Hey all. I am still trying to decide to buy the 30 or the Sony VX2100. We do mostly low-light horror shorts (I know the Sony is better for this). But it seems the 30 may be a little more customizable with the scene files and adjustments you can make there. I don't think the Sony can do those adjustments (gamma, chroma, etc.). Anyways, just how many "looks" can you get with these files? Also, if you save your own settings to one of the scene file buttons, does it save it for good, or just until you power off the camera? Any other ideas or recommends would be appreciated. The $600 difference in pricing is also leading me to the Panny.

There are 4 or 5 scene files available (do not have the camera in front of me) and all of them can be customized.

When a file is changed then you have the oprion to make the change permanent or have the camera revert to the default values for that file when powered down.

Also, all saved files can be reverted to the camera default if needed.

Hi Justin,

I was making the same decision a few weeks ago, so I'll tell you how I made a decision. I too wanted to save money and felt that a smaller camera with 4 lux would be good enough in low light. After purchasing the DVC-30 I really liked the build-quality and variable speed zoom. The low light quality was more than enough. However, the low light focusing and auto white-balance were very bad. The scene files were nice, but there wasn't anything there that can't be found on another camera (hue, saturation, exposure compensation, sharpness) except for the black level and pseudo-progressive (which wasn't good; too much stutter and even worse focusing in that mode as well as lower S/N).

So, then I bought a VX2000 and not only was the low light a lot better (namely brighter image and less grain) but the low light performance (autofocus and white balance) were much better. To me that mattered and I chose the VX. Oh and the VX's image stabilizer is a lot better than the DVC-30.

So basically all of the reviews I read about the DVC-30 were right, but none mentioned the autofocus and white balance issues. If it wasn't for that it would be nice camera.

Johann

I have to concour with the white ballance and focusing issues in low light auto mode.

However, when using the DVC30 in low light you would shot in manual so that you can limit the gain and tweak the white balance.

The focusing is another issue if you just point and shot. For set up shots you can focus manually.

The only other issue to consider is that neither the DVC-30 nor the VX-2100 has a high resolution 16:9 mode, if that's important to you. Both cameras acheive this by cropping a 4:3 image with a 25% loss of vertical resolution.

Another camera in this price range (maybe a bit less) is the Sony PDX-10, and it shoots high quality 16:9. Low light mode not as good as the VX-2000 however, it's about 2.5 f-stops slower. However this is compensated somewhat by 14 bit DSP for a clean gain boost.