Product Description

Stylish compact HDD Handycam camcorder featuring a 30GB high capacity hard disk drive for long recording times, 1 Megapixel CCD for great images and a 25x optical zoom.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39679 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Sony
• Model: DCRSR52E.CEH
• Released on: 2007-03-26
• Dimensions: .78 pounds

Manufacturer's Description

DCRSR52 Hard Disk Drive Handycam Ideal for everyone who’s on the move, the DCRSR52 offers an impressively long recording time and longer battery STAMINA – without the hassle of carrying extra tapes.

Easy to Use Pressing the Easy Handycam button allows simple 'point and shoot' operation. All the camera settings are automatically controlled to ensure optimum recording and minimal fuss.

Format Ultra-compact, lightweight and easy to use, the DCRSR52 Handycam records footage onto the camcorder’s 30GB Hard Disk, that’s up to an impressive 20 hours and 50 mins of recording time, which can be easily searched, viewed, or downloaded to a PC. So what’s the other advantages of hard drive recording? Well;- Longer shooting times No tapes or discs to worry about Various recording speeds Random access But that’s not all. The DCRSR52 can also be used for still image recording using a Memory Stick Duo slot located within the body of the camera, so no need to carry a stills camera too.

Zoooom The SR52E opens up dramatic new shooting possibilities with a massive 25x Optical Zoom and 2000 x digital zoom range via the high quality Carl Zeiss® Vario-Tessar® lens. A small, powerful lens designed for use in compact cameras and camcorders. Perfect for capturing contrast and colour to produce brilliant, sharp images. Wide angle performance has also been improved by 20%: a major bonus whether you’re shooting outdoor scenery or a group of people in a room.

Crash Protection – save your memories There’s only one chance to capture special moments when they happen, and HDD Handycam adopts a two-fold HDD Smart Protection strategy to safeguard against the inadvertent loss of precious pictures. A physical shock absorber protects the drive against physical jarring and bumps during operation, while 3G sensor detects abrupt motion in three dimensions to distinguish accidental drops from other body movements. Video stream buffering also ensures that recording continues smoothly.

Display A generous 2.7’’ colour LCD screen with touch panel display makes shooting even easier.

Power Longer record times, more STAMINA: The DCRSR52 Handycam keeps on shooting when other camcorders give up! You'll get a running time of up to 90 - 100 minutes in continuous recording mode from the supplied NPFH40 battery. For the maximum battery life of up to 10 hours, Sony recommends using the optional new-generation H-Series InfoLITHIUMTM battery NPFH100 giving up to 10 hours of power, giving you plenty of time to capture that special day or event.

Handycam Station – the easy way to enjoy your results at home After shooting, there’s no need to fiddle with cables when you want to store, edit and enjoy the results at home. Supplied with all HDD models, Handycam Station can be linked permanently to a TV via its analogue connector, while the Hi- Speed USB port allows direct digital connection to a PC. It also doubles as a charger – just drop in your Handycam and power up while enjoying your new shots. One-Touch Disc Burn function is now 1.5x faster, allowing an hour’s worth of video to be recorded onto DVD using a connected PC in around 20 minutes.

Super SteadyShot & Nightshot Super SteadyShot is the inbuilt technology which reduces ‘handshake’, giving more stable images. Nightshot enables you to take close-up shots even in extremely poor light conditions.

Pictbridge Direct Print Pictbridge allows images to be printed directly from digital camera to a printer, without having to connect the camera to a computer. PictBridge-capable printers typically have a USB Type A port which is then connected by cable to the USB port of a PictBridge-capable digital camera (typically a Type Mini-B). The user then uses the camera to select the pictures to print, which the printer then retrieves from the camera and prints.

Box Contents

Customer Reviews

Its all good!
This camcorder is tha bomb! It is so so small, if you havent seen it you wont appreciate how small it is, I mean....it is small. Video quality is good enough for me, I am not a professional. It is easy to operate and you can make your own movies quickly. I will advise against buying the SR32, you are better off spending the extra £50 and getting 1 megapixel resolution. The only difference between the SR52 and SR72 is the hard disk size!

Excellent, worth every penny
I have never owned a camcorder before so this was a new thing for me.

I did a lot of research into the different types of format you could have like MiniDV and DVD camcorders as well as hard drive camcorders.

I decided that a hard drive camcorder would be a good choice, simply because it saves you so much money in the long run. I never have to buy an tapes or anything for this camcorder, i just paid for the thing and i never have to spend any more money for it.

As for the camcorders features, the touch screen is effective although is little bit fiddly if you have big hands like me. Also it tends to pick up fingerprints but that doesn't really bother me. The zoom is excellent although the focussing doesn't quite keep up with the zoom so it takes a second to re-focus. The memory is more than enough if you're worrying about if you will run out of room on this camcorder. You won't. I recently took it to Rome and did a whole weeks filming and i barely filled up a 5th of the memory.

Transferring it onto DVD's was another thing i was concerned about when buying this camcorder, it turned out fine. The software with it was easy to use and it can be transferred to DVD's with a computer really easy. It doesn't need a firewire port or anything like that, it just has a simple USB 2.0 cable. That can also be connected to the handycam station which can also be useful to charge it and stand it up. Battery life is fairly good although i would recommend investing in a spare one incase you go a long time without being able to charge it.

It can also be transferred straight through the TV through another cable with red, white and yellow ends which is great when you get home and want to show everybody everything you have filmed rather than go through all the putting it onto a DVD stuff.

It feels comfortable to use and i would recommend this to anybody who wants a camcorder for leisure and family holidays, it's simple to use and the picture quality is great on DVD.

Great tiny camcorder
I bought the Sony DCR SR52 as I wanted a really small and light camcorder to take with me to festivals, days out and generally just wandering around. The Sony is really small, even in my tiny hands. And it is light, you could carry this all day no problem.

It looks gorgeous, very sleek and shiny. The software on the camcorder also looks great although not entirely intuitive.

Video quality is good, not excellent as you would get on a tape based camcorder but certainly ok for fun shooting. Low light performance is not great but that is to be expected from any camcorder with the same specs.

Image quality of the photos is ok, better than expected for just one megapixel. The 25x optical zoom is a real bonus as well when shooting photos.

Battery life was also good, I got about an hour and a half out of it although I have bought spares.

Summary, great if you want something small and light and not concerned about fantastic video quality. If video quality is your thing then get a tape based model (I use a tape based model for more serious stuff).