To make things easier, we’ve gone ahead and scoured the net for the best Sony HVR-A1U reviews and tutorials. Check ‘em out!

Warning: We could not find any decent tutorials on the Sony HVR-A1U online, only test shoots and hilariously bad related videos. We’ve embedded them for your enjoyment. We’re going to make an HVR-A1U tutorial video soon. You can see my descent into madness as the post continues.

Resources, Tutorials, and Reviews

HVR-A1U Manual (pdf) – Full owner’s manual

HVR-A1U Brochure (pdf) – Summary of some of the key features

HVR-A1U Error Codes – For diagnosing problems

Sony’s HVR-A1U Page – Specs and pictures

Sundance Media Group – Great review and tutorial, talking about specific features with examples and menu images

Videomaker – Quick review from Videomaker Magazine

Studio Daily – Review of a pre-release version of the A1U from Studio Daily

DV Format – Another great/review tutorial of features with images

CNET User Reviews – Some reviews by users of the HVR-A1U on CNet

Digital Content Producer – Review with some great technical info

TV Technology – Another Review

Kino-Eye – Great review with a link to a Z1U/A1U image quality comparison gallery

HVR-A1U Footage Tests

This test footage of an English Bulldog is the clear winner

Low Light Test:

Depth of Field Test:

Test Footage:

Misc Tests

KIA Test Shoot

More Test Footage

Even More Test Footage. This time, a cat.

The test footage to end all test footage

Test Footage of a Pigeon

Someone burning nachos (still test footage of the A1U for some reason)

Film Look Test

Tutorials and Misc

This man is unwrapping the HVR-A1U that he bought used. I REPEAT. HE IS MAKING AN UNBOXING VIDEO, FOR A USED PRODUCT. EVERYTHING IS WRAPPED IN BUBBLE WRAP AND PACKING TAPE. MY HEAD IS GOING TO EXPLODE.

This is the Z1U, but I had to include this. It’s too stupid.

This man is doing his best to make it hard for you to hear/understand him

A Completely Useless Tutorial by a Moron

Mom Describes Shorts (or what not to shoot as test footage with your Merlin steadicam)

The Winner of The Stupidest HVR-A1U Video Goes To

Before you watch this, I will warn you that this defies all of humanity’s combined gathered intelligence over all time. It is so stupid, so useless, and has absolutely no reason to exist. It is 1:16 seconds of manic, shaky footage of the Sony HVR-A1U, with some abrasive rap in the background. Now that I think about it though, the rap goes with it perfectly. The creator of this video probably put a lot of thought into the song choice for this masterpiece. He ultimately chose this diddy, in which the vocalist tells us he “hate[s] bitches, but [he] loves pussy”. Behold.

I recently completed shooting on my first documentary, “Pope Michael“, using the Sony HVR-A1U as my only camera. Last week when I released a trailer with some footage in it, a few people told me the footage looked great and asked me what camera I used.

Let’s be honest here: the HVR-A1U is not the camera the next “Avatar” is going to be shot with, but with some effort you can produce some fantastic results in a documentary setting with it. Here’s an overview of the lessons I learned with my A1U over the course of shooting the documentary.

If You Are Going to Go Manual, Zoom in For Focus Reference

Like all HD or near-HD resolution cameras, focus is an issue. Blown up on a 42″ LCD screen, you can really tell when something is in focus and when something isn’t. However, it’s extremely difficult to tell what is truly in focus on a little LCD screen on your camera. Again, this isn’t an issue specific to the HVR-A1U – I’ve worked on projects where that was an issue with $100,000 cameras.

When shooting a documentary, you are going to run into situations where you need a quick focus reflex when shooting manual. Luckily, the HVR-A1U focus ring is extremely responsive and accurate. But like I mentioned above, it’s hard to tell focus on the LCD screen or viewfinder.

Try this: zoom in one something on the plane you want to be in focus, and focus that. It’s going to be a whole lot easier to see when things are in sharp focus this way. Then, zoom back out, and the focus will hold.

With enough practice, you can spot-focus something very quickly, and with the HVR-A1U’s great focus ring, it’s a move you can pull off properly time and again.

