I was working for Sony again this year at NAB and one of the cameras that I was assigned to demonstrate was the new PXW-Z450. What makes this camera unique is that it is the industry's first traditional 2/3", shoulder-mount, ENG (Electronic News Gathering) camcorder. The camera features a standard B4 lens mount, 4 channels of audio, T/C in and out, several XAVC-I 10-bit codecs, and it captures 4K UHD at up to 60 frames per second. At the conclusion of NAB Sony asked me if I wanted to take the camera with me to do some "real" shooting out in the field. I was already in the middle of a four week road trip shooting nature/wildlife stock footage with my PMW-F55, so I jumped at the chance to test drive the Z450. There are many things about the F55 (such as the 16-bit RAW recorder and S-LOG) that are missing on the Z450, but the prospect of going back to a 2/3" ENG lens was too hard to resist. The folks at Fujinon were kind enough to lend me one of their excellent HA19x7.4 BERD-S6 lenses for the trip. Technically Fujinon classifies this as an "HD" lens but I thought it performed very well on the 4K Sony camcorder.
So this video is a 4 minute demo reel of the footage I shot over the course of the trip. I shot about 8 hours of raw footage and have culled it down to about two hours of footage (550 shots) that I think is worthy as submission for stock footage. I visited Red Rocks Conservation Area; Valley of Fire State Park; Zion National Park; Bryce Canyon National Park; Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge; Grand Teton National Park; Yellowstone; Niagara Falls; and few other stops along the way. I only had a day or two to spend in each location so I just had to accept whatever weather, wildlife, etc. I was given . . . and then move on.
I think the camera and lens performed very well and it was a nice change of pace to be working again with a 19x ENG-style lens. Since I work alone it was great not to have to swap lenses all the time -- as I do with my F55 -- and the huge focal length range of the Fujinon lens allowed me to get everything from extreme close-ups to wide shots effortlessly.
Camera: Sony PXW-Z450
Lens: Fujinon 19x7.4 BERD-S6
Tripod: O'Connor 1030D
Codec: 4K XAVC-I @ 60 fps -- converted to 29.97 in post.
Gamma: Hypergamma
Graded with DaVinci Resolve 12.5
Edited with Adobe Premiere CC
So this video is a 4 minute demo reel of the footage I shot over the course of the trip. I shot about 8 hours of raw footage and have culled it down to about two hours of footage (550 shots) that I think is worthy as submission for stock footage. I visited Red Rocks Conservation Area; Valley of Fire State Park; Zion National Park; Bryce Canyon National Park; Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge; Grand Teton National Park; Yellowstone; Niagara Falls; and few other stops along the way. I only had a day or two to spend in each location so I just had to accept whatever weather, wildlife, etc. I was given . . . and then move on.
I think the camera and lens performed very well and it was a nice change of pace to be working again with a 19x ENG-style lens. Since I work alone it was great not to have to swap lenses all the time -- as I do with my F55 -- and the huge focal length range of the Fujinon lens allowed me to get everything from extreme close-ups to wide shots effortlessly.
Camera: Sony PXW-Z450
Lens: Fujinon 19x7.4 BERD-S6
Tripod: O'Connor 1030D
Codec: 4K XAVC-I @ 60 fps -- converted to 29.97 in post.
Gamma: Hypergamma
Graded with DaVinci Resolve 12.5
Edited with Adobe Premiere CC
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