By site editor Dan Chung
Peter Prevec has very kindly shared some of his thoughts about the Sony NEX-FS700 with us. He was one of several shooters across Europe who have had an early hands on with the camera and features in the Sony official promo video.
This is what he had to say:
“For the most part handling the NEX-FS700 is the same as the FS100. I got quite used to that camera – if it had some quirks I didn’t notice them. You feel more secure with the new camera than the slightly plasticky FS100 – less afraid that something might happen to it as it is built more ruggedly. The new handle is well built and a great addition – now you can actually hold the camera properly with the handle and do some low angle shots.
Size wise the back part of the body is the about same as the FS100 but the front end is beefier – this is where the lens mount and the neutral density filters are. Having built in NDs is great – especially if you have ‘dumb’ (non-electronic) Canon EOS lens adapters and if you need to control exposure quickly. When doing drama I still find it easier to control with variable NDs – as you can precisely dial in the exposure.
Controlling the Super Slow Motion mode is a breeze. You have a button on the body which selects between regular frame rate, S&Q (slow and quick) from 1 to 50fps (or 60fps depends on the settings) and Super Slow Motion. I only shot at full 1080P resolution so I didn’t test beyond 240fps. Reduced resolution didn’t interest me. You can record 8 seconds at 240fps and 9.5 second at 200fps (at 50Hz setting) and you end up with 1 minute and 15 seconds of super slow motion footage. You can set the trigger to be at the start, middle or at the end of action. I choose end trigger as you can wait for action to happen. You don’t need to expect it. When triggered the camera starts to write from the buffer to the SD card and plays fact the footage at slow motion. This takes around 30 seconds (I never timed it so I don’t know exactly) during which time you cannot record more footage. You can check what you filmed though. You can also cancel the save operation if you feel that better action will happen and start again. If you cancel the operation the file ends where you pressed cancel and it doesn’t delete the whole file.”
You can read a more detailed breakdown of how he shot the footage over on his blog http://blog.domisljije.si/2012/04/05/fs700-footage-specs/. Peter’s main blog page is http://toomuchimagination.com/.
