camcorder

Sony FS-100 Super 35mm NXCAM Camcorder Announced.

Sony FS100 fitted with PL mount lens.

Well the rumours have been circulating for some time and prototypes have been seen at various trade shows, but the full details have been sparse to say the least. Well here it is, it’s called the FS-100 and it’s a quite radical design from the Sony Shinegawa factory. The Super 35mm NXCAM shares the same sensor as the new PMW-F3, so the images will be excellent, but the design of the camera body itself could not be more different. If you don’t like it…  well you can blame me and several other DoP’s that were invited to attend brainstorming sessions with the Sony engineers. In the photo below you can see the white board from one of those sessions and you can see where we (me and the other DoP’s) discussed ideas like a modular design with removable handles and how we hold handycam cameras.

The end result is this rather quirky but in my opinion, really quite clever and versatile design. The top viewfinder allows you to use the camera cradled in your hands in front of you, either using just the LCD panel or the monocular viewfinder. When your doing interviews you can twist it so that it is visible from either side of the camera, excellent for those interviews where you are both camera operator and interviewer. It allows you to alternate the sight lines from left to right of the camera for more varied interviews. It’s also useful for shooting in cramped locations such as in the front of a car as you can hold the camera sideways in front of you to shoot… I mean film…. the driver and still see what your getting.

Top view of FS100 body

Unlike most traditional camcorders the camera can be stripped down to just the sensor/recorder body. You can remove the top handle, mic holder and hand grip. In addition it has a multitude of tripod mounting holes on the top, bottom and even one side. On the base of the camera there are 6x 1/4″ threaded holes and wait for it… 2x 3/8″ holes. Hooray!! On the top there are a further 3x 1/4″ holes and there is even one on the side, revealed when you detach the removable hand grip. This is going to be fantastic for use on cars as a 35mm minicam or crash-cam. It will make getting all those different car chase angles so easy as a few small suction mounts will allow you to mount the stripped down camera just about anywhere. I can see the FS-100 becoming a “must-have” B camera to compliment my F3. The 1/4″ thread on the side of the camera means you can mount it on it’s side for portrait style shooting for digital signage or to get the maximum resolution when shooting people for chroma key.

While the camera does come with a detachable handgrip, there is no zoom rocker like the F3. That’s because the camera is primarily aimed at those using DSLR lenses which don’t have servo zooms, although PL mount adapters are available. The front end of the camera has Sony’s E mount for interchangeable lenses. It will come with the rather nice (if a little slow) 18-200mm f3.5-f6.3 optically stabilised zoom lens and the auto focus and auto iris do work! As well as Sony’s own G series lenses for the NEX cameras you can get adapters for Sony A mount and most other lenses. Do consider that if you are planning on using heavy PL lenses that the E mount is not designed for such high loads, so an additional lens support system should be used.

Rear view Fs100

On the input and output front the FS-100 has most of the connectors you would expect to find on an NXCAM camcorder, with one notable exception… HDSDi. There is no HDSDi, but don’t panic! The camera does have HDMI and the quality available from HDMI is every bit as good as HDSDi. No word as to whether it’s 8 bit or 10 bit though. Sony are well aware that the one thing missing from HDMI is normally timecode, but even that has been addressed and it will be possible to export timecode in the HDMI stream, although at the moment we need to wait for the HDMI recorders to update them to accept timecode via HDMI. There are 2 XLR connectors for audio in. One on the right side and one on the rear, there is also the usual mini-D component out and RCA/Phono audio and composite video outputs.

Sony FS100 35mm NXCAM

When you start to delve into the cameras frame rates and recording modes things get really interesting as the FS100 will record full 1920×1080 at 60P and 50P. Even the F3 can’t do this internally (you can output 50/60P to an external recorder). As well as all the usual frame rates like 23.98, 60/50i, 30/25P you can also shoot full resolution slo-mo at up to 60fps using S&Q motion. It’s not quite as flexible as the F3 as you will find that you only have a choice of frame rates (for example 1,2,3,6,12,25,50fps) and won’t have the ability to dial in any frame rate you want, but all frame rates will be full 1920×1080. As with the other NXCAM camcorders all these lovely modes will be recorded on to SD cards or Memory Sticks using the AVC HD codec (mpeg 4), in addition you can add the Sony FMU128 (128Gb Flash Memory Unit) for dual recording giving peace of mind with one off events.

Once your footage is on your cards the cleverness of this camera continues as you don’t need a laptop to backup your data. Simply plug in a USB drive or even a Blu-ray burner), direct to the cameras USB port and you can backup direct from the camera to the drive. Your footage will contain GPS data about when and where you shot it, which for me will be a great bonus with my severe weather footage as I can never remember exactly where I was during a storm chase!

All in all this is looking like one hell of a camcorder. The street price is estimated to be below $6000 USD, so you do have to ask the question.. why buy an F3 when this is half the price? In my view they are two quite different cameras for different applications. The F3 has the ability to output full 10 bit 4:4:4 for extremely high quality recording possibilities. It also has built in ND filters and will have S-Log and 3D dual camera control. For multi-camera shoots the F3 has Genlock and timecode in/out. There will also be some nice servo zooms for the F3 some time later this year or early next year. The F3 is a camera that would not at all be out of place as a B camera on a big budget production. The FS-100 will I’m sure also find a place on big budget productions, perhaps as a crash-cam or mini cam. But overall I think it will be most at home on more run and gun style shoots where auto iris and maybe even autofocus are beneficial. I really do think that the FS100 will replace many of the DSLR’s out there currently being used for video as a lot of thought has gone in to the ergonomics.

These are very interesting times. It’s now possible to shoot a movie, with quality good enough for mainstream theatrical release on cameras costing little more than a high end home video camcorder of just a few years ago. I doubt most cinema goers would realise that a camera like the F3 or FS100 was used, especially if it’s recorded to a NanoFlash, KiPro or even the new Convergent Design Gemini. However we must not forget that content is king, not the technology that makes it possible.

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Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011 Uncategorized 8 Comments

JVC GS-TD1 3D camcorder launched at CES.

JVC GS-TD1

JVC GS-TD1 3D Camcorder

Everyone is at it! Hot on the heels of the Sony TD10 comes the JVC TD1. With such similar names and numbers this is going to get confusing fast! Anyway this is another dual stream full 1920×1080 3D camcorder with some impressive specifications. This taken from the JVC press release:

The new GS-TD1 uses two camera lenses and two 3.32 megapixel CMOS sensors – one for each lens – to capture three-dimensional images much the same way that human eyes work.  JVC’s new high-speed imaging engine simultaneously processes the two Full HD images – left and right images at 1920 x 1080i – within that single chip.  The newly developed “LR Independent Format” makes the GS-TD1 the world’s first consumer-oriented camcorder capable of 3D shooting in Full HD.  JVC’s new camcorder offers other shooting modes as well, including the widely used “Side-by-Side Format” for AVCHD (3D) and conventional AVCHD (2D) shooting.

Side by side recording is going to be very usefull for going direct to consumer TV’s or for YouTube uploads so this is a nice feature indeed. It appears to only have a 5x optical zoom in 3D compare to the Sony’s 10x, like the Sony it features image stabilisation. It’s certainly an impressive looking unit. The flip out LCD screen once again uses some kind of parallax barrier for 3D viewing without glasses. The consumer 3D market is certainly growing at a rapid rate and I’m really excited about these new cameras. Sony.. JVC.. Anyone want to lend me one for my 3D shoot in Iceland in March???

The GS-TD1 should be available in March for $1995. More details on the JVC web site: http://newsroom.jvc.com/2011/01/jvc-full-hd-3d-consumer-camcorder-is-world’s-first/

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Sunday, January 9th, 2011 Uncategorized No Comments

Sony NEX-VG10 APS-C Camcorder Launched, available September.

Sony NEX-VG10 APS-C Camcorder

UPDATE: I had a play with one today. It’s actually really good, although it’s very strange holding a small video camera that doesn’t have a zoom control.  Click the link: nex-clips to download raw NEX-VG10 (MTS) clips straight from the camera. See end of post for brief hands on info.

