One thing that never ceases to amaze me is the size and performance of this digital format. The cameras are a fraction of the size of the old camcorders we used to lug around the countryside, the batteries last longer, the tapes get smaller and, the quality gets better.

While this Sony is not as small as the Canon camcorder that I field tested last month, it is still a very compact, relatively light model that slips easily into the palm of your hand. It is a power pack of features that will make your mind spin at first with all the buttons and, until you get used to it, have you chasing through the manual trying to work out which to use and when. Every flat surface has some sort of control button strategically placed, making this a very versatile and compact package.

It uses a standard digital cassette, giving a recording time of one hour standard play and one and a half hours on Long Play, with around two hours battery life on a standard Battery using the LCD screen. The LCD screen is 3.5in with 800,000 pixels on this model and is fully rotatable for front viewing while providing a crystal clear picture.

The optical Zoom is 10x with a further 120x/20x available as digital zoom. While Autofocus is the norm, you can override this manually and, in the case where foreground objects pull the focus, an Infinity setting allows you to ignore those objects. Zooming is smooth and speed responsive to pressure on the button, while the auto steady system works very well to minimise shaky hands.

Light is no problem for this camera as it will normally operate down to 5 Lux but also has a Nightshot and Super Nightshot which, according to the manual, take you down to 0 Lux. Nightshot really works as I was able to read printing on a box in almost total darkness. However there was a resultant loss of colour when I tried it and you need a steady hand for Super, to maintain focus.
This camera can be programmed in a series of exposure modes including Spotlight, Soft Portrait, Sports, Beach and Ski, Sunset and Moon, Landscape and, Low Lux. All these optimise the exposure under difficult conditions, including fast movement and bad lighting.

To add to the flexibility of the camera there are six digital effects which allow you to do anything from, superimposing a still picture over a moving picture, record stills, swap luminance, slow down the shutter and even apply a sepia effect, as in old movies. You can also choose to record in the 16:9 wide screen mode to tie in with the new wide screen format TVs.

A built in Fader provides a range of transitions from standard through Mosaics, Bounce and Overlap to Wipe and Random Dot. It is also possible to digitally process images as Negative Art, B & W, Solarize, Stretch, Pastel and Mosaic. I suppose the question might be asked, just what cant you do with this camera that would have cost a fortune a couple of years ago?

Apart from all the gee-whiz effects there are of course the usual functions, such as white balance, that can be either automatic or manually overridden and, there is even a backlight button for those times when looking into a brightly lit background.

Output can come either via the FireWire outlet or S-Video. I was unable to test the FireWire but the S-Video quality was as good as that normally transmitted by TV stations, being unbelievably sharp with great colour. There is also a three way mini connector that allows you to output video and stereo sound for standard TVs and a headphone jack for checking on recorded sound.

When you think you have sussed out all this camera can do, it drops more on you with its editing and still photo capability. Putting stills to tape you can get 510 pics in SP mode and 765 in LP mode. Add to that the supplied memory card, self timers, dubbing, cordless laser output to TV and much more and you run out of room in this review. Sony can I please keep it?