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.

Behind Network Awesome – An interview with Jason Forrest

As I mentioned the other day, Network Awesome creator Jason Forrest dropped me a nice “thank you” email after I wrote about finding and enjoying his video curation site and channel. I asked him for an interview to learn more about NA, and much to my luck, he agreed. So here is our email exchange where he tells me more about the creation and raison d’être of Network Awesome.

Mediageek: How did Network Awesome start and how long has it been online?

Jason Forrest: I had the basic idea for Network Awesome last year in the summer of 2010. After working out the idea for a few months I reached out to Greg Sadetsky to program it. After an intense few days we began work on the site and 6 weeks later it went live on Jan 1, 2011.

Mg: Why did you start it?

JF: I started N.A. because I realized that there was a hole in the programming provided by the TV networks. I dislike current TV trends and wanted to watch more interesting content – most if it vintage. I also became frustrated by the uneven quality of video on YouTube and realized that a curatorial voice was missing in the landscape.

Mg: How many people are contributing to or working on NA?

JF: That’s the crazy part- we have 91 volunteers involved from all over. Most of them are writers for our magazine (60+) but we also have 20 video curators and then video producers, PR people and a few more biz dev advisers, etc. One of our most recent gang members is Isaac who is running our Tumblr site and doing a phenomenal job at it! We get 2-5 more volunteers every day!

Mg: How did you recruit so many people to work on Network Awesome in such a short amount of time?

JF: Because we program content that’s both appealing and unique it has been met with excitement by a certain type of person who sees this as an opportunity to share something they are passionate about. We’ve been able to build a great team largely by answering our emails and actually giving a damn about people! haha! The writers we work with want to get involved because they like the idea of writing about such interesting content. The video curators get to share what they love and everyone else gets involved because they think it’s cool. Also it’s just fun!

Mg: The approach of NA reminds me of eclectic video programs from the 80s, like the much missed Night Flight on USA network or the Z Channel cable network in LA. Were these an inspiration?

JF: Massively so! In fact we actually began Network Awesome Magazine as a direct homage to the Z Channel Magazine!

I’d say that the birth of the cable networks was and is massively influential on how we program our content and branding. If anything I think the current era of broadcast companies have lost that spirit and could use a touch of finding it again. (Maybe it’s already happening with MTV and Nickelodeon bringing back shows from the 90s?)

Mg: Were you influenced by other retro video sites, such as Everything Is Terrible, even though your approach is different?

JF: Not really. To be honest much of what we designed N.A. in reaction too was YouTube itself. We never considered ourselves to be a blog or even “just a website” but always as a TV channel. We think the main concept of N.A. is in the curatorial vision of our programming, and that can scale to pretty much any format.

Mg: Network Awesome’s organizing principle seems a lot like a broadcast schedule, or a DJ set, especially since the videos play in sequence. Why did you choose this format?

JF: Well, it’s amazing that you say DJ set, as I’m a professional musician / DJ and have been for many years. I actually never had considered it that way before – but of course you’re right!

We try to look at our site from the users perspective first and foremost. We try to present the most basic and clear way to deliver our content to our viewers and we’re always trying to improve. There are MANY improvements coming soon!

But to answer your question, I think traditional broadcast got many things right in concern to who people want to watch video and that online video changed these habits. We consider Network Awesome to be between the two and the trends in our viewership point to its relative success!

Mg: Why do you think someone would come to a site like Network Awesome instead of just go browse YouTube?

JF: We get asked this often and we fully agree that anyone can find anything on YouTube just as we have. But the problem is the time to find it and also the process of discovery can be annoying. With our channel you get all the correct links in the correct order plus information on the show and possibly even a article explaining it.

Beyond that you also watch the combined curatorial power of 20 people. When we focus on a subject we’re able to find a staggering array of amazing material – most of which one might never even know they were looking for it. This is sort of a major point, because we realize every day that the content we’re broadcasting has been largely abandoned by broadcast TV but it remains powerful, relevant, and even popular!

Mg: Who creates your retro-tastic video bumpers and IDs? How are they created?

