It has finally arrived, the Sony Z1. I have been waiting for this camera for some time and I am not dissapointed. Finally I have a small (ish) DV camcorder that has 16:9 CCD chips so no more anamorphic lens adapters. But what's more this beauty also shoots HD. The Z1 can shoot 1080i HD (HDV), DV 16:9 and DV 4:3 at 25i 0r 30i. The picture quality is stunning, this makes a PD170 look like a toy. In standard DV mode it is very hard to see any differnce between the pictures from this camera and a bigger, heavier, more expensive DSR570W. In HDV mode it's even better. As well as superb pictures this camera also boosts features such as manual zoom control, film look gamma setings, a full range of manual overrides for gain, shutter, white balance and focus. It even features skin detail correction, colour bars and proper manual audio level control. Within the menus you can adjust most aspects of the picture including the saturation, detail correction and gamma. One very neat trick is the ability to shoot HD and then playback standard definition and even output your HD rushes as standard definition DV from the firewire port. This means you can future proof your productions by shooting HD now while using your existing DV edit suite to edit. I also have the latest Cineform HD editing plugin and HDV editing rates start at £325.00 per day.

Cameraman with FX1E or Z1E HDV camcorder kit £325.00 per day. Kit includes Vinten Fibretec Tripod, Batteries, Gun and Radio mics, Matt box with filters, small jib and track and dolly

Features:

16:9 HDV 1080i50, 16:9 Pa/NTSCl DV and 4:3 Pal/NTSC DV modes.Records 60 mins on a single standard DV tape.

HD and SD component, S-Video, Composite and Firewire outputs.

Full range of manual overrides.

User adjustable Gamma, Chroma, Shutter, Gain and Detail settings as well as skin detail correction.

Built-in HD-SD downconversion.

Programmable focus/exposure memories for pull focus effects etc.

Built in ND filters.

Plays back DV, DVCAM, 1080i HDV as well as 720p HDV.

Picture Quality:

In my opinion this camera is amazing. It is by far the best compact DV camcorder I have tested. The Standard Definition images are comparable to a DSR570W, the main give away is that it does tend to crush the blacks just a tiny bit. Contrast handling is very good, again comparable with a DSR570W. The pictures are very clean with little or no noise, it dosn't seem to suffer from those fuzzy edges that are usualy a DV giveaway. Sensitivity is good, a huge improvment over the JVC HD10. Switch it to HDV mode and the pictures are even more remarkable. Detail that is lost in SD suddenly appears, trees have leaves instead of green blurs. OK it's not going to replace the full size HD cameras, but I believe it will make similar inroads into HD production as DV has into SD production. Compression artifacts can be found, but they are not as bad as I had expected and don't detract from the overall image. Images shot in HDV then downconverted (in-camera) to DV look exactly like images shot by this camera in native DV.