trashcanland – screen caps from your 80s childhood

Those of who enjoy the retro video curation of Network Awesome or the VHS mining of Everything Is Terrible, but don’t want to commit whole minutes to watching whole clips might like a tumblr I just stumbed on to, trashcanland, which strips minds the impacted VHS landscape to unearth the best 1/30 of the second.

The site is the work of DJ Daniel J. Cashman who seems to acquire a lot of VHS tapes. Then he takes screenshots and posts them to his tumblr. Sounds simple, but the secret is in the editing. Just you see, when you’re on page 48 and you’re still clicking to dig deeper, you’ll know you’re stuck.

Not everything is a still VHS screen cap. Some are also animated GIFs, and other found detritus.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Admiring Sony’s new NEX-7 but easily resisting the urge

Sony announced a pile of new digital cameras yesterday. I was quite pleased to hear about them, despite the fact that I have no immediate plans to buy one. As I’ve shared here, I’m very happy with my Sony NEX-5 compact interchangeable lens camera. I like having a cam that’s the size of an advanced point-and-shoot, but with a dSLR-sized sensor that delivers better overall quality, and much better low light performance without a flash.

Sony announced a high-end NEX camera, a “prosumer” version if you will, called the NEX-7. I must admit that I do have a little bit of camera lust because it sports a very high resolution 25 megapixel sensor, along with an actual electronic viewfinder, inside a body a little bit bigger than my NEX-5. However, I don’t really know what I’d do with 25 megapixels, since that kind of resolution is mostly useful for very large prints, which I don’t make.

More importantly, I just don’t need a new camera, and I’m resistant to the perpetual upgrade mentality that our contemporary consumer electronics culture perpetuates. Not a single thing about my NEX-5 has changed since Tuesday, the day before the NEX-7 was announced. Like all tools, there are little niggles that bug me about the NEX-5 that might be better on the NEX-7. But I honestly can’t think of one concrete way in which my photography would improve if I only replaced my NEX-5 with the NEX-7.

There’s a oft-repeated adage in photography that “it’s the photographer, not the camera.” (Or as photography blogger & gadfly Ken Rockwell puts it, “it’s not about your camera.”) In general terms, I most certainly agree. An experienced photographer knows a camera well enough to know how to get the picture he needs from it. Many great cameras have been used to take crappy, or just mundane, photos.

An experienced photographer also knows when a particular tool is not right for the job. But this caveat has more to do with significant differences than minor upgrades. For instance, a 110 film camera is likely an inferior choice to shoot a photo for a billboard as compared to a medium-format camera with a much larger negative. That’s a fairly extreme example, but the idea should be clear.

Looking at the NEX-7, even though there seem to be operational improvements–like the addition of two customizable control dials–that may make it easier to control the camera, I can’t say that will necessarily result in better photographs than what I’m taking now. Just because I might want it doesn’t necessarily mean I need it, or that it will even be that much of a real improvement in my actual photography. My photography will improve more if I just go out and thoughtfully shoot more photos than if I save up for or buy a new camera instead.

So then, why do I care about the NEX-7? Frankly, I’m glad to know that Sony seems to be committed to further developing the NEX line of cameras. Along with the 7 Sony also announced three new E-mount lenses that fit the NEXes. Despite the fact that many photographers upgrade cameras with every change of season, for me a digital camera is not an insignificant purchase. I like a camera body to last me years, not months. Therefore I would prefer not to feel like someone who purchased a brand new $500 HP Touchpad a month ago, only to see the whole product line now discontinued and clearance priced at 99 bucks.

Even if Sony did abandon the NEX line it wouldn’t be the end of the world. My camera and lenses would still work, and I don’t really need to buy that many more lenses or accessories. Nevertheless, I am glad to know that there’s a good chance that in five years or more Sony will have an up-to-date NEX model camera available should I need to replace mine or upgrade.

I will continue shooting with my NEX-5, feeling just a little more secure that my favorite little camera isn’t an orphan.