JF: Joey Mansfield and myself [create the bumpers and IDs]. I established the basic branding but Joey is reinventing it all. I’m actually excited to see his emails because it means he probably made something that’s gonna make me jump up and down! haha!

The bumpers are a crucial part of the concept of N.A. because while people dislike commercials, they don’t mind the interruption or pause in the programming.

Mg: Network Awesome seems to rely a lot on content that other folks have uploaded to YouTube. Do you worry that some of it might disappear, either because the person who uploaded it takes it down, or because the copyright owner issues a takedown notice?

No! We think that’s GREAT! It acts as a natural erosion for us to keep our archive as manageable as possible. A take-down also means that the rights holder doesn’t want it there and we only want to point to video that people want online. Our archive is constantly evolving and we like the life it gives the site.

Mg: What are the criteria for videos to be featured on NA?

JF: They have to be interesting.

Mg: Is there anything you’d like to feature, but can’t find?

JF: Tons of stuff, but at the same time YouTube is literally an ocean of content. We have over 17,000 videos curated in our system, but that’s absolutely nothing in comparison to what is uploaded every hour.

Mg: What’s your most favorite video that’s been featured on Network Awesome so far?

JF: Wow, there’s so many, but it the moment it’s these 3:

Mg: What’s your favorite TV show from when you were a kid?

JF: Ultraman! And amazingly enough – it’s not on YouTube… haha!

A big thanks go to Jason both for putting so much effort into starting Network Awesome, and for taking some time for this interview. I’m looking forward to seeing NA develop.

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.

Video and the power of connection

This is my latest column for Streaming Media Magazine:

These days we all do it. We meet someone new in person or online and then we do a search of his or her name on Google, Facebook, or LinkedIn. Perhaps we want to stay in touch, or maybe we’re interested in learning more about what that person does. But I’m pretty sure that I’m not the only person who is a little disappointed when I don’t find a profile picture. We don’t just want to read about someone; we are naturally drawn to photographs and want to know what someone looks like. It helps us build a connection.

Obviously—at least to us video producers— video amplifies that connection by allowing us to see a person speak and act; it’s more like if we were in the same room together. This is the same reason why videoconferencing and video chatting have become popular technologies among both business users and consumers.

Read the rest at Streaming Media…

Death of the Flip camcorder doesn’t mean camcorders are obsolete

I was certainly surprised today when I learned that Cisco is shutting down its Flip camcorder division. The Flip camcorder has only been with us about four years, and Cisco has owned the company for only two, all the while the Flip has pretty well stood on top as the best selling camcorder in the US. Without a doubt the Flip revolutionized the camcorder industry, providing a very simple to use camera that just plain worked. The success of the Flip was helped along by the mainstreaming of YouTube and computers finally having enough processor horsepower to make light work of editing its compressed MP4 video files.

But the Cisco acquisition of Flip always struck me as a strange marriage, given that Cisco otherwise is a network hardware company whose only other consumer products are Linksys home networking products. While the spread of home broadband helped fuel Flip sales because it finally became practical for the average person to upload and share video, that’s still a weak connection between the two product categories.

Many commentators are declaring that the iPhone and smartphones in general killed the Flip. It’s a seductive argument, but a very shallow one. While Flip sales were down around 16% this past holiday season I don’t think it was sales, per se that motivated Cisco to shut it down. Rather, the Flip is in many ways a victim of its own success.

Prior to the introduction of the Flip there had been a few attempts by electronics makers like Panasonic and Samsung to introduce small flash-memory camcorders which failed to take hold in the market. Sanyo was actually an early success story with its Xacti line of standard def and HD camcorder, though never a runaway success like Flip. As most observers now know, Flip beat all the big guys by making a camcorder that was super simple to use — no extraneous buttons and controls, just one big record button, like an old-school tape recorder.

While Flip caught its competitors by surprise, that first-mover advantage didn’t last very long. Within a year Flip had created its own market segment, challenging Sony and Kodak, in particular, to jump into the palm-sized camcorder market with both feet. Sanyo answered the challenge by reducing the price on its Xacti line while retaining higher-end features like an optical zoom lens and flip-out screen. Even though Flip remained on top, these other manufacturers soon were nipping at its heels.

