Here is a 2:30 min short with some high contrast shots, indoor available light, and night outdoor shots with the Sony CX550 @ HDFX:24 mbs, encoded to Flash 720x400 3K kbs for web.
Apologies in advance: both the shooting and editing are rather slap-dash.
All shots are (obviously) handheld.
The low light images are definitely softer than what the camera produces in bright daylight, but the absence of noise is striking, and should leave open the opportunity for image enhancement in post.
Note- the street sign shot looks noisy at first glance, but it's actually raindrops that you are seeing.
Certainly not comparable to a pro level camera like the EX1, but pretty amazing for a consumer camera.
The video is here:
Ooops... the FLV player in the original upload was defective.
This is a new link- video should play properly:
http://www.irondocvideo.com/Sony%20550%20Night%20Mainframe.html

Robert,
Thanks for posting this. Many of us have been very curious to see how low-light photography with this camcorder looks.

I must say that the videos of Hawaii are seductive and enticing to those of us who dream about visiting. Although I have traveled in Hawaii several times, the sheer beauty and calm and attractive scenery are just amazing to see.

The Sony does a really remarkable job with all of it, and the low light performance is impressively noise free, particularly given the single, relatively small sensor.

Those of us who have been awaiting the new Canon and Panasonic as well as this Sony are going to have a very hard time making a selection, but it does seem like Sony has established a level of excellence which will be hard to beat and quite likely hard to match.

Thanks again for taking the time to post this for us.

Larry

Something I am noticing that I don't understand- the motion rendering on this Flash video (30p) looks quite juddery on the web download- also the crossfades stutter, but the same FLV file that is on the server, when I play it locally with Adobe Media Player, has smooth, normal looking motion. Using same old workflow & never saw that before- except I just upgraded to Dreamweaver CS4. Maybe there's some issue with the DW CS4 embedded Flash player.

Update on that issue-
I reloaded the page using DW CS3 and it now plays & looks as it should. There was something funky with what I did in CS4- like it was playing at 15 fps instead of 30 fps.
Always something.
Someday I'll learn- if it's working fine, don't upgrade.

Picture looks good. Nice cam!