Speaking of my NEX-5, I recently purchased a cheap and fun little lens that easily adapts to the NEX, and that won’t work with a bigger dSLR. That will be the subject of my next photography post.

Network Awesome – Curating YouTube for the video geek

Man, I could lose days browsing this site, Network Awesome. The site editors pour through YouTube finding the best retro videos that bring me back to my prime video viewing years as a teenager and young adult in the 1980s and early 90s.

Home video and cable television were just becoming mainstream in those days. Cable-only channels were a relatively new phenomenon, as were premium channels like HBO and Showtime. Commercial basic cable channels were low-budget affairs, desperate to fill a 24-hour programming grid in the days before infomercials became the default late night program stream. The boom in home video also meant that video stores were similarly desperate to fill their shelves with content to supplement limited supplies of expensive Hollywood blockbusters.

What this all added up to was a goldmine of b-, c-, d- and f-movie grade schlock pushed onto our screens. The kind of stuff a teenager with a VCR and cable just eats up. But also amid all the low budget dreck was the truly experimental and weird. To programmers and buyers it kind of didn’t matter as long as it was cheap.

Thanks to the widespread bending of copyright laws and YouTube much of these riches have been mined and uploaded to the interwebs. The problems for middle-aged geeks like me is sorting through the videos of cats, backyard wrestling and other truly low-effort detritus to find the real gems. That’s where a good curator like Network Awesome comes in.

Copping an early 80s aesthetic for its bumpers, “station IDs” and title intros, Network Awesome feels like watching Night Flight or late night HBO in 1982. The short programs, culled from YouTube, feature everything from old Space Ghost Coast to Coast episodes to trailers for awesomely bad and weird movies.

Going to the site is truly like tuning in a fantastic underground cable channel, because the videos just start up in a program stream, just as if you’d tuned in a TV channel. Nothing is started in progress, and you can jump around. But it’s better to experience it as a video mix tape, enjoying the short Network Awesome teasers, promos and bumpers sprinkled interstitially.

Complementing the TV channel is a magazine that I’ve only started to check out, featuring essays considering the programs and themes found on the video stream. Network Awesome is definitely one of those sites that is so well conceived and executed that I really wished I’d thought of it first.

Surprised to enjoy my Panasonic ZS6 travel-zoom camera

Most serious photographers like having a pocket point-and-shoot camera to throw in their bag or keep in a pocket, so that they’re rarely without a camera. It’s the idea behind the adage, the best camera is the one you have with you.

However, if you are serious about photography you tend to like to have some manual control over your camera and the potential to obtain technically good pictures in a variety of conditions. My first digital camera was a point-in-shoot, Olympus Stylus 300, which I bought in 2003. It had no manual controls, but I wasn’t very good at using manual controls then anyway. I upgraded in 2005 to another Olympus, the Stylus 800, which jumped me to 8 megapixels, better ability to take low light pictures without a flash and manual controls. Then in 2008 I bought an Olympus 830 on eBay. It had a longer 5x zoom lens, but no manual controls. I gave the 800 to my wife, but it felt like the 830 was a step down in picture quality and control from the 800.

There are several models of point-and-shoot camera that offer that combo of compactness, manual control and good picture quality, but they’re also on the expensive end of the spectrum. And I’m cheap. But earlier this summer I found a camera deal that I’ve been quite satisfied with.

At the daily deal site woot.com I bought a Panasonic DMC-ZS6 for about $130. I was drawn to the camera’s long 12x zoom lens, combined with real manual controls, like aperture and shutter priority. It was a clearance because it’s a year-old model, and one that was primarily sold at warehouse stores like Costco. While the zoom is long, the widest point is a very nice 24mm equivalent. The camera is a member of what has come to be called the “travel zoom” class of cameras, offering long lenses in a compact package. However, the lens is not particularly fast, with a maximum aperture of f/3.3 at the widest, but a relatively fast f/4.9 at the full 12x zoom, which is better than the f/5.6 or f/6.3 you might find in other cameras.

