Sony DCR-HC62 1MP MiniDV Handycam Camcorder with 25x Optical Zoom

Love this camera 4 both home movies & still photos. With a 1 gig card it holds over 2k images on high quality. The battery life is excellent, although I still recommend a second battery. The video quality is outstanding 4 home movies, on board mic pics up sounds great.
I would suggest a case 2 put this in, as well as extra battery, & plenty of tapes. It has replaced both my digital camera & old camcorder.

A wonderful buy 4 anyone shooting home video & more.

Really great camcorder 4 the price. Good vid quality, nightshot 4 low light. Has a nifty time-lapse mode that can let an entire day pass in a few minutes. The only real down side, IMO, is the lack of a mic input jack.

This camera is easy 2 use, the battery lasts long enough but I was expecting a better quality picture. I have used it 4 about 2 weeks, shooting about 60minutes of film. For the price I think it is a good buy. The zoom is great!

this camera is simple, easy 2 use, & films with great quality. I highly recommend it 4 any entry level camera purchase.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R3PRFAYV4K81ZL A big part of the reason I bought this camera was 4 its smooth interval recording (time-lapse) feature. Strangely, Sony's higher end high definition camera HDR-SR5 does not have this feature. I have been quite satisfied with this feature's flexibility & user-friendliness. For some reason, the smooth interval recording has a 12 hour time limit, so if you want 2 do time lapses longer than 12 hours you have 2 stop the recording a couple times a day & re-start it & it will go 4 another 12 hours.

For regular video usage it's a good camera. The 2000x digital zoom, if you haven't guessed, is comically useless (not that I expected anything more). The tele-macro capabilities are pretty impressive.

As others have mentioned, it does not come with a firewire (IEEE 1394) cable that is required if you want 2 download video 2 your computer. I knew that before buying it & picked up a standard 4-Pin/6-Pin FireWire cable from Amazon through a third party seller (Phoenixgold) 4 under $[...] plus shipping, so not a big deal. I could see how that would have been annoying had I been unaware that this cable was not included.

P.S.
The "audio sample in an outdoor environment" clip was shot with an Opteka .43x fisheye converter not included with the camera. Also, the audio was significanly compressed after I uploaded the video so it's not quite what you would hear straight out of the camera.

Edit:
I added a low-light performance test video 2 youtube (search 4 "Sony DCR-HC62 low light test"). There is also a higher quality version of that video at http:// albums.phanfare.com/4434655/2011492#imageID=43138119.

Enjoy exceptional video performance & versatile performance with the DCR-HC62 MiniDV Handycam camcorder. The Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens & Super SteadyShot image stabilization capture sharp, clear, detailed video so you can see every detail of every frame. Shooting, composing, & reviewing video or still images is made easy with the clarity of the 2.7" wide LCD screen. Super NightShot Plus technology lets you shoot color video in total darkness.