera, it causes the steadycam feature to go malfunction. That showed in two different ways. A very common way was for the video image to start skipping or have distortion lines across the image. Another way was that the camera would actually start to shudder in your hands. When this happened out in the field, a good shot of canned air was all it took. When spraying canned air into the tape compartment, open the cover as far as it will open. Then spray in at a shallow angle. Your goal is to blow the dust out the other side. If you aim too deeply, you'll just blow the dust in deeper.

If you don't have canned air and this happens, you can go into the menu and turn off the "steadycam" feature. This will buy you some additional shooting time but get that canned air ASAP.

If you're a video journalist and thinking of going to the middle east this is the camera to take. I have seen Canon's die long before this Sony started acting up. An external light is questionable. I was issued one but never took it out of the case. Turn that light on at the wrong time and it's a bullet magnet. That tends to irritate the soldiers around you.

There is also a shoulder stock attachment available. Leave that behind too. The camera seems light enough that it wouldn't be necessary. More importantly, it makes the camera look like a weapon and that also tends to draw fire.