The camera is little bigger than the most compact point-and-shoots, but I’ve found it to be no big deal to have in a bag. It’s not great for a pocket, but few cameras are. It’s still very compact for having such a long zoom. The optical image stabilization is also very effective, letting me take still sharp photos at the maximum zoom range.

A nice feature Panasonic has added to it’s travel-zoom cameras is the ability to extend the zoom range by reducing the pixel count. While many cameras offer a so-called “digital zoom” which really just blows up the picture like in Photoshop, Panasonic actually let’s you take a picture from patches of the center part of the sensor. The camera’s normal resolution is 12 megapixels, but you can take photos at 8 MP with a zoom of 14.7x, 5 MP at 18.8x or 3 MP at 23.4x. The effect is the same as cropping the photo later in your editing app, but in the field it’s nice to be able to just shoot it that way, seeing accurately on the screen what you’re going to get, without having to edit later. The quality is much better than a digital zoom if you don’t mind the smaller pixel count. For 4×6 prints or the web 8 MP or even 5 MP have plenty of resolution, and are good for even 5×7 or 8×10 prints.

I think the camera performs very well up to 400 ISO, and is quite acceptable even at 800 or 1600 ISO, provided you don’t underexpose. When it comes to exposure I find that the camera is pretty spot-on, requiring me to compensate only when exposure is typically challenging.

I’ve even used the camera to shoot a rock concert in a small theater and managed pretty reasonable results shooting from the middle of the place. Being able to set the exposure manually–fixing both the shutter and aperture–allowed me to get many more decent shots under low light and lots of action than if I had to rely on the camera to meter for each one.

I expected I would like the camera, but also thought that the compromises in terms of lens speed and size would keep it from being a constant companion. So I was surprised to find that it has become my grab and go camera, especially when I don’t want to think about selecting lenses or packing a kit.

Still, if I’m going to be more serious about my picture taking on an outing or trip I choose my Sony NEX-5, which is a bit bigger with a lens, but a much better performer until almost all conditions. But sometimes even the NEX is more camera than I want to carry, or I’m going somewhere I don’t want to worry about having a more expensive camera. In that case I don’t hesitate to bring my Panasonic ZS6.

Although it’s a 2010 model camera, you can still find the ZS6 online. You might not find it for as cheap as I got mine, but it does pop up at Woot and other deal sites with some regularity. Although I haven’t tried them, the Panasonic DMC-ZS5 and ZS7 are very similar cameras that ought to offer the same performance. Also, if you want a current model-year camera the Panasonic ZS8 and ZS10 should perform at least as well.

It is a great time to be cheap-skate photographer.

How to set manual control shortcuts on Sanyo Xacti camcorders

This is part two of my video series demonstrating how to use manual controls on Sanyo Xacti camcorders. I used the CG10 model, which I own, but this should work for the newer HD models, too, such as the CG21, CG20 and CG100.

In this video I show how you can assign a particular control to a direction on the control joystick. For instance, you can assign manual focus to the right positions of the joystick, so when you push it to the right you can access the focus controls. This is much more convenient than having to dig into the menus to change the focus.

Unfortunately, these adjustments are only available when you’re not shooting — you can’t change aperture, shutter, focus, ISO or exposure control while recording. In practice I haven’t found this to be a significant constraint, since I rarely am taking long shots. If I’m going to shoot something like a lecture or performance then I might either be able to set the focus and exposure for the whole the event, or I’ll use autoexposure so the camera can respond to changing lighting conditions, with minimal impact on the image quality.

For concert audio the Sanyo Xacti beats the Sony NEX-5, hands down

One of the most impressive features of my Sanyo VPC-CG10 camcorder has been its audio recording quality. But sometimes you don’t realize how good something is until you have a chance to compare it. This weekend I made an inadvertent comparison and I came away all the more pleased with the CG10′s audio performance.

