Reviewed by
Harry Palmer , Expert

Price Paid
$550.00 at B&Hphoto.com

Summary
The Sony DCR-TRV22 is a good camera. For a camera this size and price it has amazing infared and lowlight ability. The weaknesses are easily made up with accesories that you should buy for any MiniDV camcorder anyway. (wide angle lense,Auxilary microphone with a mic muff.)

Strengths
amazing infared and lowlight ability. Perfect for private investigators, Insurance company grease balls, stalkers and government spooks. I like to use mine with a zoom microphone to tape strangers conversations in public places.

Weaknesses
All the functions are on a touch screen.
FIX: flip the touch screen around and fold it flush with the camera. Badda bing!
wind noise in microphone while filming outside. FIX: Use earphones to monitor auxilary shotgun or stereo mic.

Similar Products Used
Canon C1A-HRD69 MiniDV camcorder

Customer Service
Never had a problem with any customers before the accident.

Reviewed by
glennchan , Intermediate

Price Paid
$0.00 at Sony Store

Summary
This is a pretty good camera. The video quality is decent. This camera has the "Sony pop" look- high saturation and contrast- which a lot of people like. I have some gripes about video quality though. Sometimes in indoor situations false colors will appear on fine lines. In one case it showed up in the wrinkle on someone's forehead!!! It's very distrating.

The camera may say Carl Zeiss on it but overall it seems the camera does not live up to that name. The lens cap (which is VERY easy to lose...) reflects light and can cause flaring/a white circular haze on your image in some situations. Dumb? Probably.

The resolution is not that great. I did a rough test with an EIA[J] test chart and got around 350 lines- not near Sony's claim of 500 lines of resolution. Differences in methodology can drastically affect results but this camera does not come close to the maximum resolution. Also, when you do the test, the camera produces a lot of false colors on the thin black and white lines on the test pattern. There's a rainbow effect on the whole test pattern.

Like nearly all camcorders, the on-board mic on this camera isn't that great.

There are some manual features but they are hard to use. The LCD touch screen makes it harder to get to the manual features, but they aren't very useful in the first place. Exposure changes are "steppy" and not gradual. Manual focus is very difficult. Iris/aperture and shutter settings are very limited.

Strengths
Decent image
Good low light for a consumer camera. (best of its class apparently)
Good features (analog-digital passthrough, mic jack, accessory shoe)

Weaknesses
False colors appear sometimes.
Resolution not that great.
No full manual control.
LCD screen menu can get annoying.

Similar Products Used
Sony TRV120 (digital8), TRV20, Samsung SCD55

Customer Service
Lots of Sony repair centers around.