The Sony FX30

For anyone interested I picked up one of these yesterday for videography. In principle, you can take photos with it (I haven't tried yet) but only single-shot, with or without timer.

The first thing is these are solid cameras- it has a frame that means a cage isn't always necessary and the rear of the body, accommodates fans for cooling. Solid means suprisingly heavy for its size.

As it is a Sony Cinema Line Camera and not an Alpha camera, there isn't a seamless transfer of skills. It took a while to figure out (gulp) that Iris means Aperture. Oh the time I wasted looking for the aperture control function

Selling points are that it includes human, animal and bird eye detection, the fans help avoid overheating, it has both S-Log 3 and the latest Sony Cinetone, and its much cheaper than the FX3 or A7Siii (the later can be a useful stills camera however).

Gave it a short spin this afternoon and can confirm that Loxia lenses also make great video lenses. You can do silent rack focus nicely, and it captures a nice image.

Has anyone else got one, or is thinking of getting one?

I guess the Sony ZV-E10 is Sony's first attempt at an APS-C video hybrid video camera, so perhaps something with the new sensor could make its way into the next A6xxx camera. The ZV-E10 really has too many limitations to be a decent video camera.

I'm finding there are parallels to still-photography. Just as you don't by your first camera and telephoto lens, and go wandering in nature taking National Geographic photos, you don't start recording award-winning films first time either. There are some elements such as lighting and composition that carry over from stills photography however.

But I think you also need to pre-visualise and script things a lot more with video. At least, that's my experience.

And much like photographers being told to take photos in raw format, log-formats where the footage is colour-graded later in software is recommended. We had our choice between say Lightroom, Silkypix, DxO and CaptureOne. In videography the choice for the serious sorts are Adobe Premiere, DaVinci and FinalCut Pro.

Albeit iMovie and Adobe Premiere Rush are still pretty good for the less ambitious among us.






Edited by Wētāpunga - 21 January 2023 at 01:34

The ZV-E10 is the latest model in the A5100/A5000/NEX-3N range.All of those lacked viewfinders, but had zoom rockers and selfie screens.

It looks like there isn't a lot of interest in the Sony Fx30 yet

I'd wondered, whether its compact size and familiar 'camera layout' would appeal to anyone wanting to do more serious videography from a stills-photography background.

The review is pretty good and in line with what I expected. Don't expect it to have the dynamic range and top-end functionality of a camera costing about twice as much, but it does a lot of what the full-frame alternatives do, and sometimes better.

One advantage of the camera design is I can pop it into a holster bag (for cameras) and similar. So I don't need any new bags

I haven't got a motorised gimbal so I was interested in the review's observation it's light enough to use on one of those easily.

I'm doing some recording (for money!) tomorrow, and this could be up to 4 hours. So I like knowing I have both the unrestricted recording times (no 29 minute limit) and fans to prevent overheating. I like that the way you can set your own manual white balance is the same as the alpha cameras.

I can mount a small rig top handle to it (not centred unfortunately, but I'll be shooting on a tripod). And I've attached a Small rig battery plate on the battery side, so I can use a dummy battery and a larger Sony L-series battery for more juice.

So, with just that and no cage, I can mount a Sennheiser MKE600 microphone, connect that to a Zoom H5 external recorder (and feed that also into the camera) and an external monitor.

I think the reviews conclusion is about right- this is a video camera for people who want to do some serious videography but balk at the cost of say an FX3 or a7Siii. And it sits in that spot very well.

Missed the Auckland floods. Hang in there, sounds serious!

Ngā mihi Addy and Howard,

We've never had a storm that's dropped so much water over such a large area before. Auckland airport for instance, which you may have seen flooded pictures of, is 28km to my south.

And it's not quite over yet, the storm is returning. Winds are picking up and it's timed to hit again in about an hour. The emergency broadcast was sent to all our phones. We however, seem to be in a good spot- higher than the valley to just south of us where 2 people drowned, and the basin to our north.