On Friday night I brought my Sony NEX-5 with me to see the legendary rock band Killing Joke at a very small club here in Chicago. My primary purpose for brining the camera was to take pictures. But when the intro music started I decided it would be nice to at least shoot some video of their entrance. When I reviewed the footage the next day I found that the sound with the band playing was distorted beyond repair.

Now, I wasn’t really surprised that the audio was so distorted. While it’s a great camera, the NEX-5 doesn’t have pro audio features like manual levels, any sort of level meter or a headphone out. The camera uses auto-gain (AGC) exclusively, and under normal conditions it works well. But Killing Joke is a loud band, and I was pretty close to the stage. Apparently that was just too much sound pressure for the NEX to properly deal with.

However, I’ve used the little Sanyo at a lot of different concerts, both indoor and outdoor, and it’s been able to handle loud amplified music like a champ. The Sanyo also doesn’t have any manual audio controls or meter, but somehow its combination of microphones and AGC is able to outperform the much more expensive Sony. Searching around the internets I’ve heard similar complaints from people using the NEX cameras, as well as other video dSLRs from Canon and Nikon. And, really, that makes sense. The NEXs and other dSLRs were designed as still cameras with video as an afterthought. Even tough the Sanyo Xacti is a very inexpensive video camera, that is its primary function. Nevertheless, I am glad that it does so well.

So my lesson here is that if I want to have just one camera to shoot some concert video the Sanyo CG10 is the best candidate. If I want to get better quality video using the NEX-5, then I should consider using dual sound, bringing along my Zoom H2 to record audio. Dual sound is slightly more complicated, mostly because it requires bringing more gear and having to futz with it all.

One option that many recommend now is the newest Zoom recorder, the H1, which is even smaller than my H2. Folks using dSLRs sometimes get adapters to mount it to the camera’s flash hot shoe. The NEX-5 has no such shoe, so a different mounting method would need to be found.

I will probably just use the Sanyo CG10 for impromptu concert recording. I’ll use the NEX-5 when I’ve got time to set up and do a more thorough job, such as when recording gigs put on by friends.

Still, I continue to be impressed by my now-$109 little palm-sized Sanyo VPC-CG10. If you know how to exploit its strengths, it’s hard to beat.

Pick up a Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10 for just $109

I don’t normally go in for deal tracking here at mediageek, but this is one I have to pass on. Thanks to Scott Eggleston at the Frugal Filmmaker, I just learned that B&H has my favorite palm-sized camcorder, the Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10, on sale for just $109. That’s a good 40% less than what I paid about sixteen months ago.

Although Sanyo has released several newer models in the pistol-grip Xacti line, none of them appears to be much of an upgrade over the CG-10, which was Sanyo’s first HD camcorder coming in under $200. What I like about the CG10 over similar palm-sized camcorders from Kodak and Flip is that it offers manual control over exposure, focus and ISO. You do have to work a little bit to get these settings the way you want them, and you can’t change them while shooting. Nevertheless that modicum of control permits the more serious videographer to squeeze more performance from this camcorder than its competitors.

To get better video performance in a similarly small package I think you have to step up to one of Sanyo’s high-end HD palmcorders costing more like $400, or get a high-end point-and-shoot digital camera like a Canon G12 or Panasonic LX5.

At just $109 the CG10 really can be the kind of camcorder you don’t worry about throwing in your bag or putting in your pocket to take just about anywhere. Remember, often the best camcorder is the one you have with you.

Shooting with Nikon lenses on the Sony NEX-5

This past Sunday, with grey skies but temperatures in the lows 60s (F), I had a chance to go out for a nice photowalk with my new Sony NEX-5. I took along three lenses, all primes. For wide-angle shots I brought the Sony 16mm e-mount lens, which is equivalent to a 24mm lens on a full-frame camera. Putting to use my Fotodiox Nikon F-mount adapter, I took a 28mm f/3.5 Nikkor and a DeJUR 135mm f/2.8, both likely dating from the mid-70s. The 28mm is nearly equivalent to a normal lens, if slightly wide, and the DeJUR makes for a long telephoto, equivalent to about 200mm on a full-frame camera.