Flip’s sales may have decline this past holiday season, but at the same time sales of small compact camcorders grew as models proliferated. Sure many of these competing models offer none of the Flip’s precise alchemy of decent picture quality and bone-simple operation, but in a crowded market there’s always rooms for bargain-basement bottom-feeders.

Now, I don’t doubt that the increasingly-credible video recording features of smartphones aren’t having an impact on the camcorder market as a whole. It’s true that much of the time folks don’t want to carry anymore devices than they have to. And so, if their smart phones will record good-enough video, that’s a disincentive for carrying along a separate camcorder. However, by that same logic we should expect the market for digital cameras, especially dSLRs to be declining, which it isn’t.

I can think of dozens of reasons why someone would want to use a Flip or other small camcorder instead of a smart phone to record video. First off, there are places where you don’t want to bring your smartphone and risk it being damaged or lost. And, although iOS and Android are relatively easy to use, they still don’t hold a candle to the Flip’s one-button simplicity. Camcorders like the Flip have also been very popular in schools, where it’s far less risky to hand a ten year-old a $100 camcorder than have her mess around with a smartphone or more expensive device.

Picture and sound quality are still important aspects, even if smartphones have made significant gains in the last year, many offering 720p HD video. For instance, I have an HTC EVO Android smartphone which features an 8 megapixel camera that shoots 720p HD video. The video is pretty good, but still doesn’t measure up to my Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10, which also has a 5x optical zoom and costs less than the smartphone. I also think the Flip and Kodak HD camcorders also offer better video quality than any smartphone I’ve seen, even if the gap is closing fast.

Nevertheless, I can understand Cisco’s position, especially given that it’s really not a consumer electronics company. Keeping up with the market will require a faster product cycle along with a shaving of margins of the sort that Sony and Toshiba are more used to. Simplicity of operation and brand recognition are worth something, but they meant more when there were fewer than a handful of competitors.

I do think that the peak has passed, as it always does when a new product segment is created. Cisco may not be acting rashly in getting out of the inexpensive camcorder business. That does not mean the segment is going away.

The challenge for the manufacturers still making Flip-style camcorders will be to keep the video quality higher than smartphones, without also over complicating their product. The other building competition comes from still digital cameras that offer video close in quality with a simplicity in use that comes close to the Flip-style cams.

I still think that people who are focused on shooting video are going to want camcorders rather than a multifunction device. A video-shooting smartphone is great when you happen upon a video-worthy moment you weren’t planning on. But when you’re intending to shoot video it really helps not to be distracted by twelve other functions, or have your shooting interrupted by a text message or phone call.

The Flip certainly introduced many millions more people to the joy of shooting, editing and sharing digital video, accelerating a trend that started a decade earlier with the first miniDV camcorders. It’s strange to see Flip exit the market so quickly. But just like the loss of Atari didn’t mean the end of video games, there will be Flip-style camcorders long after the death of Flip itself.

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.

How to use manual controls with the Sanyo Xacti camcorders

This is a post I’ve been trying to get done for quite some time now. First I tried to write up instructions on how to use the manual focus, exposure, ISO and white balance controls available on the Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10 camcorder. But it turned into quite a long, tedious experience that was difficult to finish. Then I decided that it would be better to simply make a video demonstrating how to use these controls. This endeavor because easier when I recently got my Sony NEX-5 camcorder which shoots HD video.

Part one of this video demonstrates how to find the manual controls for focus, exposure (aperture and shutter speed), ISO and white balance using the CG10′s menu. Part two of the video–coming shortly–demonstrates how to assign “shortcuts” for these controls so they can be more easily accessed without using the more cumbersome menu.

I can’t emphasize enough how being able to use these manual controls really sets the Xacti camcorders apart from most other inexpensive HD camcorders, especially the popular Flip and Kodak models. The newer Xacti models also have manual controls, so these instructions should work as well for the VPC-CG20, VPC-CG21 and VPC-CG100.

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.