I am in the market for a video camera for filming hunts for myself, friends and family, and possibly even some weddings. I've set my budget around the $2000 range. Two cameras that really intrigue me are the Sony AX100 and the Canon XA20. Now I have experience with a XA10 before and I liked what it had to offer, but I would just go for a little more zoom in the xa20. I like the Canon XA 20 because of the 2 xlr ports and I know the low light is fairly decent. But the more and more I read about this 4K Sony AX100, keeps making my decision to pull the trigger on a camera tough. A lot of my personal hunts will be self filmed so i like the ability to zoom in 4x more in post and still maintain a 1080 or lower quality. with a 1" sensor vs a 1/3" image quality has to be a little better right? I haven't seen or heard what it can do in low light, and the knock that is slightly turning me away is its lack of xlr ports, but I can always find an xlr adapter,right? Any suggestions or information that you may have, or any other camera in my price range I should take a look at. I'm all ears....
The XA20 is a great camera. It has great footage and from all accounts it does good in low light conditions. The AX100 seems to be a really nice consumer 4K camera, but it lacks many of the "pro" features like the XLR audio. You know with the XA20 you will be stuck with 1080p where the AX100 give you 4K, although it's not nearly a strong a 4K codec as what the more pro level Sony's are offering. If you are willing to stretch your budget just a little, and have some patience, I think you would be very interested in the brand new(not even launched) Sony PXW-X70. Right now it is being priced at $2299, but I could see it dropping a little be more shortly after the launch. I feel like this camera is aimed to take the market share away from the XA20. This is a 1080P camera, with a promised 4K upgrade in the first part of 2015. I believe the upgrade will be a charge, but it allows you to offset the cost of going 4K right off the bat, but the option to add it at any point in the future. It is truly a pro camera that Sony has positioned in their XDCAM line of profession broadcast video camcorders. It will be using the XAVC codec which supports up to 50 Mbps. That's quite a bit higher than the 28 Mbps that AVCHD supports on the XA20. Also the X70 is on a 4K sensor, even if you are recording in 1080, that has to help in image quality. From my understanding, these cameras should be available for purchase by sometime in September. That's not really the best time for us hunters, but I have decided to wait it out for this camera. I just don't feel like I'm settling on this one, it checks pretty much every box I was looking for. Something no other camera on the market could do to this point. https://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/micro-xdcam/cat-supporttraining/product-PXWX70/
I don't have an XA20, but I have a couple friends that do. They are a very nice camera. One thing I just learned about the X70 is that they didn't include the tradition lanc remote option. They have their own style remote input they call the AVR. That kinda pisses me off a little bit. Not a deal breaker because you can still get a wired remote, just kinda irritating. Sony offers a remote that will do on/off record and zoom, but not focus. I guess since it has touch focus, that's not a huge deal, but I would have liked to have seen the traditional lanc setup.
I did review this but I dont want to get to the max of my budget and then in the beginning of the year find out that the upgrade cost $1000+, or whatever it is for the 4K upgrade. I would be able to hold tight for a little bit to wait, if the 4K upgrade isnt going to be outrageous.
Estimates have been around $500. I'm guessing it will be a little less due to the price point on this camera Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk
Welcome to the site. I have looked at 5 different camcorders and I have decided on the XA20 being my next camcorder. The 64Gig Internal RAM and Low light performance sold me. The arm with the audio and video attachments/adjustments give you the ability to add a shotgun mic and light without needing any additional boots. They are awesome and if I don't get another one for years to come, I will be happy with it.
You don't need 4k, and if you don't own a bear of a computer, you will have a very hard time editing it. I have an amazingly fast computer, and it still chugs when I'm editing 4k footage. Plus, 80% the time, I end up shrinking it down. 4k right now is slightly gimmicky, and almost all of the people viewing your videos won't be able to properly display that resolution. My point is that you shouldn't let 4k be the deciding factor in your purchase. Check the low light abilities of the AX20, and compare them to the AX100.
I agree with most of this. I agree that you will most likely always be down converting, but there are benefits to 4K aside from 4K output. For self filming, one of the greatest advantages of filming in 4K is that you can film at a wider angle so you be more sure that you are getting the shot in frame. Then in post when you are down converting you can crop into just that area you need. As a self filmer myself, that's a huge selling point to the 4K style of shooting. If my choices were between the XA20 and the AX100, I'd still get the XA20 because it's a pro camcorder. Audio is a very important part of video and the XA20 gives you professional options without having to try and make due.