The two F-mount lenses are heavy metal beasts with manual aperture adjustment and focus. When mounted to the diminutive NEX the camera more than quadruples in weight, looking fairly disproportionate.

At the same time, mounted with these big manual lenses, the NEX looks a lot like Sony’s pro-sumer so-called “bridge cameras” from the early and mid 2000s. Models like the F707 and F828 both feature a non-detachable large lens barrel attaches to a relatively small camera body. Sony also used a similar design for their first large sensor camera, the R1. In many ways the R1 is the closest predecessor to the NEX line, in that the R1 featured an APS-C sized sensor, just like most dSLRs, but without a mirror-reflex viewfinder, using a small electronic viewfinder (EVF) and rear LCD, like the NEX. Unlike the NEX the R1 had a fixed, non-interchangeable zoom lens, and so the camera as a whole was much bigger, and SLR-like in dimensions.

Being able to mount lenses of all different brands and mounts was one of the features that really attracted me to the NEX, and using these F-mount lenses on the NEX-5 was no disappointment. Although this requires that you manually select your aperture on the lens and also manually focus, I found this to be no more difficult than using an older manual film SLR. The NEX lets you magnify the view on the LCD by 7x or 14x which greatly helps in getting very accurate focus. I often enjoy using manual film cameras because they force you to slow down and focus on getting the image rather than having the camera set everything and just blasting away. Thus I really enjoyed having this manual-camera experience with my digital NEX on this photowalk.

Most old manual focus lenses have a distance scale printed on them, so you can easily set them for particular focus distance ahead of time, and then just fine tune when you need to. This is the way many users of rangefinder cameras shoot, especially when street shooting, where capturing the “decisive moment” is more important that perfectly accurate focus and exposure. In fact I was pleased with some grab shots I got with guesstimated focus, like this one below, which was featured on the Chicago news and culture blog, Chicagoist:

Shooting with an old manual lens means that you don’t interact with the NEX’s control interface and menus very much, except to set ISO and to magnify the image on the LCD. Using such a lens wouldn’t be my choice for shooting events or other situations where I need to obtain accurate focus quickly. Nevertheless, it’s a very nice experience.

The Fotodiox F-mount adapter I used works very well, mounting very surely to both the NEX and the lens. With these manual lenses you just move it’s aperture level to “lock,” and then you’re ready to select the aperture using the lens. With the adapter you get a very WYSIWYG experience on the LCD, getting an effective depth-of-field preview because the lens is already stopped-down. On modern SLRs the aperture only stops down when you press the shutter, therefore what you see in the viewfinder is always the lens at its maximum aperture. In order to compensate for the reduced light coming through the lens the NEX brightens the LCD. I primarily shoot aperture-priority, so the camera still chose the shutter speed, which I adjusted using exposure compensation. But, by and large, I found the NEX’s meter to be very predictable and spot-on most of the time, barely needing any compensation even when shooting something against the sky.

The physical balance of the camera with either of these two lenses wasn’t too bad, though the large 135mm lens felt heavy after a while. Given that one of the big pluses of the NEX is its small size and weight, the 135 will not be a frequent choice for me, except for those rare occasions when I want a camera with that kind of telephoto reach at a still reasonable size. The Nikkor 28mm lens felt more reasonable and therefore made for a more pleasant shooting experience.

Still, I would prefer to find a prime lens of a normal focal length on the NEX that is smaller and lighter, more proportionate to its body. Currently Sony doesn’t offer anything like that in the native E-mount, but it’s a young camera model. Sony does offer an inexpensive 35mm f/1.8 lens in the Alpha mount for its Alpha line of dSLRs, which will work with the NEX using an adapter. While the Sony 35mm is relatively light weight, combined with the a-mount adapter it will still be fairly long, at about 78mm or nearly 3 and a quarter inches. The advantage of this combination, of course, is that I could use the same lens on my a100 dSLR.

An alternative option I’m considering is the Voigtlander 35mm or 40mm f/1.4 lens in the Leica M-mount. Because they’re designed for rangerfinder cameras that have shorter flange than SLRs, which makes for a smaller lens. Similarly, the adapter for an M-mount lens is also shorter and lighter, making for a smaller overall package.

Finally, I also enjoyed using the Sony 16mm e-mount lens on this photowalk. Having now set my autofocus point to the center I got very predictable focus compared to the multi-point autofocus that I complained about in my first post about the camera. Though many reviewers and commentators complain about the lack of sharpness and distortion at the edges with this wide lens, I find that if you take that into account when framing your shot (and you do see the distortion on the LCD), then it isn’t much of an issue. In fact, many people go out of their way to add softness and vignetting at the corners of their images in Photoshop after the fact. So, really, it’s about what kind of image you’re looking to produce and choosing the lens that will produce it. That said, both Photoshop and Lightroom have lens correction presets for the lens that work quite well.

In the image above the slight vignetting and lack of sharpness at the corners helps to focus the viewer’s attention on the center of the image, where the subject is. This image also highlights something else I liked about using the NEX-5, the movable LCD display. For this picture I set the camera on the ground and flipped the LCD up so I could see it from above. This way I didn’t have to lay on the ground in order to frame it properly. This would have been a more difficult shot to get with an SLR where I would have either had to lay on the Chicago streets or guess my framing.

One of my few complaints after using the NEX-5 for a few weeks is its start-up time. I haven’t taken a stopwatch to it, but I’d say it takes nearly 15 seconds, if not longer, for it to fully start up after turning it on. This is slow even compared to a point-and-shoot camera that has to open up a lens door and move the lens out with a motor. It’s absolutely glacial compared to a dSLR. I still find my self wondering if the battery is dead or not in there after turning it on because I’m not used to waiting so long. It’s a very minor gripe, but something I hope Sony can address with a firmware update.

I did shoot a little bit of video with the F-mount lenses, though nothing critical. I just wanted to test out the ability to manually rack focus and control the focus point using depth of field. This was easiest using the 135mm lens which has a very slow and precise focus ring. I suspect this would be easier with an M-mount lens, like the Voigtlanders, because they have a tab on the focus ring. Of course, those who are serious about racking focus add a follow-focus rig to their camera.

In any event, here’s a very short video demonstrating this technique on the NEX-5 with the Nikkor 28mm f/3.5 lens:

Of Fences and Depth of Field from Paul Riismandel on Vimeo.

The real test of a camera is using to shoot for an extended period of time. Now that I’ve had the chance to get out for a good, long photowalk, I’m quite happy with the NEX-5. It does not quite replace an SLR for situations where you need very fast autofocus or long telephoto reach, or where using a viewfinder is most appropriate. Nevertheless, it’s a great combination of compact-camera size and weight with dSLR image quality.

I’ll continue to write updates as I use the camera more.

Seduced by the siren call of the Sony NEX-5 camera

After hemming and hawing for about six months I finally took the plunge and bought a Sony NEX-5 interchangeable lens compact camera. As I wrote when the camera debuted, I was concerned about a few apparent drawbacks: a new lens mount and the lack of in-body image stabilization. You see, the reason I made the Sony a100 my first dSLR was entirely due to it being the only dSLR at the time–fall 2006–with in-body stabilization. It continues to be a feature I really like in my a100, even if now Pentax and Olympus have it, too.

Ultimately my concerns were minimized when I had a chance to actually have the NEX-5 in my hands and see just how small and pocketable it really is. Now, I had also been considering going with one of the competing micro-four-thirds (m4/3) cameras from Olympus or Panasonic, like the E-PL1 or GF-1, and only the Olympus has in-body stabilization. These cameras, too, have new lens mounts, though there are more lenses available since the first m4/3 camera debuted about fifteen months ago.

