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| Sony HXR-NX5E |
Ok after doing a few events with this solid state camera thought I just had to mention how great it is for event work.
This month I did a job with Drew Perry of amplify video and we used 2 of these cameras to cover the Rock Diva Freestyle Dance event at Bridlington spa.
When your cover an event like a dance event in a theatre it throws up all sorts of issues like filming in low light conditions/mixture of different light sources daylight/tungsten/led pars/follow spots/ pyro's and orange people (way to much fake tan) all things that can really test a camera.
When looking for a camera to cover an event I like it to have a few things to make your life easy:
- A lens and chip that can perform in low light
- At least a 16x zoom
- motorised/programable zoom
- To output 4:3 (you still find a lot of venues with 4:3 Projection screens)
- output HD and SD and have SDI
- A good screen or viewfinder
On first impression both Drew and I found the layout of this camera was really good lots of assignably buttons and everything just seemed to be in the right place and it ticked all of the above points.
I did find that in the dark I was fumbling around to find buttons. I found the buttons a bit small and close together so was not sure if I was on the correct one,but this is probably just because I haven't used the camera enough to get my hands muscle memory to land on the dial/right buttons to change everything on the fly with out looking. Its very similar in layout to a lot sony units that are this size e.g. Z-1 Ex-1 etc.
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| Sony EX-1 |
I found the auto focus coped well and only on a few occasions did it struggle when we lost the follow spots on dancers, I know I hear you all saying what you used auto focus but when your on an event like a free style disco dance event and your zoomed in you struggle to keep up with the action as well as adjusting exposure.
Having worked on loads of dance events some times peoples costumes can cause issue with auto settings if they are heavily bejewelled throwing out focus so you just have to be on the ball ready to over ride issues. This did happen a few times but it can only be expected when lighting conditions are changing so much. I found that even adding gain the noise level was very acceptable for being shown on screens during the event.
So far I have been really impressed with this camera and for its price think its very good, if you get one with the 125Gb drive on the side you can record something like 11 hours of footage which would cover even those ridiculously long boring conferences we all some times have to do :) plus you can record onto SD cards at the same time so you have a backup.
I cant wait to get my hands on one of these cameras again I have been really impressed with the performance of this small chip camera so far.