So, Sony have launched a new APS-C camcorder. The NEX-VG10 comes from the consumer side of Sony and is based on the APS-C sensor used in the new NEX-5 and NEX-3 Sony Alpha stills cameras launched a few months ago. Compared to a full frame 35mm sensor APS-C is about 1.5x smaller, but still significantly larger than the sensors found in the majority of video cameras. It is designed as a video camera with a familiar video camera look and shape to it. There is a fold out 3? LCD screen on the left side and video style viewfinder at the rear. It records full 1920×1080 HD video using AVCHD at 24Mb/s so it should look pretty good. It also takes still images at “near DSLR quality” thanks to the high resolution 14.2 megapixel sensor. In some respects this is a little disappointing as it means that the sensor will not have an optical low pass filter tailored for video. Without this, in the past, it has meant that the video produced by stills cameras tend to suffer from aliasing and other image degrading effects caused by trying to cram too much resolution into a 1920×1080 video frame or by the sub sampling of the sensor. Lets hope the Sony engineers have done a good processing job getting the footage off the sensor down to HD video. It records 25P (Pal version) or 30P (US version) recoded in an interlace stream to give maximum compatibility. You can use a variety of recording media including Memory Sticks and SD/SDHC cards. On the handle there is a rather strange looking array of 4 microphones in a shock and vibration isolating mount for recording  surround sound audio. In addition there is a 3.5mm socket for an external microphone as well as a 3.5mm headphone socket. The camcorder is supplied with a 18 to 200mm optically stabilised f3.5-f5.6 zoom lens that attaches using Sony’s E mount system. This has a very short back focus distance and it will be easy to convert this to take a wide range of other mounts such as Canon via already available low cost adapter rings. Sony will be making  an E mount to Alpha A mount for Alpha (and Minolta?) lenses. The supplied lens is a bit disappointing as really for those super shallow DoF shots you want a fast lens and f3.5 is not what I would call fast, but it does offer a useful 11x zoom range. Autofocus can operate while your shooting if you need it.

Sony NEX-VG10 with LCD open

With a US street price of around $2000USD it represents good value for money, provided it performs. Video that I have seen from the NEX5 cameras looks very good but I have not seen what the aliasing performance is like, after all this is again a sensor optimised for high resolution stills and not video. It’s also important to note that this is not the camera that Sony showed at NAB, so who knows when we may or may not see that. The NEX-VG10 is an interesting looking camera and it surprisingly looks like it will beat the Panasonic AG-AF100 to market as the first low cost 35mm (ish) sensor camcorder. The big question is what will the pictures be like?

HANDS ON: I managed to get a brief play with one today. First off it’s very small and light, but with the supplied lens makes it quite front heavy. The LCD is clear and easy to see, however I did find focusing tricky with the LCD but I did not have time to see if there was any kind of focus assist system or peaking control. With the supplied lens you turn the forward ring to zoom and rear ring to focus. It was quite stiff turning the zoom ring and very difficult to do in shot zooms as you tend to twist the whole camera as you rotate the zoom ring. As well as the focus ring on the lens there is a dial behind the LCD screen that controls many functions including menu navigation, but this is also marked as a focus control. It was very strange holding a camcorder but not having any kind of zoom control. The menu system is quite logically laid out and easy to find your way around. I did shoot some clips with it and could see no signs of any aliasing which is very promising indeed. As expected it had pleasing shallow DoF but the low light performance was disappointing as it didn’t seem to perform as well as I had hoped. In some respects this may be an advantage as it helps get a shallow DoF. It also has to be remembered that the stock lens is only f3.5 compared to the f1.9 of a EX camcorder, so overall low light performance may not be as bad as it appeared. The pictures look very promising, it’s not a particularly expensive camcorder and for video, ergonomically it’s much better than a DSLR. I’m sure this will be popular with those that are seeking the filmic look.

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Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 Uncategorized No Comments

Sony To Launch 35mm compact camcorder


Well one of the big NAB announcements was the intention by Sony to release a compact 35mm equipped camera. A prototype unit was briefly shown at the press event but little details were given. I’ve been trying to find out more but Sony are being very tight lipped. It was announced that it will be available prior to next NAB, so that means that there is likely to be some other launch event in, at my guess 6 to 8 months time, of course there may be more news before then. Last year Sony announced the PMW-350 at Satis which this year is October 19th/20th, so I would expect more news by then. What I would say is that the prototype appears to be more than just a simple mock up as it shows some new switch and control designs that I’ve not seen on a Sony camera before. It has also been stated that this new unit is just part of Sony’s 35mm road map so perhaps there will be more than one new camera. As for pricing, well all that Sony will say is “affordable”. My guess is it will be in the XDCAM EX1 price area depending on lens options. If it uses DSLR lenses and can be purchased without a lens, my guess is that it would be cheaper than an EX but more expensive than a Canon 5DMk2, my guess would be £4k.

So what features can we expect to get? The sensor should have large pixels so it should be good in low light and offer high dynamic range. As it has a 35mm sensor I expect it will shoot 24P, 25P, 30P plus I would hope over-cranking at up to 60fps. It would be really nice if it did 1080P60. It should have decent audio controls and it’s going to need a really, really good viewfinder. I would imagine that you will have a number of different lens options via some form of adapter, possibly being supplied with a Sony Alpha lens mount. The prototype was shown with a PL mount lens and very few users will be able to afford to use them, so there will have to be a lower cost option.

