As we (Seacoast Church) were just about ready to make the jump to DSLR, we found out about the new Sony NEX-FS-100. While I had only limited experience working with DSLRs, everything that I read and saw about the Sony made beautiful sense; Take all of what makes a DSLR amazing and actually incorporate them into a real video camera. Rather then me blathering on about all of the technical points, this video will do much better:
The sad thing is that we ordered a pair, they arrived, and I assembled one… and it sat on my desk for the better part of two weeks. I had just found out that I was being sent to Uganda and had way-too-much to get done prior to my departure. Oh, and did I mention that I would be taking this new machinery with me? I finally had to block out a couple of hours just days before I left to familiarize myself with the camera.
It was love at first sight.
While it won’t win any beauty contests, there is so much to love about this camera:
- I love the view-finder screen; so much flexibility and beautifully clear.
- The ‘kit’ lens that comes with it is a little slow, but still does really well. I’m curious to see it’s capabilities once we add some good Canon glass (coming soon!).
- 1080/24p – Just GORGEOUS!
- Real XLR inputs – and it sounds really good! (One knock I’ve had on the HVX200 that we have been using for 3 years is that things sound one way while recording, but can end up clipping when you get things in the edit environment. Both the included shot-gun and my wireless lavs sound really clean)
- The image stabilizer is so good! Shooting hand-held stuff at the end of the 80-200 lens looks really nice. This was especially great while in Uganda where I chose not to drag a tripod around.
I shot a lot of footage in Uganda and I will eventually post some of that, but this is a quick (literally, shot and edited in one day) project that I had to knock out upon my return to the states. It was used as a ‘table setter’ for a message by Greg Surratt about hell:
A quick shoot and a little coloring help from Magic Bullet on this video
While I’m still getting familiar with all that this camera offers, I’m really glad that we chose to go this route!
Murphy24p 