Sony camcorders have not been my fix like VAIO computers have been, but I have been paying attention to its development throughout several years. So far I have had only 3 Sony camcorders and the usual reasons for me to obtain one were 1. style and design 2. ease of use 3. something really unique that would differentiate it from any other products in its line. Those are my 3 main points I adhere to when I purchase pretty much any Sony product. My first camcorder was a Sony DCR-IP220 – network camcorder, that utilized MicroMV tapes, had bluetooth built in, as well as ability to be connected to the Internet, upload pictures and video to an online service (SoNet), check email. Oh yea, almost forgot to mention, it was the first camcorder to shoot 2 megapixel pictures! Back then (in 1999) it was huge and I thought my $2000 camcorder was it. Later on I have upgraded to an HD camcorder DCR-CX10 – very light and capable of recording to Memory Sticks directly, no need to worry about internal hard drive failures.
With recent NEX series introduction, I took some time to see how NEX-3/5 is being adopted by consumers, learn to see if Sony would continue its development through firmware upgrades (as Sony can be notorious for introducing a topnotch product and never improve it, even though the manual for it would state that “your Sony product is firmware upgradable for new features and improvements”). The idea of interchangeable lens really attracted my attention, as I got tired of regular CyberShot cameras and desired to create more professional looking shots as I review more and more Sony products. So I really wanted to have a compact DSLR camera that would look beautiful in public as I cannot stand the looks of real DSLR camera bodies. So NEX pretty much was the answer, and I just needed to figure out which model to go with, as the only big difference between the two is video shooting: NEX-3 does it in MPEG4 and NEX-5 ups it to AVCHD format. It’d be all great and easy to decide for me, but Sony put a recording time limit, kindly reminding a consumer that this is a DSLR camera to take pictures not long videos.
I ended up picking up NEX-3 in Red and with the introduction of NEX-VG10, it sorts of brought everything together for me. All in all I ended up with two products that can share its lenses and create amazing content, even shoot 3D panoramic pictures!
Check out pictures below and video is coming soon as well.
