Mike Beckett's NX70 owner's report

[Mike Beckett]

Update: It's here!

Just a pity I have to do a day's work before I can get a proper play with it.

All I can say at this stage is "crumbs, it is tiny!" Feels very well made, very solid, not plasticky or flimsy at all, and feels great in my hand.

[Gerald OConnor]

Mike thats great you got the camera and it feels solid. Please let me know how it does in low light, also if it let's you set your gain. And a big thing is how it auto focuses. And let us know how it does all around if you don't mind. Thank you very much. Gerry

[Andy Wilkinson]

Really looking forward to your reports Mike (and all you other lucky people!)

[Mike Beckett]

It's one thing getting it home...

..then I have to wait for the batteries to charge! Aaaaagh!

[Gerald OConnor]

What you didn't pre order a wasabi battery and charger and had it ready to go. Just kidding. I hate the wait of charging battery's can't wait to hear your review.

[Simon Beer]

Have also received my NX70 today, impressed - great little camera!

[Mike Beckett]

Verrrrry nice piece of kit.

I only got 10 minutes to play with it before the supplied battery gave out, so it's charging now.

Very solid. Very well made, just lovely. All the dials and switches are postive, LCD quality is great, and the viewfinder is the best I've seen for a while. Auto focus seems pretty quick. Focus assist is great, and I'm so glad to have the guide frame and histogram, I really missed them on my Panasonic HMC41.

It's very intuitive to use, I didn't need the manual to set it up or start using it.

Only annoyance so far: no UK power lead in the kit. Bah. Not a huge problem, I have spares lying around.

Philip Johnston reports the zoom rocker as not being pressure-sensitive. The manual says it is, I can't say I've noticed yet, I will try later.

The menus seem pretty good, and the touch screen is tolerable. Even the "funny menu" makes sense, where it exits completely after changing some settings. It's a bit of a pain when you're doing all your setup stuff, having to keep going back into the menu, sure. But if you are out shooting, then it is really useful to be able to quickly change a setting and not have to press Exit a few times.

More anon... I am sitting here watching the battery charged. Like a more expensive and exciting version of watching paint dry!

Update: just reading the manual, seeing as I have to wait 3 hours for the battery to charge. It's the first camera I've owned where there is a "drain" feature mentioned in the manual, where water can escape from around the zoom rocker!

[Paul Rickford]

Mike/Simon, i'm most interested to see what you think of the picture on max telephoto.

I'm hoping Sony have improved through the firmware and/or better quality control on the pro line, the red fringing and slight softness at max zoom that I have found so far on two CX700's and a returned CX560 which seem to share the same lens as the NX70.

Thanks and enjoy your new cams!

[Mike Beckett]

195 minutes to charge the battery.

At least I might be able to try the low light performance before I have to go to bed!

[Ron Evans]

Originally Posted by Mike Beckett

Verrrrry nice piece of kit.



The menus seem pretty good, and the touch screen is tolerable. Even the "funny menu" makes sense, where it exits completely after changing some settings. It's a bit of a pain when you're doing all your setup stuff, having to keep going back into the menu, sure. But if you are out shooting, then it is really useful to be able to quickly change a setting and not have to press Exit a few times.

This is the main annoyance on my CX700. It would be nice to have an option to be able to exit or go back to the last page. Look forward to more reports.

Ron Evans

[Simon Beer]

Mike,

Think we've been having a battery charging race. My FV100 from my NEX-VG10 is now charged on my Sony dual charger and the NX70 shows 8hrs 56m!

First impressions:

I've had the TRV900 and HC1 in the past and loved the small form factor. My last camera was the Sony EX1 and although an amazing piece of kit wasn't exactly low key. Now, the NX70 is compact, was worried it was going to be bigger - a smile crossed my face when I saw the small box Sony package it in.

Build quality is spot on and the camera certainly feels like it lives up to the rugged hype. Not as heavy as I thought it would be. The lens is certainly nice and wide and the zoom range seems reasonable for the size. The rocker is touch sensitive and you can vary zoom speed with pressure but I found that you can zoom too quickly fairly easily - maybe a menu setting. The focus ring in manual mode works and focusing with the small sensor is so fast when compared to my VG10.

Unpacked the manual so thought I better read it in a minute, taking the camera to beautiful Norfolk this weekend so will try to take it for a stroll along the river and grab some shots.

[Ron Evans]

The expanded focus feature on the CX700, when set, expands the focus when the wheel is touched for focus then when released goes back to normal view. Does the NX70 work this way as I find it a lot more convenient than the on or off button on the NX5U.

Ron Evans

[Mike Beckett]

Simon is spot on.

Build quality is superb, I have to keep saying that. My Panasonic HMC41 felt very plasticky. This has the same rugged feel as my Sony V1E a couple of years back, only more so, maybe because there's no tape mechanism to rattle around.

I nearly "cacked myself" when our receptionist came down with the box the courier left. I asked her where the rest of it was! The box itself is tiny, less than 30cm wide!

The camera is _remarkably_ small. Very small for a "pro" level camera. Take the XLR+mic+handle off, and it's a consumer cam, unless you have a trained eye. Magic.

The rocker _is_ pressure sensitive, I agree that it is very light to the touch. I think it's something I will get used to.

I like the "my buttons", where you can tap the touch screen and some of your favourite features can be quickly accessed without burrowing into menus. I have Gain and Shutter on mine at the moment, but I need time to get used to all this.

While we would all like an army of buttons and switches on the camera body, we have to be realistic. This is a small camera, there's a limit to what you can put on the body and still have it small. I think Sony have a good balance of functionality versus size here.

The wide angle is fantastic. This is 26mm - my Panasonic HMC41 was about 41mm, the JVC HM100 is similar.

EVF is great, just superb. There's maybe a bit of a problem when you use the big eye-cup, where it squishes sometimes and it goes out of focus to one side. I am getting the hang of it, and it's becoming less of a problem. The Pansonic was much worse in this respect.

Now it's getting dark here, and non-camera life is getting in the way for an hour or two. I hope to get some test footage shot either today or tomorrow - I want to get this baby on my insurance before I start wandering about too far with it.

[Mike Beckett]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

The expanded focus feature on the CX700, when set, expands the focus when the wheel is touched for focus then when released goes back to normal view. Does the NX70 work this way as I find it a lot more convenient than the on or off button on the NX5U.

Ron Evans

Ron,

Expanded Focus works the same as my Sony V1E. Press the button and it goes into Expanded Focus mode, then stays that way until you press it again. It doesn't seem to hook into the ring.

I don't see any settings to adjust this. From the manual:

"Push the EXPANDED FOCUS button to
magnify the center of the screen by about
2.0 times. It will be easier to confirm the
focus setting during manual focusing. The
screen returns to the original size when you
press the button again"

I like the way this works, I'm used to it from before.

It has adjustable peaking too (on/off, red/white/yellow, and peaking level low/medium/high).

I am beginning to appreciate some of the nuances with the menu - when I go back in to Camera/Audio, it remembers that it was at "Peaking", and saves me having to scroll all the way down again. Nice little touch.

[Gerald OConnor]

Mike thats great it has peaking does it have a zebra function to, I use those both all the time on my canon xa10. Thanks guys for all the reviews so far.