Sony NEX VG20

[Jill Lampert]

I'm wanting to move from my Canon XM2 to HD. I like filming wildlife, and so having a big zoom is important to me. I can't find something equivalent to the Canon XM2 which has (a) a viewfinder (b) memory cards (c) a 20x zoom. I wondering whether the Sony NEX VG20 would be the right sort of thing. Does anyone have any views?
Thanks.

[col lamb]

Jill

I cannot advise specifically on the Sony but it does look like quite a great piece of kit.

Just looked at prices and the body only seems to be c£950 + a lens 70-200 is on sale at c£850 and a 70-400 is about £1300 so you do have quite a sizeable outlay.

My usually advice is to seek out a supplier and take an SD card with you and then test out the camcorder with your choice of lens, 200mm may be a little short for wildlife and a longer length lens will not doubt be even more. Take the SD card home and check out the results.

As an alternative have a look at a Canon 550D camera and a suitable lens, if you try a Canon EF lens then apply a 1.6 multiplier to the focal ranges to get the true range, an EFS lens will give you the range as listed on the lens body. I have a 7D and it gives great video but you do have to use manual and make allowances for the limitations of using a DSLR for video. With Canon DSLR's if you change a few settings which are deep in the menu you can get even better results and a more dynamic range. The advantage of using something like a Canon DSLR is cost

Good luck

Panasonic also do a very nice interchangeable compact DSLR which has great HD video capabilities.

[Jill Lampert]

Thanks for that, Col. Yes, it sounds pricey. I didn't realise the 70-200 wouldn't be good enough for wildlife. Looking at the 70-400 lens, it's huge. I'm reluctant to go down the DSLR route. I suppose another option would be something that doesn't itself have an exceptional zoom, but could take an add on telephoto lens. As far as I can see the Panasonic sd900 that everyone seems to keen on doesn't have an option for a telephoto lens. Or have I got that wrong?
Jill

[tom hardwick]

The VG20 has a lot said about it here, Jill:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-avchd- ... -nex-vg20/

and it's worth reading a few posts to get the feel of what real owners think about the camera. The beauty of having interchangeable lenses is that (if you have the money and the lenses) you can shoot wildlife one minute and house interiors the next, and having such a big chip up front means you're ahead of the game from square one - if you buy big, heavy, fast lenses.

I like the form-factor of the VG20 for shooting movies whereas the DSLRs feel clunky in my hands, even those properly designed for shooting movies such as Panasonic's GH2. Of course on a tripod this ungainliness becomes less of an issue, and as Col says, DSLRs are pretty cheap (Look at the Canon EOS 650D) and as a side-effect they shoot pretty good stills. Do you have an SLR at the moment, with extra lenses that might sway you into one court?

You may find something like the Canon XF300 is a logical progression if you've liked the XM2 for so long. It has an 18x zoom, but is highly regarded.:
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-xf-se ... amcorders/

Of course that's lots of money and you might well need a telephoto extender on top, and such an extender will fit on any camcorder. But the diminutive Panasonic SD900 has a 20x zoom in movie mode and its cheap, small, light and very capable indeed. At my last wedding I used it as the second camera to my big, heavy, expensive Sony NX5 (20x zoom) for the ceremony, the speeches and the dancing, and handed over all the AVCHD footage to another editor. He remarked that the footage from the SD900 looked noticeably better than that from the NX5, and I agreed with him.

tom.

[ned c]

https://vimeo.com/user3134480/videos

I have an NEX VG20 and above is a link to some test shots. With an adaptor you can use any lens; I have the E to Sony Alpha adaptor but you can get adaptors for any make of lens. This opens the whole world of lenses both zoom and long telephotos to use. On Vimeo there are forums specifically for VG10/20 users where questions may be loaded.

In practice I find the VG20 is more a production camera than a run and gun camera; it needs setting up properly. The audio is good; certainly much better than a DSLR; I use a Beachtek XLR adaptror.

Hope this helps

ned c

[Jill Lampert]

Thank you Tom and Ned.
I think it sounds like the Sony Nex VG20 is too advanced for me. Ned, it's very helpful of you to point out that it's more of a production camcorder.
Thinking about it, I really want something easy to use (run and gun) but which I can also use for wildlife filming when I want to. The Canon FX300 is too expensive for me Tom - and I don't have the skills to make the best of use of such a good camcorder. I didn't realise the Panasonic SD900 could shoot at 20x in movie mode. What is movie mode? Is it the converse of still picture mode? Or something else? The canon XM2 has a 20x zoom and although I wish it was more, I've lived with that for a while now. So the Panasonic does sound like a good substitute for the XM2.
Tom, you say I could use a telephoto extender with any camcorder. Is that right? And if so, can you give me any tips about what to look for when choosing one for the Panasonic sd900?
Thank you everyone for your quick and helpful responses.
Jill

[tom hardwick]

Jill - it doesn't sound as if you've been reading my Positive Image articles in FVM. Why not?
The best tip I can give you about using a telephoto converter is avoid it unless it's absolutely imperative you use one. I have one that works on my SD900 but it's fairly mild at 1.4x yet is pretty big. Once it's in place you can't zoom back much towards wide-angle as the image vignettes.

