First impressions and testing results with NX5s

[Jeff Bradt]

I got two NX5U's a few weeks ago. I've been reading the posts here about the problems and it has almost caused me to lose sleep!

Because of the problems others have had, I've been doing quite a bit of testing....trying to break them if you will. The more testing I do, the more I'm falling in love with the cams. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the buffer problem won't appear, and if it doesn't I'm sure I'll consider these cams to be one of my better decisions.

Here's some of what I've been doing and what I like about them:

1) First the memory: Both cams have attached FMU128s. In one cam I have 2 16gb Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo Mark2s. The other cam has one Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo Mark2 and one Patriot SDHC Class 6 32gb card.

2) I've been running the heck out of them. Starting and stopping quickly, running for extended periods (hours). No issues with buffers or errors.

3) In most of my testing I've been writing to both the FMU and internal cards simultaneously because that's what I plan to do in the field. I've recorded for several hours writing 1080i to both and for several hours writing 720p to both. No problems.

4) I've done a good bit of testing with the Active Steady feature. This is something I will use. I tested it out while using a monopod as a steady device and the results were acceptable...not exactly a Merlin, but it will do as a cheap substitute.

5) The smooth slo-mo is also really nice. You can record in short 3, 6 or 12 second segments. Very very smooth.

6) I compared the marco focus to the close up focus on my A1s and again was very pleased.

7) Battery life appears to be reasonable and not much different than my A1s

8) LCD is exceptionally sharp and crisp.

9) Audio is an area I have gotten to much yet, but the cam is very pro-oriented with recording setup options.

10) GPS is cool...I tried it out through the content manager software. Not sure I'd ever really use it, but it's there.

11) The images are beautiful. I'm extremely pleased with the low light capability compared to my XH-A1s. The colors hold up much better as the gain is increased compared to the Canon HDV cams.

12) Again because of the buffer problems I read about here, I tried the following: I've recorded until each of the SD and Memory Stick cards were full and had to bridge to the other card. I also let the batteries die during recording. I only did the quick in-cam reformat on the cards and started recording again...letting the cards fully overwrite again to see if they would hit any bad spots possibly caused by the battery dying. No problems. Everything worked as it should have.


So, so far, so good. I thought these impressions might be helpful to others trying to decide on a purchase.

[Cristian Adrian Olariu]

Then I guess this is good news. Let's hope this is not temporary. Maybe Sony memory cards will prove most reliable in the end.

[Jeff Bradt]

I have to think it just makes sense to put Sony cards in a Sony camera.

[Scott Scheman]

Hey Jeff,
Thank you for such an in depth real world review. I think there are alot of us looking at this cam and with the reported issues, one could lose sleep over it.

Thanks again, looking forward to your nest review.

Scott