Sony Full HD AS30 Action Camcorder with GPS

This is a great little camera range. The image quality is good, nice and sharp, although a little blue, as has been mentioned. Low light photography (in tunnels, for example) is good, and better than others. The image stabilisation works well too. This camera has been mounted on my sports tourer via the skeleton frame and a bespoke fixing directly to the motorcycle frame. Therefore, I cannot emphasise enough the general shocks it has to put up with from the road; constant, high speed wind buffeting and most importantly, constant and varying vibration of the engine. Take all this into consideration, and the image is great. It has also survived many downpours when we were not able to get out of the rain, all without the waterproof case. The lens now has a chip in it which is large enough to be a nuisance, but this is after 20,000 miles of motorcycle use. You can do it all wrong with this camera; get it wet, drop it, subject it to vibration and at the end of the day all you need to do is wipe the dead insects from the lens and recharge the battery, although this great little camera will also charge on the fly. The external mic works well too, but obviously, the greatest issue is placement to avoid wind noise on the bike. The menu to use it is simple, but has everything on it you'll need, and at the end of the day, it's the HD image which is important, and I'm very happy with that. With such a great price, I'll be buying this again.

Mostly great, with these exceptions:- The waterproof case fogs consistently when used in cold environment (e.g. skiing). Some people recommend putting desiccant pellets inside the case to absorb the moisture, but that's hardly practical. Your best bet is to close the case in non-humid environment.- Supplied adhesive mounts have no axis adjustment whatsoever - Sony should provide at least basic up/down tilt mount with the camera instead of selling it as an accessory.- When inside the waterproof case, wind noise changes considerably depending on the orientation of the camera. There is a "noisy spot" when wind is moving across the front of the case (e.g. when looking to the left/right while still moving forwards).- SteadyShot works, but in a weird way. Not sure if I can explain it well... When you activate it, it uses a narrower field of view (120° instead of 170°) and uses the "slack" as a sort of buffer to smooth out camera shake. That's fine - what's not fine however is HOW it does the smoothing out. Imagine a coin on a table and a slightly bigger ring around it - now start moving the ring around. The coin won't move unless the ring touches it. That's roughly how SteadyShot works - the problem is when the camera moves back and forth more than the buffer can compensate for. The result is a jumpy movement which looks quite bad.- Image is very "fish-eyed", but this is correctable in post-processing, and isn't unique to this camera.Even with all those shortcomings, this camera is well worth its price. Image quality is good and the fast fps modes are great (1080p@60fps looks beautiful, and the slow-mo 720p@120fps is very cool as well, even if a bit noisy due to increased ISO speed). Battery life is adequate. I like this shape better than the GoPro.

Bad:* The case is prone to steaming up after about 10 minutes use. I go kayaking and the coolness of the water exacerbates the problem. My friends with GoPro 4 don't have any issues. I have solved it using some of the GoPro inserts (much cheaper than the Sony ones) together with placing a silica gel sachet in the case and the camera when storing to make sure they are dry. Following these steps I've had no problems. (Another suggestion is to use swimming-goggle anti-fog spray).* Super slow motion (120fps) automatically slows your footage down and eliminates sound. I prefer to do this myself in post production. (A minor gripe really.)* The play memories app for your phone won't let you preview photos. You have to wait until your at a PC.* The port covers feel a little flimsy. I'm sure they are OK and the transparent outer case itself feels tough, its just you need to be delicate when the camera is outside the case. (A minor gripe.)* All the Sony accessories are really expensive! There aren't as many cheap replica / after-market accessories as their are for the GoPro's.* Cant find out how to access the GPS meta-data to get latitude / longitude information.* Record light is tiny and rear facing only. My friends struggle to tell if its recording when I ask which can be frustrating. In addition to this the record sound is really quiet and difficult to hear near moving water and in high winds. I've lost out on footage because of this fairly major design flaw!Good:* Light* Compact* Reasonable sound and image quality given the specs. Fit for purpose in the for the consumer to prosumer bracket - not really for professionals.* All the mounts have a good chunky feeling of solidity about them. Much more so than the GoPro. Adhesive pads tend to be larger which adds to this confidence.* Compatibility - uses micro SD and micro USB.* Battery life is fair. (After-market batteries are cheap).* Good value for money. (Despite my previous comments).