Lots of camcorders come with longer than 20x zooms and if you're using them in good bright light that can give great results, but when the light levels drop the quality quickly falls off.

tom.

[Jill Lampert]

Tom, I will read your articles. I usually only read about equipment when I want to buy it.
OK. So a telephoto converter is not the way forward!
I can't find a single camcorder with even 20x optical zoom (which has hd and a viewfinder and records to memory card for under £2000. I'm amazed there are lots of them.
I'm worried about 'intelligent zoom'. I read an article which I understood to say that it produces less good quality pictures like digital zoom. But I shall read your articles and see what you say!
Jill

[tom hardwick]

Intelligent zoom is just marketing mumbo-jumbo. The SD900 uses chips that have far more pixels on them than the 1920x1080 needed for full HD video. Consequently the camera can continue zooming in digitally until this 1920x1080 dimension is reached. If you zoom beyond this, the digital zoom will indeed lose quality. When the camera uses the entire chip area (when shooting stills) then it has a 12x optical zoom.

Check out the Argos or Curry's catalogues, they have many camcorders with 30x and even up to 70x zooms.

[Jill Lampert]

Oh! I see. Well, then I think the Panasonic will probably do me just fine.
I think you were joking about Argos and Currys! I don't think they'd have a view finder, never mind a chip equivalent to the XM2 and so on. I realise it may sound the wrong way round to be going on about zoom...but wildlife is what I like filming, and it's hard to get close ups if you can't get near the creatures. So it does matter to me. I doubt whether I'd be capable of manually focusing with a DSLR. The Sony Nex VG20 sounds lovely - but perhaps a bit fiddly for most of what I want to do. You give the SD900 such a good write up and have explained that it would do what I need. So I think I'm sorted. I see there's an X900 with (dare I mention it?) 23x intelligent zoom.
Thank you all for your help.
Jill

[tom hardwick]

The X900 is Panasonic's replacement for the SD900 Jill. It's considerably more expensive, slightly bigger and heavier and some of the road tests have been less than complimentary. You may find it hard to find an SD900 (or a TM900) now, but it's worth searching for I'd say. The difference between a 20x zoom and a 23x zoom is neither here nor there, and in fact the X900 - even with its longer zoom - has less telephoto because it starts out at a 28mm equivalent rather than the SD900's 35mm equivalent.

And you're right - most of the camcorders with really far-reaching zooms don't have viewfinders. This is to save money, bulk, weight and battery power. But if you can live with only a side screen, the £210 Panasonic HC-V10 720p HD camcorder is - to quote from the bumpf:

A compact entry level HD camcorder with an easy-to-use dynamic 70x zoom and HD recording. Featuring a powerful 63x optical zoom lens with an Enhanced Optical 70x Zoom function that uses the effective area of the sensor to further extend their zooming power at the wide-angle setting. This allows the user to capture beautiful images of sweeping landscapes and pull in distant subjects for truly dynamic close-ups, without the image degradation that occurs with a digital zoom.

tom.

[Geoff Addis]

Hi Jill,

One aspect of the Sony that you should investigate is whether it suffers from the very pronounced moire artifacts as did its predecessor. These can be quite ugly and and may be visible on fine detail such as brick walls, hair or netting. Moire patterning will be more obvious at some levels of zoom than others, ie. the spacing between parallel lines as seen by the image sensor, and it appearence is best avoided by keeping the camera as steady as possible by means of a tripod or similar device. Moire has been a major problem with most DSLR video cameras, the best of the bunch probably being the Panasonic GH2 which may be tweaked to give every good images. (See Phil Bloom's blog/web site at http://philipbloom.net/)

Geoff.

[Jill Lampert]

Thanks, Geoff. Yes, I had read about the moire problem. I don't know if it applies to this model or the earlier one.

Thank you Tom. No! I'm not looking for an entry level camcorder. I'm looking for a substitute for the Canon XM2. The one you describe wouldn't meet my needs: no viewfinder, no socket for an external microphone, no socket for headphones, smaller sensor.

But I'm very glad you pointed out the drawbacks of the X900. I have taken your advice, and I've acquired a Panasonic SD900. It arrived today.

Thanks everyone.

Jill

[Geoff Addis]

Hi Jill,

A friend bought the VG20 recently, mainly for still photography and I can confirm that the moire issue remains.

Geoff