These are exciting times. In the next 12 months we will see a huge change in the tools available for video production. The new 35mm and 4/3? cameras from Sony, Panasonic and Canon will change the way TV is made forever. They won’t be ideal for some applications such as news or run and gun, where you don’t want the focus problems that a big sensor will bring, but for drama, documentary and low budget movies I think we will see a dramayic change in the way things are done.

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Saturday, April 17th, 2010 Uncategorized No Comments

Canon To Launch 4:2:2 50Mb/s MXF HD Camcorder!


Canon has been keeping quiet for some time now and there has been lots of speculation about their next video camera, including many that had hoped for a 35mm sized sensor. Well this morning Canon posted a press release on their website. The main and most exciting point is that the camera under development will be full 1920×1080 and it will be 50Mb/s 4:2:2 Mpeg 2 MXF. Now this looks on paper to be an extremely similar format to XDCAM HD422. It would certainly make edit suite integration a lot simpler if the MXF files are the same as the Sony XDAM MXF’s.

Mockups of a camera seen in recent months have shown a handycam style, fixed lens camera with two slots for some type of memory card, which could possibly be express card slots. The mockup lens looks like it might be an EX1 style lens with manual and auto focus and might be big enough to accommodate 1/2? sensors. Is this the camera that the press release refers to, or is there another camera in the pipelines? There is a lot of stuff not mentioned in the press release, like recording media. It says “file based”, this could be solid state or it could be something else, maybe optical disc. Might this be a full size XDCAM HD camcorder from Canon? The release gives no sensor or form factor information which I find a little odd. Having shown mockups of an EX1 sized camera why not a more detailed press release with info on the lens, sensors, recording media etc? (apparently there will be another press release on the 8th of Feb).

Canon make some very good video cameras, I had an XL-H1 and it was a great HDV camcorder. I have no doubt that this new camera will be very good and competitively priced. IF it is the EX1 sized camera and it has 1/2? sensors then this would tick all of the BBC’s boxes for HD. If it’s CCD (which seems likely) it won’t have skew or flash banding. This is a very significant announcement and could push Canon to the front of the Pro Handycam pack. Here is the full press release from the Canon web site.

New Canon MPEG-2 Codec chosen for file-based professional video camcorder promises compatibility with industry-standard editing & processing software

United Kingdom / Republic of Ireland February 2nd 2010 – Canon Inc. today announces the adoption of an MPEG-2 Full HD (4:2:2) file-based recording codec for a new professional video camcorder currently under development. The Canon MPEG-2 codec will enable high-quality imaging and audio performance with up to 50 Mbps data recording and twice the colour data of HDV HDV is a standard for the recording and playback of high definition (1,440 x 1,080 pixels) video and audio on DV-format cassette tapes profile formats. File-based recording helps video operations realise greater efficiencies during post-production processing, making it an ideal format for many industry applications such as news gathering, documentary filmmaking and event videography.

MPEG-2 Full HD compression and 4:2:2 colour sampling?The adoption of MPEG-2 Full HD (MPEG-2 4:2:2 HP@HL compliant) compression enables the recording of 1,920 x 1,080-pixel full high-definition video. Additionally, compared with the 4:2:0 profile format used in HDV and other standards, 4:2:2 colour sampling offers twice the volume of colour data, providing double the level of colour resolution.

Maximum 50 Mbps data recording?With approximately twice the total data volume of HDV, the codec supports higher resolution and increased colour data to enable the recording of high-quality video.

Industry-standard MXF file format (see note (II))?MXF (Material eXchange Format) is a widely supported open source file format for the recording of video, audio and metadata, developed to suit the latest editing systems used by broadcasters.

Canon partners with major editing and processing software?With the adoption of the MPEG-2 Full HD (4:2:2) file-based recording codec, Canon is working in cooperation with Adobe Systems Incorporated, Apple Inc., Avid Technology, Inc. and Grass Valley to ensure compatibility with major editing and processing software programs widely used within the video imaging industry. Additionally, at future industry events Canon intends to demonstrate the overall video-production workflow, from initial video capture to clip-trimming and final editing. Video clips stored in a file-based recording system and industry-standard software applications will be used.

(II) A format for professional digital video and audio media defined by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE)

Notes to editor

Advantages of File-Based Recording

File-based recording enables video and audio data to be managed and stored by file, much in the same way as computer data. It supports efficiency throughout the production process, from initial video capture to final editing through the entire workflow. Additionally, file-based recording provides users with the flexibility to utilise different editing environments and workflow solutions without the restrictions associated with some other video recording formats, helping to reduce investment costs.

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Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 Uncategorized No Comments

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