Sony's highly anticipated new S35 sensor camcorder, the VG20, appears to be intentionally crippled.
Advertised as having the ability to 'Control how the camera processes your images with six finishing styles: Standard, Vivid, Portrait, Landscape, Sunset and B&W. You can even fine-tune contrast, saturation, and sharpness to your personal taste," multiple early adapters are now reporting that:
There are no "creative controls" (color, sharpness, etc.)
There are no shooting profiles (vivid, twilight, etc.)
There are not 8 WB settings, only 4 (auto, sunlight, incandescent, custom)
Instead there appears to be only a setting called "cinematone" and the default setting. The cinematone setting is advertised as being a flat setting, but users are reporting that it instead seems to be an additive process - something akin to a poor filter from a editing program. Certainly the early footage using that preset looks worse then the default.
And to be clear, the missing features have been listed as being on the camera for months now. More to the point, they are as of this posting still advertised as being on the camera on Sony's official website, as well as authorized vendors like B&H:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/818266-REG/Sony_NEXVG20_NEX_VG20_Interchangeable_Lens_HD.html
http://www.live.sonyus.webcollage.n...=&MarkupType=document&PresentationFormat=html
Not only does this appear to be obvious false advertising, it's an absolutely idiotic move on Sony's part - the NEX 5n - which uses the same sensor as the VG20 - does have CC/sharpening control, despite costing 3X less then the VG20.
Why Sony would do this is obvious - they want to protect the FS100. But why they think that these cameras appeal to the same group of buyers is beyond me. They're totally different cameras aimed at totally different sets of users - the FS100 is clearly a gigantic step above the VG20, crippled or not. Very few pros would walk onto a set with a camera that only had a mini-HDMI out and no XLR inputs. It was tolerated for while for DSLRs, because they had the larger chip-sets. Now with the AF100/FS100, F3, that's not true anymore.
Simply put, these cameras are already aimed at a totally different group of buyers. If anything, you'd expect FS100 owners to pick up a VG20 as a B cam - but only if they could at least sort of match the color scheme. I could perhaps see the cheaper 5n being cripple, but not the VG20.
There's already a full discussion of this over at DVinfo. Here's a link to a youtube video where Chris Barcellos tries in vane to find the missing features:
http://www.youtube.com/user/CBarcellos#p/a/u/1/fEq6Mi9vRhM
In any case, anyone interested in this camera beware - it doesn't come as advertised.
Advertised as having the ability to 'Control how the camera processes your images with six finishing styles: Standard, Vivid, Portrait, Landscape, Sunset and B&W. You can even fine-tune contrast, saturation, and sharpness to your personal taste," multiple early adapters are now reporting that:
There are no "creative controls" (color, sharpness, etc.)
There are no shooting profiles (vivid, twilight, etc.)
There are not 8 WB settings, only 4 (auto, sunlight, incandescent, custom)
Instead there appears to be only a setting called "cinematone" and the default setting. The cinematone setting is advertised as being a flat setting, but users are reporting that it instead seems to be an additive process - something akin to a poor filter from a editing program. Certainly the early footage using that preset looks worse then the default.
And to be clear, the missing features have been listed as being on the camera for months now. More to the point, they are as of this posting still advertised as being on the camera on Sony's official website, as well as authorized vendors like B&H:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/818266-REG/Sony_NEXVG20_NEX_VG20_Interchangeable_Lens_HD.html
http://www.live.sonyus.webcollage.n...=&MarkupType=document&PresentationFormat=html
Not only does this appear to be obvious false advertising, it's an absolutely idiotic move on Sony's part - the NEX 5n - which uses the same sensor as the VG20 - does have CC/sharpening control, despite costing 3X less then the VG20.
Why Sony would do this is obvious - they want to protect the FS100. But why they think that these cameras appeal to the same group of buyers is beyond me. They're totally different cameras aimed at totally different sets of users - the FS100 is clearly a gigantic step above the VG20, crippled or not. Very few pros would walk onto a set with a camera that only had a mini-HDMI out and no XLR inputs. It was tolerated for while for DSLRs, because they had the larger chip-sets. Now with the AF100/FS100, F3, that's not true anymore.
Simply put, these cameras are already aimed at a totally different group of buyers. If anything, you'd expect FS100 owners to pick up a VG20 as a B cam - but only if they could at least sort of match the color scheme. I could perhaps see the cheaper 5n being cripple, but not the VG20.
There's already a full discussion of this over at DVinfo. Here's a link to a youtube video where Chris Barcellos tries in vane to find the missing features:
http://www.youtube.com/user/CBarcellos#p/a/u/1/fEq6Mi9vRhM
In any case, anyone interested in this camera beware - it doesn't come as advertised.
Last edited: