Sony NEX-VG10

I thought that the announcement of this camera would already have generated some excitement in this forum; now an APC, interchangeable lens videocam that can shoot 14MP stills.

Is this going to be a more logical way to merge video and DSLR?

http://www.dpreview.com/news/1007/10071401sonynexvg10e.asp

I was quite excited when I saw this. But on more detailed reading of specs, as far as I'm concerned, it has a couple of drawbacks which stop it from being ideal-

1. it only shoots interlaced

2. it has a 14 mp sensor, meaning that the video is still downsampled (like the dslrs), so resolution won't be as good (I would guess) as a dedicated HD camcorder. Happy to be proved wrong on this, though!

Wonder if anyone will make a housing for it?

The promo video looks nice...

[embedded video -moderator]

One other issue is that still lenses will probably not zoom smoothly. It would be interesting for Sony to release proper video lenses...

I have the Sony E- 18-55, and the dampening is very nice. It feels like a video lens, and it has stepless iris. 18-200 isn't shipping yet, but if it has a similar feel zooms won't be a problem. The myriad of cheap lens adapters will allow some very cool legacy S35 lenses to be used.

I'm excited to play with the camera, and expect it will be as good as anything shooting 24mbps avchd. Allegedly no line skipping, so performance should be better than most hd-dslr.

We are getting there though, I reckon Sony have a couple of other products in line for release soon which could be aimed at the more professional level. It's the whole 24mbs AVCHD thing that puts me off, also it looks like recording format is 60i and 50i... something weird would be going on to get that from a progressive chip

Another preview:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/15/sony-ne...corder-preview/

Seeing as we now have a whole stack of Canon lenses all I can say is "HURRY UP CANON!". Seriously though after watching the preview that sure looks like a nice camcorder. The shallow DoF is always going to be a pain for video uw, but you can get around it with HDSLR's so this will be no different.

I can't believe that Sony pipped Canon to the post on this one. I still think a full blown Canon camcorder based on their HDSLR technology is going to be a killercam, but this is certainly a step in the right direction it seems from Sony.

Cheers, Simon

Here's the demo from when they had the camera in Bali in March.

[vimeohd]13344064[/vimeohd]

Sony's spec and website.

I was quite impressed with the anti motion blur feature. Not a panacea but nice to have.

And don't count out Canon... you'll like what you'll be getting in about 6 months!

I have some serious doubts about the usefulness of the bizarre microphone. A removable scaled down NTG type would make more sense to me.

I don't think they used any of the sound actually recorded on camera in the demo video. The optics look good (zooming will be difficult...like the 14-140mm on the Panasonic GH1). But notice the strange bokeh in the tele shots...reminds me of mirror lens donuts.

24 mbps AVCHD is passe. Hacked GH1's are now doing 35 to 45 mbps AVCHD, and wonderfully clean MJPEG @ 105 mbps 4:2:2:

The Panasonic GH2 is the dark horse to watch out for, hopefully later this year.

I really think things are going to get pretty impressive over the coming months with cameras being better than some in one way then not in others... The choices will be a right pain in the

I'm sticking to the EX1 for now with the option of nanoflash as this is good enough for broadcast so good enough for me or if not ... HIRE

Dive safe

DeanB