Boyd Ostroff
September 19th, 2006, 07:29 PM
Now that I've had a few minutes to collect some thoughts, let me share my own first impressions from the perspective of a Z1 owner.
The images are absolutely beautiful. We saw footage on a large (maybe 24 foot) HD screen and there is absolutely no way you would have known these came from a camera with 1/4" chips. To my eyes they looked noticeably sharper than my Z1. They showed some wide shots of natural landscape scenes. One of them was a large field with tall grass blowing in the wind. Then there were some others with long rows of plants receding into the distance. Another had lots of trees with the leaves blowing in the wind.
So much for the people who think HDV can't handle these sort of complex scenes. They were absolutely stunning; I've shot this sort of thing with my Z1, but the V1 footage revealed much more detail in individual blades of grass and tree leaves. I'm sure the progressive scan helps a lot with this.
The outdoor footage also showed quite a lot of lattitude. The hang gliding and sky diving footage which DSE showed was very impressive on the big screen. I'm pretty sure the sky would have blown out to white in some of those scenes. And the lack of smear when shooting directly into the sun is also quite impressive. The digital zoom works amazingly well. It's hard to believe they have gotten such a clean 1.5x magnification out of this system.
There are many new menu items and camera features which I'd love to have on the Z1! TC link is cool; you can plug two cameras together via firewire and sync the time code. They don't stay connected as you shoot, but the codes stay in sync. They said this would work with a Z1 as well.
They have added a black compress as well as black stretch, 3 position adjustable knee and contrast enhance function. You can now assign picture profiles to the assign buttons which saves long trips through the PP menus. Of course you also have a new progressive menu item for 24p and 30p. An interval record feature has been added, like other Sony cameras.
Picture profiles can be saved to memory sticks now and shared over the internet. You can also name them by scrolling through an alphabet and entering letters (this is pretty awkward, but still a handy way to remember what the PP does).
You can now use both zebra and peaking at the same time, and you can also display a histogram on the screen. If you're using the hard disk recorder then you can view all its info on one of the status check screens. I'm sure there were some other new features, but these were some of the major things that caught my eye. One thing is missing though - you cannot shoot 50i (PAL) on the V1u.
The camera looks very sharp - a lot like the Z1, and it had a nice balance and feel in your hand. I like the fact that they got rid of the builtin microphone, like the PD-150. They offer a cool LCD sunshade as an accessory. It collapses and you can even close the screen with it attached. Much nicer than the Petrol hood I've used before. They also introduced a new WA adaptor with a lens hood that matches the regular one. Of course there's the new hard disk recorder too - it was much smaller than I expected. They offer a new accessory mounting plate for this and other things. They had a new LED light also. The HD and light use the same NPF batteries which is handy. The Sony rep said the HD recorder could run the full 4.5 hours on one of the little camera batteries so you don't necessarily need to use an NPF-970.
I think they have a real winner in this camera. The only thing I would miss from the Z1 is the PAL mode. I wouldn't hesitate for a second because of the smaller 1/4" chip size. All around I think Sony has taken user feedback into consideration and come up with a next generation that offers a lot of upgrades from the Z1 series. It's certainly worth a closer look if you're in the market for a new camera!
The images are absolutely beautiful. We saw footage on a large (maybe 24 foot) HD screen and there is absolutely no way you would have known these came from a camera with 1/4" chips. To my eyes they looked noticeably sharper than my Z1. They showed some wide shots of natural landscape scenes. One of them was a large field with tall grass blowing in the wind. Then there were some others with long rows of plants receding into the distance. Another had lots of trees with the leaves blowing in the wind.
So much for the people who think HDV can't handle these sort of complex scenes. They were absolutely stunning; I've shot this sort of thing with my Z1, but the V1 footage revealed much more detail in individual blades of grass and tree leaves. I'm sure the progressive scan helps a lot with this.
The outdoor footage also showed quite a lot of lattitude. The hang gliding and sky diving footage which DSE showed was very impressive on the big screen. I'm pretty sure the sky would have blown out to white in some of those scenes. And the lack of smear when shooting directly into the sun is also quite impressive. The digital zoom works amazingly well. It's hard to believe they have gotten such a clean 1.5x magnification out of this system.
There are many new menu items and camera features which I'd love to have on the Z1! TC link is cool; you can plug two cameras together via firewire and sync the time code. They don't stay connected as you shoot, but the codes stay in sync. They said this would work with a Z1 as well.
They have added a black compress as well as black stretch, 3 position adjustable knee and contrast enhance function. You can now assign picture profiles to the assign buttons which saves long trips through the PP menus. Of course you also have a new progressive menu item for 24p and 30p. An interval record feature has been added, like other Sony cameras.
Picture profiles can be saved to memory sticks now and shared over the internet. You can also name them by scrolling through an alphabet and entering letters (this is pretty awkward, but still a handy way to remember what the PP does).
You can now use both zebra and peaking at the same time, and you can also display a histogram on the screen. If you're using the hard disk recorder then you can view all its info on one of the status check screens. I'm sure there were some other new features, but these were some of the major things that caught my eye. One thing is missing though - you cannot shoot 50i (PAL) on the V1u.
The camera looks very sharp - a lot like the Z1, and it had a nice balance and feel in your hand. I like the fact that they got rid of the builtin microphone, like the PD-150. They offer a cool LCD sunshade as an accessory. It collapses and you can even close the screen with it attached. Much nicer than the Petrol hood I've used before. They also introduced a new WA adaptor with a lens hood that matches the regular one. Of course there's the new hard disk recorder too - it was much smaller than I expected. They offer a new accessory mounting plate for this and other things. They had a new LED light also. The HD and light use the same NPF batteries which is handy. The Sony rep said the HD recorder could run the full 4.5 hours on one of the little camera batteries so you don't necessarily need to use an NPF-970.
I think they have a real winner in this camera. The only thing I would miss from the Z1 is the PAL mode. I wouldn't hesitate for a second because of the smaller 1/4" chip size. All around I think Sony has taken user feedback into consideration and come up with a next generation that offers a lot of upgrades from the Z1 series. It's certainly worth a closer look if you're in the market for a new camera!