I’ve had Steadicam’s Merlin for quite a while now and though it is expensive, it’s a nice tool to get smooth video while moving the camera on your legs. I’d mostly used it with Canon’s HV30 Camcorder, which is a lot smaller and lighter than the Sony NEX VG10 with the 18-200mm kit lens.

In short: it works, nicely!

Sony NEX VG10 Camcorder with Steadicam Merlin

I had to fiddle about till I got balance, and I had this configuration:

• NEX VG10E with 18-200mm kit lens
• Lens set at 18mm
• Standard FV70 battery
• Display flipped out
• Lens hood removed
• Wind muffler attached to microphone
• Eyecup attached.

Change any of this any you’ll need to re-balance the Merlin. With the lens of the NEX VG10 being so heavy, the center of gravity of the camera is way to rear, which is reflected in the position of the camcorder on the Merlin. Using the optional bigger FV100 battery, center of gravity moves forward a bit and will work by just adjusting the stage  forward – no additional weight needed.

Ok, my settings were as follows:

• Caliper extended quite far
• 2 full weights and two half-weighs attached
• Hole H on the stage
• -3 cm offset
• NO mid-weight. I’ve found that removing the mid-weight (shown in the image) gives a better balance and also allowing the camera to be mounted slightly forward on the stage.

Since SONY’s Steadyshot is not quite as good as the regular steadyshot I’ve gotten used to from them, probably due to the large sensor in this camcorder, the Merlin is a very useful device.

With the NEX VG10, the Merlin does become quite heavy for single-hand operation, but I guess my hand will get used to the additional weight in time and will adapt by itself.

Stay tuned for video footage from my first exploits.

P.S. you might notice in the photo above that the hand holding the Merlin is not vertical. This is just a consequence of bending over to pose for the photo; normally the grip is vertical.

My Sony NEX VG10E arrived on Friday.

YAY!

Sony NEX VG10 Camcorder

I had excitedly pre-ordered this first affordable APS-C interchangeable-lens camcorder from SONY and it’s been a long wait till it finally arrived.

What’s In The Box?

The VG-10 arrived in a relatively small box. Apart from the camcorder and the included 18-200mm lens, there was:

• a FV-70 Lithium-Ion battery (the larger FV-100 is available separately at additional cost)
• a battery charger
• an AC adapter to power the camera
• forward and rear lens caps
• USB cable
• a dead-cat-style wind-screen for the microphone
• a lens hood
• a cage for the end of the battery compartment
• a quick-start manual
• a CD-ROM with software and the user-manual
• a voucher with location and keys for downloading and activating SONY’s Vegas video-editing software and a bunch of nice sounds.

My First Impressions

• The camcorder looks and feels nice
• The 18-200 lens looks nice, however operating the zoom is not buttery smooth like on Nikon’s lenses but somewhat stiff and therefore feels cheap. There is NO power zoom on the Sony VG-10, all zooming has to be done manually, more specifically by holding the camcorder’s lens-end with the left hand. The camcorder’s rear end is held up by the right hand in the conventional camcorder strap. Using the VG10 with just the right hand is tiring and feels imbalanced, because the lens is simply too heavy. This takes some getting used to but works fine thereafter.
• The lens moves out considerably while zooming in. Combined with the lack of a power zoom this means that operating the camcorder on a steadicam (I have Tiffen’s Merlin Steadicam which would otherwise be perfect for a machine this size) will be a pain if you need to zoom – you would need to rebalance all the time. NOT convenient.
• Sony forgot to backlight the controls – while operating the camcorder at night, I found it difficult to locate the controls.
• I am a manual freak but this camera is not geared towards manual operation. Ewwwwww! You can adjust exposure compensation, focus, gain, iris (aperture), exposure-time, white balance and shooting mode (P, A, S, M provided) manually, but you first need to hit the corresponding button hidden inside the swivel-out LCD-display, then turn the thumb-wheel to the desired setting, then press the thumb-wheel to confirm. This takes much too long to be really effective in a live shooting situation. It would have been much more effective – even with the supplied controls – to hit the corresponding button repeatedly till the desired setting was reached – e.g. switch from auto to manual focus and back just by hitting the button twice.
• The focus ring, while present, does not allow for manual override, e.g. focusing in auto, then turning the ring for manual focus override. Or being in manual focus and pressing the single photo shot button for a back-button-focus style override is not possible.
• You can swivel the LCD-display only a maximum of 90° upwards and downwards, it’s not possible to go 180° to be able to flip it on it’s back to show the monitor to the subject being shot.
• Auto-focus is sluggish, especially when light is low. But even in daylight it’s not comparable to a conventional modern camcorder.
• There’s a “RECORDING” delay of around 4 seconds after pressing the record-button to end a recording, which is somewhat irritating. (I used a class 4 64GB SD-Card, so this delay may – or may not – be shorter with a faster card). Also, commencing a recording has a delay of around 1 second.
• No macro-mode with the kit lens. You’ll need the separate 30mm lens for this, for example.

What I Liked

• Video quality is nice
• Handling is generally nice – as long as you don’t want to use the camera in manual mode
• The camcorder is light and almost frighteningly small: If you remove the lens and subtract the battery compartment at the rear, the body is less than 7.5 cm deep!
• The large rubber eye-cup is great for viewfinder shooters
• The battery compartment can hold the optional larger FV-100 battery without it jutting out from the rear of the VG10.
• You can directly copy the video files from the SD card to the computer (SDXC cards above 32GB might need the exFAT driver to work)
• You can directly play the AVCHD video files using the free VLC video player and also directly import them into Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.
• You can use the camcorder well for floor level shooting by holding it by it’s top handle and using either the viewfinder tilted upwards (nice) or the display to monitor the frame.

Connectors

I found the following connectors on the VG10:

• HDMI
• USB (yes, you can transfer both Video and stills over USB to the computer)
• Microphone
• Headphone
• Power-in

Photo Mode

You can take still photographs with the VG10, with the restriction of no mixed stills and movie shooting: You need to press the mode button at the rear of the camcorder to set to stills or video mode. The camera automatically reverts back to video mode on power-on.

Pressing the dedicated PHOTO button causes the camera to release, pressing it in halfway auto-focuses (with an optional beep). The release is not silent but somewhat reminiscent to a Polaroid release click. In repeat-shooting mode this can sound somewhat intimidating.

You can set the focus-point via menu. However this a far cry from focus-point control on a DSLR.

You can set single-shot, or continuous shooting modes. The continuous mode is overly sensitive, so you’ll probably end up shooting several frames when you just wanted one.

To Sum Things Up

• This is not a pro-level camcorder by any means, being mostly unusable in rapidly changing situations like weddings.  Too much menu vs. button operation and slow auto-focus are the main show-stoppers. Build quality similarly does not conform to professional standards.
• It’s not a camcorder for manual shooters – the handling over multiple, not easily accessible buttons, menus and the thumb-wheel are much too fidgety.
• The lack of power zoom sucks initially but is fine once you get used to pulling the zoom manually.
• The battery charger is very slow. For serious work you’ll need to buy the AC-VQV10 charger.

I have ordered a third-party NEX-to-Nikon lens adapter so I’m curious to see what my crop of Nikon lenses do to the VG10. This and more hands-on experience with raw footage and photos will be the subject of one of my next posts.