Try a Larger Battery for Weight Balancing

The HVR-A1U had the top attachment for audio, and you are definitely going to need/want to use it. Problem is, it throws off the camera balance a little bit, making it front-heavy.

The easiest way to counteract this is to get a larger and longer lasting battery and use that. The extra weight from the battery will balance things out, and make it a lot easier on your arm.

Shoot Raw and Color in Post

In the camera settings, you can apply some real-time effects like Sony’s Cinematone, but my advice is to stay away from that. Focus on getting the content of the shot, and just getting the shot you need in general. Make sure it’s white balanced and in focus. You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to make something look “like film” no the LCD screen playing around with the menu settings.

The great thing about most editing software is you can play with the colors later and give it the special looks you’d like. Here is a before and after processing shot from the documentary I shot. I just white balanced, set the exposure, and set the focus for the original, and worried about the coloring in post.

Keep these three things in your head when shooting your doc – even in the heat of the moment – and you’ll get great results:

- Is my exposure set to the right level
- Am I focused?
- Is white balance set properly?

Keep Your Level Set to Exposure

You can customize the HVR-A1U’s handy level, but I’d keep it on exposure. When you are shooting a doc and need things fast, exposure is the first thing you need quick access to. White balance doesn’t matter if you can’t see the picture because it’s too dark.

Sony’s level is really built for exposure and handles it beautifully – my advice is to use it!

White Balance with a White Card Where Possible

This is just a personal preference of mine. Usually the white balance presets work really well in a quick pinch, but I got my best results manual white balancing on a white card.

Use the Zebra

Zebra stripes tell you when you are over exposing, or “blowing out” a portion of your picture. This is especially useful when shooting on video, because when you blow out something to white on video, that image data is gone. There is no Final Cut Pro filter that brings it back. Film is another story, but we’re using good ol’ video tape here.

Zebra stripes can help you balance out the exposure and help you notice things that you may not have without it.

Keep in mind: having a part of your picture over-exposed can sometimes be necessary for the shot. When setting exposure, you want to always expose for the eyes of the person or people on camera. There is so much communication in the eyes that anything else on the frame is less important.

In the Dark, Expose Low

The HVR-A1U has some problems with low lighting – when you play it back it’ll show some color noise in the dark areas.

My way around this was to expose low for dark shots. This kept the darks black, and you could still see the action. Instead of trying to just boost the gain and help people see everything, I went with keeping the quality up and keeping it looking more film-like. Ultimately the choice for how you want to set exposure for dark locales is up to you, but it’s something to plan ahead for so you know what to do when the time comes, and your footage is consistent.

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Well there we go – these are my tips for getting the most out of the HVR-A1U for documentary shooting.

If you don’t have an HVR-A1U, you can get one here.

We at DiY Filmmaking love this little camera, so subscribe to our RSS feed for more articles on HVR-A1U usage, including a guide to different camera functions and accessories coming up soon.

When you are looking for a camera on a budget, like I was, there is a threshold of professional features vs. cost that you inevitably run into. Sometimes its easy to think of a camcorder as a camcorder, but the difference between prices often means a difference in features. Going lower on the price chain means giving up some of those features. When you’re in a situation when you need some of those more pro features for your production, it can get frustrating.

Enter the Sony HVR-A1U. The HVR-A1U is a really interesting little hybrid camcorder that makes it great for DiY productions. For me, it really does a fantastic job of packing in some great features into a little body and a substantially lower price. Let’s take a look at some details.

Higher End Features All Packed In There

The HVR-A1U has got a much lower price point than most of the “pro-sumer” camcorders out there – you can get it on Amazon for $2,360 and you don’t have to give up a lot of the features that are going to make your life easier on a shoot. Here are a few of them:

2 XLR Inputs

My camera before the HVR-A1U was a Canon GL1, and anyone who used that breed of camcorders knows that hooking up a decent microphone was always a problem. The only audio input was a 1/8″ mini jack. You could attach one of those XLR adapter boxes, but those were a few hundred bucks. Most camcorders at the $3,000+ level come equipped to handle the much more professional and robust XLR audio input, and the HVR-A1U has them as well.

