Shola's Home Gadgets

The auto focus on my Hitachi HD Camera can not be disabled or turned off, this creates a problem, as the algolrithm doesn't always choose the right thing to focus on, as shown by the video clip below.



I'm interested in my shoe which takes up most of the shot, but the Hitachi DZ-HV565E is more inclined to focus on the black surface in the background. Not very selective!



While I like the quality of images produced by this cheap HD camera, this issue does put it in the bad books for me, as serious home movie maker would not be able to be creative if he can tell the camera what to focus on. I'm still going to hang on to mine though.

I've just bought a new gadget, it is the Hitachi DZ-HV565E HD digital camcorder which will be replacing my Sanyo Xacti CA6 which I still have, but was a camcorder I didn't like!



The Hitachi camcorder was a birthday present from my wife, and has already been put to use for recording high definition driving lesson videos with very good clarity as shown below (high speed ADSL broadband internet connection required for this video clip).



This gadget reminds me of my first digital camcorder the Sanyo Xacti C40 which I loved so much and was gutted when it got lost or stolen under misterious circumstances.
It has many of the features of the Sanyo C40 that were missing in the CA6.
Rotatable LCD screen, full size tripod mount, can also take photographs as well as record HD video, the only disappointment is that the battery can not be charged while in the camera. The Hitachi records to solid state SD cards, so is tapeless, which means quicker editing times of the quicktime mov files it produces (I use final cut express on a mac for editing, but I'm sure you can use Movie Maker or Adobe Premier Elements on the PC).

So far I've only used the Hitachi DZ-HV565E to record video, and have been happy with it, and I can see that it will get more use than my Sanyo Xacti CA6. One question that a lot of people often ask is what is the low light recording like? Being a semi-professional videographer, I tend not to shoot in low light as even the professionals use lights in daylight, not to talk of indoors, and I will be using it mostly for outdoor activities in the day.

If I do have a genuine reason for shooting in low light, I will let you know how I get on with the inbuilt LED lights on the front of the Hitachi hybrid camera.

I will post more video clips and photos from the DZ-HV565E once I've had more time to evaluate it, and would give a proper review then.

This Hitachi Camcorder Broke in 2012!

More Hitachi Camcorder views
DZ-HV565E Camera auto focus Issues.
Hitachi HD camcorder spare battery