I notice that when I use my HC3 the image tends to be very soft. I usually find that if I bump the contrast up to around 25% it looks much better. Much more and it starts to get grainy. Much less and it looks fuzzy.

Anybody have comments/shared experiences with your HC series camera and if you have a better method.

Thanks,

Roger

There are only 1434k effective pixels during recording on the HC3 due to the electronic stabilizer, counting for some of the softness.

Areas that are too bright to be captured clearly by the sensor can also be soft.

I'm sorry your image is soft, Roger. I just bought a used HC3, and compared to the FX1 (in good lighting), the picture is sharper. I'm actually very impressed with this camera.

John,

I'm not unhappy with the camera, just would like to avoid post-capture processing on the image as much as possible. I do use image stabilization, so perhaps Jack is onto something.

My experience is similar to John's. I have to turn the sharpness down on the HC3 and up on the FX1 to get them to match in post.

I almost never use any form of in-cam stabilization, as I rarely am off the tripod. So I think Jack's right.

I give the non-IS a whirl and see what it does.

Thanks for the input.