I finally decided to go with the NEX-5 for several reasons. First, Sony has released an adapter that permits it to use Alpha-mount dSLR lenses. With a firmware upgrade that came out in October, that adapter will autofocus most newer lenses. Also, the new firmware made significant improvements to the NEX-5′s user interface. Of particular importance to me is the addition of programmable buttons, to which you can assign your most used functions.

I was also convinced by the NEX-5 having full 1080 HD video rather than just 720. While 720 is certainly quite adequate for many applications, at this point I don’t see any reason not to go with 1080. Finally, one of the most appealing aspects of the m4/3 cameras is that there are adapters available to fit almost any camera lens out there, so you can use your Nikon, Canon or even Leica lenses. But then these sorts of adapters starting appearing for the NEX cameras, too.

I actually bought my NEX-5 at a brick-and-mortar store, Bel Air Camera in Westwood, Los Angeles, near the UCLA campus. They were offering it for the same price as everyone else (due to Sony’s pricing restrictions), and the salesman let me try it out with the new 18-200mm lens. He told me, “I don’t want to sell you that lens with that camera,” which was refreshingly honest. The reason why is because the lens is just way too big for the diminutive NEX-5, and I agreed. While it feels relatively well proportioned on a full-sized dSLR, on the NEX it really defeats the purpose of having such a compact camera.

On top of the NEX’s unique features as a compact interchangeable lens camera, I also was impressed by how much better its low-light, high-ISO performance is compared to my four-year-old a100. It’s really night and day, with the NEX rivaling the well-regarded low-light performance of the Nikon D300, which I use at work. Since I hate to use flash and like to take photos in light-challenged settings like rock clubs, I was really looking forward to getting the bump in low-light performance with the NEX.

I’ve had the camera now for just over two weeks and I’m just starting to get a feel for it. Lacking a viewfinder you compose your shot on the rear LCD, just like a point-and-shoot digicam. I don’t mind this aspect, though it does take some getting used to. The autofocus isn’t quite as fast as a dSLR, but it’s actually quieter and a little more certain than my a100, which was never known for its autofocus performance. When you want to manually focus you can magnify the center of the image on the LCD, which greatly helps nail it. In fact, I’m finding it easier to focus manually with the NEX-5 than with my dSLR. Neither is as easy to focus as my old manual film SLRs which have a split-prism viewfinder that lets you see precisely when you have focus, but those focusing screens aren’t included in any modern SLRs anymore.

At first I was actually kind of disappointed with the accuracy of the autofocus, finding my pictures not quite as sharp as I’d like. Part of this I attribute to the two lenses introduced with the camera, but then I found my few manually-focused pictures came out sharper. I realized the camera came set to multipoint autofocus which seems like it averages out the focus distance between a few different points in the scene. I prefer to just have one autofocus point in the center so I know exactly where the focus will fall. I’ve since changed the setting but haven’t had a chance to go out and really test the change.

I can say that I’m very happy with the low-light performance. It truly blows away my old a100, giving me pretty clean images up to ISO 1600, and very useable images up to ISO 6400. At these higher ISOs there is noise, but it’s quite film-like and not at all unpleasing, especially given the fact that you can essentially take pictures lit by streetlight.

I did buy a Nikon lens adapter made by Fotodiox, located just north of Chicago in Waukegan, IL. With an adapter you have no autofocus, which is fine with me. You also have to set the aperture manually on the lens, but the camera still meters fine. The adapter I bought even lets you use newer G-series Nikon lenses that don’t have an aperture ring. In order to control aperture you use a little dial which opens and closes it. It doesn’t give you a precise reading, but you can see the results right on the LCD, which eliminates a lot of the guesswork. With daylight receding much earlier now I haven’t had much opportunity to take the NEX-5 out with some Nikon glass, but preliminary testing inside the house looks promising.

