A1 vs. FX7

If you are there, visit also one other page on his blog, its interesting to see all the pages are Sony only. This is a nice Sony site! So brandagnostic is a new word. Interesting to see the comparison though, he is shooting most with the A1 on auto switch.
 
Yes, it seems he's a Sony HC1 owner. I don't know if this means he also can't be brand agnostic but I'd guess the opposite. To be a brand shooter doesn't mean a stock share. His comparision is informative.
 
Review: A1 severely trounces FX7 "Blew it out of the water"

Review: A1 severely trounces FX7 "Blew it out of the water"

This review really pounds on the FX7/V1U http://www.camcorderinfo.com/. The reviewer did not hide his dissatisfaction for many of the aspects of the FX7.

"For $500 more than the FX7, it (A1) is a camcorder with a professional feature set so robust as to place it in another league."


"Unless you are a dyed-in-the-wool Sony devotee, do yourself a favor, shell out the extra $500, and step way up to the XH A1"


"The Canon XH A1 simply blew Sony out of the water"
 
not on picture what counts

not on picture what counts

CanonVideoMan said:
This review really pounds on the FX7/V1U http://www.camcorderinfo.com/. The reviewer did not hide his dissatisfaction for many of the aspects of the FX7.

"For $500 more than the FX7, it (A1) is a camcorder with a professional feature set so robust as to place it in another league."


"Unless you are a dyed-in-the-wool Sony devotee, do yourself a favor, shell out the extra $500, and step way up to the XH A1"


"The Canon XH A1 simply blew Sony out of the water"
Click to expand...

not on picture quality what counts for me
 
Odd, he mentions the neither the FX7 or the FX1 have native 16:9 chip, but I know for a fact that the FX1 shoots 16:9 natively.
 
CanonVideoMan said:
This review really pounds on the FX7/V1U http://www.camcorderinfo.com/. The reviewer did not hide his dissatisfaction for many of the aspects of the FX7.
Click to expand...



"The focus ring measures a 1/2” wide and is placed directly behind the lens. The action is tight, tighter than the Canon XH A1, which makes for better fine adjustments."
 
jade8472 said:
Odd, he mentions the neither the FX7 or the FX1 have native 16:9 chip, but I know for a fact that the FX1 shoots 16:9 natively.
Click to expand...

There is no need to say the FX7 or FX1 or A1 have native 16:9 chips. ALL those prosumer and professional HD and HDV cams do have 16:9 chips.
 
went in B&H and took a look a the canon A1. It looks get and is very well laid out. Alot of the icons and switches remind me of still photography. There are only 2 things i see as problems. I hate the zoom and focus rings. feels very servoist, not snappy like a dvx or fx1. And alot of the footage ive been seeing has alot of CA. Something tells me the fx7 wont be any better but who knows....
 
xray said:
There is no need to say the FX7 or FX1 or A1 have native 16:9 chips. ALL those prosumer and professional HD and HDV cams do have 16:9 chips.
Click to expand...

It's not so much that he didn't mention it, but he actually said that neither cameras have 16:9 chip.
 
"Neither the FX1 nor the FX7 have native 16:9 chips, and therefore must stretch each pixel horizontally. Canon’s XH A1 does offer native 16:9 chips in a 3-CCD array"

Is the reviewer right about the lack of native 16:9 chips in the FX7? It was a pretty harsh review of the FX7. I wonder if Sony cut back their advertising budget at his site and this has adjusted his perception. The FX7/V1U actually do some things pretty well; especially when considering portability, size and weight. However I agree that it is quite overpriced relative to its feature set.
 
You can change the action behavior on the A1 in its menu.

Yes, but the V1 has another big problem now, see the progressive mode discussion in 25P.
 
CanonVideoMan said:
"Neither the FX1 nor the FX7 have native 16:9 chips, and therefore must stretch each pixel horizontally. Canon’s XH A1 does offer native 16:9 chips in a 3-CCD array"

Is the reviewer right about the lack of native 16:9 chips in the FX7?
Click to expand...

The reviewer clearly doesn't understand the concept of non-square pixels. The chips in the FX1 are 16:9, even though the pixel count is not a 16:9 ratio (960x1080). The point of the matter is, the pixels in an FX1 are twice as wide as they are tall. They're wide rectangles, not squares. So the chips are physically 16:9, even though the pixel count is not.

For that matter the XHA1 doesn't use square pixels either, they're also oversquare rectangles.

With the FX7/V1U I'm not really sure exactly how they do it; the chips are also 960x1080, but as they're laid out in a diagonal pattern rather than in a square pattern, I don't know how they've accounted for the nonsquare pixel aspect ratio. Presumably they would also be 16:9, but without seeing more tech specs or pictures of the arrangement, I wouldn't want to speculate on exactly how they go from 960 to 1920. With traditional rectangular layout the spatial offset/pixel shift method is quite easy to grasp, but with the diagonal layout it begs a bit more of the question.
 
xray said:
"The focus ring measures a 1/2” wide and is placed directly behind the lens. The action is tight, tighter than the Canon XH A1, which makes for better fine adjustments."
Click to expand...
By default the Canon's focus ring is lousy for making fine adjustments, but fortunately you can change that, as xray said. Put the ring action on "SLOW" mode and it becomes very usable. Don't know about the Sony yet as I haven't tried it, but a simple menu adjustment would probably have eliminated this line from the review.
 
Just happened by the Fry's in Concord California and noticed that Fry's had both the FX7 and A1 on hand. You really cannot sample video at these displays. However the control layout and sturdiness of the A1 was impressive.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top