New review by Philip Johnston

[Jerome Cloninger]

Nice thorough review!

Sony NEX- EA50 Review on Vimeo

[Dmitri Zigany]

Thanks for posting!

[Joel Corral]

Thanks for this!

[Jerome Cloninger]

Originally Posted by Dmitri Zigany

Thanks for posting!

You're welcome guys! I plan on posting quite a bit when mine arrives and I start to play with it!

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Jerome

I only started using spot focus 2 months after I got my first camera and wow! it really is good and it does a pretty good focus shift too if you need a quick one. The rails and matte box look neat on his rig but I wonder if they extend too far back maybe so you cannot use the shoulder mount?

My pad is permanently extended cos I have a receiver and a split battery pack on the rear end to help balance the camera and works pretty well too and balances the stock lens nicely.

Anyone else using rails and a matte box on an EA-50 at the moment?? Does it get in the way of the shoulder mount option?

Chris

[Jerome Cloninger]

Yeah that looks very interesting and appealing to me because I LOVE rack focusing! And you can dial in how quick or long you want it to go..... I CAN'T WAIT TO GET THIS CAMERA!!! LOL!

[Lee Berger]

Excellent review. I found the mirroring memory sticks here in the US Sony Memory Cards 64GB Mirroring Memory Stick - MS-PX64 | TapeOnline.com

[Noa Put]

That's very expensive, not sure if that will sell that good. I see at B&H the Sony HXR-FMU128 sells at double the price.

[Chris Harding]

I have two 8/16 GB cards but what is annoying is that you have to use the camera to upload them! They are skinnier than the normal SDHC card so they won't fit correctly into a standard card reader!!

I found the 128GB FMU for just a little over $500 but that's still a bit pricey!! (Plus you also have to download from the camera as well. It's so much easier to just pull a card from the camera and copy the contents from the stream folder and on my property shoots clips never go over 12 minutes (plus I shoot at 17mbps too with Realty so I have about 16 minutes until they split the file!)

Chris

[Ron Evans]

You can connect the FMU128 directly with the inbuilt USB connector. Transfer to PC is very fast about the same as a hard drive and a lot faster than an SD card. On my PC the FMU128 transfers as fast as my small Sony XR500 or SR11 hard drive models typically 2 hours in about 12 mins. The SD class 10 cards using any reader I have take closer to 35 mins for the same time and longer from the cameras.


Ron Evans

[Noa Put]

Allthough I always have liked Philips reviews as they were funny, entertaining (also thx to his funny accent :)) and honest I do find his reviews not very thorough, particularly with the ea50 which is not "in depth" at all, if you ever have read a review from Barry Green you know what I mean.

Philip for example claims that you have to hunt to see any moire yet there are users showing the complete opposite, he also says the rolling shutter is not an issue either and that if you want to see severe rolling shutter you should look at a dslr, well, that's what I did just now and it's equally bad.

If you do a review you better do it very thorough, like Barry Green always does, otherwise you might just mislead any future buyers who will be disappointed. Philip makes claims but he doesn't back them up (like the rolling shutter part) and especially because people could see him as an authority they are likely to follow him in that blindly which also reflects in the comments I read under his review.

For anyone considering to buy the camera I would suggest to follow the real users on this forum as you will get more accurate information from everyday use in many different situations. You will also see that you get different opinions because what's a issue for one isn't for the other, but that's what I said about shooting in different circumstances or locations, also expectations between users differ, one has no issue with the softer image of the digital zoom while the other won't touch it. But as long (and this is important) as someone can SHOW it, anyone can draw their own conclusions considering the "test" was done right. There's a big difference between saying it is so and showing it is so, I just prefer the last.

I"m not saying that the camera is no good because of the moire, aliasing and rolling shutter but you need to be aware of it that depending on what you shoot it doesn't look all pretty, there are workarounds for it and it doesn't need to be an issue, as long as you know how to deal with them this camera can produce some great images for sure.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Noa

I always love a broad Scot's accent..especially the way they use the word "wee" ..like "this wee button on the side will......" It's so expressive.

