Let's start with what is positive:
- The image quality is virtually breathtaking: anything to do with the videos that I could do with my old Sony HDR-HC1E (excellent, but now out of use) and my boxes (Nikon D800 or this little wonder of Panasonic TZ10)
- Sound quality is equally impressive
- The size, the weight and the relative discretion
From there, one may wonder what to expect better .... but now, there are some shortcomings:
- Manual zoom: I am very familiar picture, of course (for concerts, I mainly use the Nikon D3 and D800 and sometimes D3100, with bright optics: 17-35, 24-70 and 70 -200, all opening up to f / 2.8). But when you have to shoot a whole concert, it quickly becomes very painful not to have electrical control video.
- Insufficient brightness: optics supplied with this camera (18-200 is equivalent to roughly a 28-300 in 35mm) and finally dark enough, and we must be satisfied to the best of "film" in maximum 25p booster between six and 30 dB for an image not too dark.
- The boost, precisely, is by 3 dB increments: default very big for me because the "jumps" 3dB see themselves tremendously in the image, it's ugly.
- Incidentally, the little knob that adjusts the boost is all the way down and on the front of the camera, and therefore in contact with the tripod head (I use a Manfrotto 503HDV head home, but the problem will be the same on almost all tripods I think). So, access to this setting is difficult, if not difficult, it is necessary to have time to anticipate to position the tip of the index finger pulp, and especially not the wrong direction, because otherwise there will be a jump visible from -3dB then another even more visible to + 6dB .....
- Quite incidentally, the Logging long files (> 4 GB) must go through the owner of Sony software PMB, which is certainly free but requires connection of the camera to the computer to be activated: therefore no way to give his card to a client to dérushe itself, it can not install the app.
- Finally, interchangeable lenses, it is, but hey, with a 18-200 (or 28-300), we did not really need much more, it's a bit pointless so.
In total therefore, THANK Amazon for allowing me to test this camera, but I just return it before 30 days period (refunded within 48 hours!): What made me decide not to keep it, it is especially the lack of power zoom, insufficient clarity of purpose, and especially Bosst jump 3dB unbearable to the image. It would be so simple to make a progression dB per dB ...
I just got her replacement, a Panasonic AG-AC160 AEJ. Definitely more expensive, but already tested and none of these faults, full of qualities and more, only the sound is not quite up to the NEX-VG20EH.