Since the camcorder body is so small, these come on a little “stalk” that attaches to the cold shoe of the camera. This makes it a little off-balance when using it handheld, but I find a big battery helps out a lot.

Responsive and Comfortable Focus Ring

Many people are very picky about their focus rings, and you can get a number of different opinions on how a focus ring works with the touch of a particular person. To me, however, the HVR-A1U focus ring is fantastic. Instead of that awful rubber mystery ring on a lot of camcorders you get a textured metal one with a very smooth and uniform turning motion. I shot a documentary that was almost entirely handheld on the A1U, and I was able to keep manual focus on the entire time and really hit the focus panes I needed to in critical situations.

Audio Separation Controls

The HVR-A1U has two XLR inputs, and you have a lot of control over the different level or each input. Similar cameras might tie together the left and right channels limiting your options when recording audio. The HVR-A1U adds in the nice separation controls (as well as phantom power, a big plus) to make it an appealing audio package for a camera of its size. You can also monitor the audio levels separately on the LCD screen, which can come in handy many times.

It’s the Little Things

There are some little thing that bug me about the HVR-A1U, and some that I love. After two years with it, there are certain things I could do without and certain things I wish every camera had.

Button/Control Placement

One scene I shot in a documentary involved following two people from the daylight into a darker post office interior. The light temperature didn’t change, but the light level did. I’d used a number of other cameras in a similar situation before, and it was sad to look at the switch afterwards. I was either fiddling with an exposure wheel or some other device, and the transition looked choppy. However on this shoot, I had the advantage of the A1U’s great exposure level and the exposure change is smooth and clean – I was really happy when I reviewed the footage. Instead of a clumsy wheel, the A1U has a great incremental level that you push up or down, and can also be used to control the AE shift (although you have to go into a menu to switch the functionality).

You’ve got easy access to switch manual and auto focus, and a few other buttons that honestly I never used. The zoom is different as well. Most of us are used to the one button zoom where you push one end or the other. The HVR-A1U has an interesting level-like zoom that makes it very easy to pull off a rapid zoom or a slow one. It seems a lot more inutitive to me.

The focus ring can also be used as a zoom ring, but it doesn’t work nearly as well as using it for manual focus. It feels clumsy and unresponsive.

Lens and Filter

The HVR-A1U has a 51mm thread for filters, and a removable lens shade with a built in lens protector you can switch on and off. Sounds great right? The problem if you can’t use both at the same time, because the lens hood covers up the threads. So if you want to use a UV filter and the lens hood, you’re out of luck unfortunately.

The built in lens can is vital for shooters like me who constantly lose little pieces like a lens cap, and hate the dangling of one tied on there with a string. Great feature.

Image Quality

The HVR-A1U uses one 1/3 inch 2.97 megapixel CMOS sensor. That means one chip is doing the work that three would be doing on a higher-end camera. This affects the picture quality slightly, but in my experience the HVR-A1U is capable of producing some amazing looking shots with vivid color. Its two weak points are how it handled darkness and a large grouping of similar objects from afar (like a corn field), but with the right handling of the camera controls, you can turn those weaknesses around to create something that looks like it was made with a camera twice the price.

The HVR-A1U shoots in 1080i, as well as regular DV, and can output to either. It does not do 24p, but it has a few Sony-invented 24p simulations.

Sony’s Bag of Unusable Goodies

My big gripe with the Sony HVR-A1U is that it is a Sony, and they like to pack their cameras full of useless crap left over from their lower end camcorders. Scene transitions, cinematone, blah blah – they are just distractions when you are trying to create something that looks professional on screen. My advice is use the HVR-A1U to shoot raw and play with the color later. There are a whole bunch of these “features” that just get in the way.

Big Feature Set, Little Camera

You can find a list of features for the HVR-A1U here. There are many more great features that are too numerous to get into here, but if you’re looking for something in particular you can check out the tech specs.

After buying a camera, the tech specs float away though and what you’ve got left is a camera that you need to use in the field day in and day out. After doing that with my HVR-A1U for a couple of years I can report that it is a great camera for someone looking to get into something with a more pro-like feature set for a much lower cost. The HVR-A1U comes highly recommended.