10. Night Shooting: Things Get Complicated

Test 4 is designed to show how the camcorders perform under low-light conditions - noise level, sharpness of detail, and overall visibility are rated. The presence in the shots of windows with fluorescent light coming through them also lets us check differences between dark and lit areas, and also black depth and the quality of the contrast. See the results in video and HD photos with comments.

Canon

Once again the blacks are very good - deep and perfectly rendered. And again the whites are overexposed, and appear very aggressive in the windows. Instead of seeing the fluorescent lights, for example, all you see are two white spots. The rest is very good, with a lot of detail visible. A little noise is discernible in the dark areas, and this becomes very visible when you zoom on the image. On a large display, that can be annoying, unfortunately. Score 1.2/2

Sony

The HDR CX6 shows more detail than the Canon - the moldings in the windows in the upper part of the image are visible. The blacks lack depth, and again the contrast is less marked. Noise artifacts are quite perceptible. At the end of this test, the Sony comes out a little behind the Canon. What saves it is the preciseness of the image, which moves it up to a little better than average. Score 1.1/2

Panasonic

The image is very noisy - much too noisy. The details, on the other hand, are more visible than on the Sony, but that’s the only quality the Panasonic showed shooting in dark areas. The image is blurred, the whites are overexposed; the sharpness is passable. Slightly under the average. Score 0.9/2

Hitachi

The Hitachi camcorder continues its grand slam: the entire image is blurred and noisy, and the image is dark. Artifacts in the form of squares and black lines show up around the lighted areas. In other words, total failure. The only positive point is that the lighted area shows up acceptably; but the overall image is much too dark. Score 0.7/2

Finally, as you can see, all camcorders are not created equal when it comes to "noise" generated under low light conditions. This is an important point to consider if you plan to use your camcorder often in low-light situations.