Having two children under the age of five,  having a high qualitity camcorder is something that i must have.  I dont want some low quality sloppy pictures and video of my children.  i want pictures and video that i am gonna love and wanna look at years down the road.  And be able to show them to family and friends later on.  i had a few different camcorders that i had to test out and try to see how they worked before i finally found the one that i just fell in love with.  I love the fact that it is really small and compact so it is great for taking in a small purse or bag. Its light weight which works also.  The touch screen is cool to.  I was hesitant at first thinking what if it breaks later and i have to buy a new one too soon.  But after using it a bit it was very very neat.  I love the quality that i has,  it takes great video and pictures in one.  that an added bonus for me its like two cameras in one

jclarkistheman

Garden Grove, CA

This  is a one of the best  HD camcorder that also can take high resolution still photos. This camcorder is comes with an HDMI cable, additional battery, 32 GB flash memory, and an attractive camera pouch. You can buy it at local electronic store or online.Good part is it has # 150x optical zoom lens,3" color LCD screen and Digital image stabilizer.It can work with the iPod Video/Apple TV. Also it has Component video output , 1 x HDMI output , 1 x S-Video output which is very usful in watching recording without burning diskThis The HD camcoder records high definition (HD), which measures 1280 x 720 pixels, at 30 frames per second (fps) and a maximum data rate of 9 Megabits per second (Mbps).In order to determine the HDR-CX520's video performance, I shot a standard video color chart in three of the camcorder's modes:  the highest quality HD, LP at 60fps (which is referred to as TV-HR), and FP at 30fps (called TV-SHQ). All recording came quite good as expected.Sony's expertise tends toward intense in-camera sharpening. While this helps to define the edges of objects. If you shoot something over the edge than you can see sharpness much better than any other camera in the range. Try recording viode near the plain field like parks or beaches and you will see the quality video recorded.Only bad part is its zooming technology.It's zomming is not the best in market. while zooming in picture quility fades out and start recrding blurry. Also attached belt quility  is not good.

purvinagar

Cupertino, CA

I have owned the camera since the day after it was released and have used it quite a bit. Low light performance and good high bandwidth compression were key for me. On that, the camera delivers; the images are well lit with very little noise down to pretty dark settings, and if properly filmed (tripod, good panning technique) show no motion artifacts. The image stabilization is amazing. I hand-held the camera today and the video is better than watchable -- it looks as if I had a monopod. The biggest plus is that it takes excellent indoor movies and stills without additional light. What you see with your naked eye, after ten minutes adjusting your eyes to room light, this camera will reproduce. I've never seen that before... especially with vivid colors. It does tend to lean a little on the yellow side in very low light, but that is very low light. No real complaints about this purchase. I'm extremely happy with the HDR-CX520 and wouldn't return it for anything else.

oreyyoho

Boston, MA

This was a pricy little camera but I feel like it was worth it - We had a regular old mini DV with our first camera and the quality is out of this world when you put them side by side!!!  When you look at it that way - its really not that expensive of a camera! It is really easy to use - my 8 year old is able to use it easliy and we let him because the strap tightens well around his hand, its also a very light camera so I don't worry much about him dropping it.  It is really easy to switch between photo and video - deleting and clipping video is eassy as well. Loading video to the comupter is easy with th software they give you - and I was told we would need an editing program to burn DVDs, that's not true.  After spending an astronomical amount of time wtih Sony on the phone - you can convert the HD video (in the Sony program) to MPEG2 format and burn regular definition DVDs, which is great!  I can't wait for my computer tec. to catch up to the camera capability!!

swillcox

Moline, IL