The problem with reviews is that so many people shoot so many different ways that you really cannot cover all aspects....I have no issues with moire as long as it doesn't happen on a facebrick wall (which so far it hasn't) but yes, I have seen it in my recent weddings but in non threatening locations ..maybe a shimmer off a cushion or someone walks by in a striped shirt..? Forget big sensors for now..my HMC72's I had 3 years ago with 1/4" CCD chips were TERRIBLE with moire!! Brick walls and roof tiles had wavy lines all over them so I had to keep brides away from walls (and most Churches have them)

However I think it's important to realise that in our budget range there is no perfect camera and what you win with on one side you lose with the other. I know it's a bad admission but I bought my first one PURELY on the basis that I loved the form factor and weight... it could have had CCD, CMOS chips or any sized big format sensor and I still would have bought it. Everyone has different priorities so if someone is looking at the EA-50 then the best thing they can do is think "Well I shoot the same sort of stuff as Noa..so Noa is the guy to talk to" If your forte is interviews then Steve would be the guy to talk with.

I must admit the extra features that the camera has over my Panasonics sealed the deal and I'm certainly happy with both cameras and so far have found nothing that cannot be worked around yet...for me that's a good compromise.

The only real advice that I would give is post a question, tell us what you do (or plan to do) and what cameras you are coming from and then people similar to you can throw advice your way.

Chris

[Noa Put]

I think you misunderstood my comment, I don't have anything to say about the camera, I just don't think it's a good review and because it doesn't give accurate info it can mislead people into thinking it's all good, which it isn't, depending on the situation. If you do a review, you should dive in really deep, Like Barry Green does, or else I don't see the point of the review. It's fun to hear someone say it's a cracking wee little camera but the facts should be right, especially if you can have an influence on the buying behavior.

F.i. Philip says you have to hunt to see any moire, my point is that when doing a review you should hunt for moire and see how bad it can get and compare it with a dslr, if he is just in an aera where moire is less of an issue it's not smart to say moire isn't an issue. Then your not doing the review right.

[Jerome Cloninger]

Maybe "thorough" wasn't the right word to use. It was the best review that I had seen on it. I'll check out Barry Green. I'll say that that review didn't "sell" me on the camera... What sold me on it was seeing good stuff posted here and on the vimeo group and your emails. From what I can tell, I can work with/around the limitations it has (ALL cameras have limitations of various degrees) and I can honestly see this camera as a sleeper item. It seems to have gotten worse over the years where there are "fan boys" of a particular type or model and it seems there are WAY MORE "out of the box auto shooters" these days. Just my perception. I remember when I first got my XH-A1, it SUCKED out of the box. But I saw what good work a few others were getting out of those. I spent a great deal of time with tweaking the presets/profiles to get what I wanted and a great deal of time learning that camera like the back of my hand. I can operate it with a blindfold (well, except having to see the LCD or VF LOL!)

Back on point with the review... from all that I found in my researching this camera, his review seemed to solidify a lot of my findings plus I learned a little more about it. Did he put it through its paces? Did he compare it to any other camera? Did he go DEEP into all its settings and features? No.... but it was better than a lot of other very informal "tests" I've found.

BTW, my kids laughed when they saw me watching it and hearing him talk... I told them I'm sure he'd laugh if he heard us talk.

Anyways, I'm eagerly awaiting my shipment to arrive!

[Chris Harding]

I would have said it covered a fair bit of area but then again you cannot please everybody as we all tend to concentrate on a special area of use. For the guy that does do theatre performances, his low light side might have been convincing but it's almost impossible to satisfy everyone's shooting needs.

To give an example, I know Noa is still in the depths of Winter so he has yet to do any weddings so all his shoots are completely devoid of people .. I don't do landscape work and my concern would lean towards how the camera handles people and skintones and in the 40 degree C Summer heat here ... Noa's work is absolutely stunning and leaves me breathless BUT it has no people cos it's too darn cold for them to emerge yet ... If I based a purchase on Noa's clips and found out the camera fails miserably in bright sunlight at a wedding I would be disappointed.

Can a reviewer actually find the time to show a theatre based dance recital, a wedding, nature videography, a commercial shoot, interviews, seminars and much much more??? I really don't think so unless you were being paid by Sony to do it over many weeks and lighting conditions.

He really did try hard to give a fair impression in both daylight and night and probably during his review shoot he actually didn't spot any moire so he reported that truthfully. My B-Cam (that works the hardest) has about 50 hours on it now and serious I could maybe report one or two tiny moire instances at best simply cos I haven't shot scenes that would induce moire creation like multi-storey buildings.

A full and comprehensive review that covers every aspect would be a daunting task to say the least!!

I was a pushover for the camera ..I looked at the form factor and said "I want it" ..I will work around any other issues!!

Chris