FYI, it looks like Sony dropped the price on the AX100 to $1799. I had a feeling this was going to happen with the announcement of the X70. The price was just too close for all the added features on the X70.
The XA20 does NOT have internal memory. That feature was in the XA10, but did not migrate over to the XA20/XA25 cameras. The XA20 has dual SD card slots and will record to both cards at the same time for an instant back up, or it will continue a recording from Card A to Card B if you want it to. It does very well in low light for hunting. It also has IR recording. I have been using an XA20 since August of 2013. If you have any questions, let me know.
Skywalker mentioned it but the reason I like the 4K is because of everything that you can do in post. I would assume that all of the videos that i put out will be exported at 1080p or less but I like the option of having to much info in my footage than not enough. I am now possibly thinking about holding out and taking a closer look at the x70 and comparing it's lowlight capabilities, Dont get me wrong the XA20's are a solid cameras and still in the running but I like the option of being able to have access to an upgrade without upgrading to a whole new camera system. I am going to try and find a few more side by side video quality comparisions. And see how well the low light does. MistaWondaBread, the computer I am currently running now is an iMac 3.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz 8GB (two 4GB) memory 1TB hard drive1 NVIDIA GeForce GT 755M with 1GB video memory. Do you think this is beefy enough?
That is correct. The more info that you record the more you can do with it and the better your finished product at say 720 even will be. Let's face it, if you are watching a youtube video on your computer screen, 720 is more than sufficient. Most of us cannot see the difference between 720 and 1080, let alone 4k. Even your network broadcast TV for the most part is 720. But, if you record in 1080 or even 4k you can really make 720 look incredible. I often record in 1080 but do my production work in 720. The result is smaller production file sizes and incredible looking footage. It really shines when you have to do a post production zoom in on a subject. Your image will stay crisp and clear. I'm not sold yet on 4k simply because I think it is such a giant leap forward in resolution in regard to what monitor and TV equipment is out there in general use. Also the computing power for true 4k editing is pretty big and I'm not ready for more PC/software upgrades in my life right now. I don't think that 4k is going to take over the video world overnight like the move from SD to HD did, but it does look like it is in the future. I love my XA20, but if I was in the market for a new camera right now I'd look real hard at the new Sony. At the end of the day though, both cameras will do everything and more than what the vast majority of us require for video work.
I should clarify this. After doing some more research, it looks like Lanc controls are available on the X70, they just don't use the standard 2.5mm Lanc port. They use a newer style A/V port that is cable of doing other functions as well as Lanc. It looks like there are some short adapter cables that will convert from the A/V R style to a female 2.5mm pin. That will allow you to use whatever Lanc remote you want. Sony LANC Adapter Cable - AV/R Pro LANC 10 pin Adapter Cable 2.5 mm to D connector Video Audio
It should be, I have friends who have iMacs and they can handle 4k footage playback, but when we need to do more in depth stuff, we generally bring it over to one of our editing PC's (such as text effects, 3d rending and such). If your plan is to crop and reduce size, you should have no problem. To give you an idea, I'm running 32gb of ram, a Geforce GTX 760, two 256GB SSD, and an Intel i7, plus 4TB for storage. The average file size for an hour of 4k footage is about 150 gigs, depending on codec and the type of file system. I can play back 4k no problem, but rendering is a bear, and takes much longer than I would like. So with 10 hours of footage (which may seem like a lot, but it's not), your hard drive would be more than full. If you were to go the 4k route, and wanted to keep your old footage, I'd opt for an external source to do so. All the points made regarding 4k are spot on, but I'm with DEC on the fact that while 4k has some advantages, I don't see any rush to upgrade.
I agree with all these points. That's why I would choose the XA20 over the AX100, but will end up picking the X70 over the XA20. I don't need 4K, but I also don't want to get stuck in the same delima I was in when we shifted from tape to solid state memory. I kinda took a bath on my XHA1s since most people wanted to get away from tape. I see the same possible issues with HD to 4K. Maybe not to the same extent, but at least the X70 is somewhat future proof to any type of transition to 4K that might happen. It allows you to buy at an HD price, and offset the costs of 4K until a later date.
Thanks for sharing that. I saw 64Gig memory and thought it was internal. Best price I have seen is $1,999 on Amazon. Where did you buy yours?
B&H is where I buy most everything and I am pretty sure that is where I bought my XA20. It was a year ago, the camera had only been on the market 4-6 weeks, so I payed pretty much list price at the time. I don't recall exactly what that was, but it was in the $2200-$2300 range I am thinking. They have come down a couple hundred since then. Regardless of the price it is a great camera.