I’ve only shot a tiny bit of video that was worth anything, but still not with a tripod, which is really necessary if you’re going to get a steady image using such a tiny camera. The aforementioned firmware update now permits you to set the camera’s aperture manually, but only before starting to record. Frankly, that’s fine since you really shouldn’t need to change aperture while recording unless you’re doing long-form event or lecture recording. Even then, the NEX-5 really isn’t the proper tool for that job. Rather, the NEX-5 is well suited to cinema style single-camera shooting with short takes, just like all other video dSLRs.

Here’s a short 2 minute video I shot along Lake Michigan last week during an unseasonably warm spell last week. If you go to YouTube you can view it in full 1080 HD.

No, there is no microphone input on the NEX-5, but its m4/3 competitors don’t have inputs either, at least not without an adapter. While I have been strong advocate of mic inputs on camcorder I ultimately decided that it wouldn’t be a big deal for me. This is because I’m quite comfortable using a separate digital audio recorder to capture audio, just like you would when shooting film. Plus, the digital audio recorder arguably will capture higher quality sound, with more precise level controls. The NEX-5 and my Zoom H2 audio recorder together take up less space in a bag than my miniDV camcorder, so this is not the inconvenience it was several years ago.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that Final Cut Express and Pro imported my video footage without any hiccups. After importing it was immediately available in the timeline for editing. I’ve only imported about ten minutes of footage so far, so I don’t know what it will be like to work with an hour or more. But so far it’s been refreshingly easy.

I will definitely need more time to get more acquainted with the NEX-5 both as a still and video camera, but so far I’m quite happy. And I’m especially satisfied with its size and the ability to slip it into a coat pocket or a small bag where taking along a dSLR would be unwieldy. I’m also interested in using it in a two-camera setup with my Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10 palm-sized camcorder. While the Xacti doesn’t have nearly the same image quality, in good light its 720p HD video is high quality. Furthermore, the Xacti is even smaller and much cheaper, so I’ll be willing to put it places where I wouldn’t want to risk my NEX-5.

Stay tuned to mediageek for more updates about my experience with the NEX-5.

Zoom finally adds HD video to a portable audio recorder, but still no mic input

I’m always complaining about how most consumer-level camcorders don’t feature microphone inputs, or even decent mics. My Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10 has pretty good mics for camcorder of it’s size and price. But because the mics are on the camera and there’s no input to add an external mic, they’re still inappropriate for interviews or any sort of shoot where you need to record voices clearly because the mics will be too far away.

I’m a big fan of Zoom’s portable digital audio recorders — I’ve been using the small Zoom H2 for a couple of years now. Last year Zoom released their Q3 “handy video recorder” which added a standard-definition camcorder to a high-quality stereo audio recorder. Strangely, the Q3 lacks a microphone input, although its mics outclass anything on a camcorder.

Now Zoom has upped the ante by adding HD to create the Q3HD, featuring full 1080p HD video. I’m surprised that the Q3HD still lacks a microphone input, however it does add a line input. In its promotional literature Zoom says that the input is good for recording multiple microphones using a mixer “for sophisticated recordings.” While this is certainly useful, I question whether someone using a tiny hand-held camcorder wants to drag around a mixer and multiple mics just to get better sound. Being able to just plug in a single lavaliere mic would be much more practical.

Like most Flip-style camcorders the Q3HD has no optical zoom, and doesn’t seem to have much in the way of manual control over the video. So, in essence it’s a Flip camcorder with vastly improved audio. I think it would be vastly more useful if Zoom were to combine something like a Sanyo Xacti style camcorder, that has an optical zoom, with the enhanced audio recording of their “handy recorders.” That would really make for a DIY videographer’s dream pocket camcorder.

The Q3HD is supposed to be available by the end of the year for $299. My guess is that the street price will be a good bit lower than that. However, I’d gladly pay $300 or a bit more for my dream of an Xacti + Q3HD.