Sony HXR-NX30 Palm Size NXCAM HD Camcorder with Projector & 96GB HDD

I sometimes shoot high-end videos for my company with dSLRs to get beautiful, shallow depth of field, but I bought this mostly for my family. I have 10 grandkids under the age of 7 and you can't follow them around with a dSLR and catch all the action without being out of focus and shaky. To my surprise, the footage looks so good from this camcorder I can use it for certain commercial footage too.

Its #1 feature is the floating lens. It's so freaky to look at the lens while moving the camera back and forth and see how it absorbs the shake more than any camcorder ever has that I know of, by far. Where the floating lens is most amazing is when you zoom long and you're trying to hold steady but your shaky hands can't quite get it still enough. They can now. It has a 17x zoom, so long is really long.

What I expected is it would provide a look like a Steadicam does. Unfortunately, it's not really that and it took me awhile to understand why. For one thing, it's so light that it's easy to rotate it right or left as you're walking or running with it and it's hanging down by the handle. A steadicam doesn't roll right or left easily because it has a long vertical axis. The floating lens doesn't prevent that. Also, since it's so light, it's easy to move it up and down, side to side, and the floating lens only partially helps that. It's the shake when zoomed in and you're holding it fairly still but the lens is so long that it normally would make it all shaky where it seriously smooths out the shake. In other words, actually moving it sideways is not where the floating lens helps so much; it's when you rotate it left and right quickly that it does.

Since the sensor is small, you don't get shallow depth of field like you do in a dSLR, but for run 'n gun chasing children, doing documentaries, shooting action, etc., when you want things in focus and sharp, it's seriously good at that. It's surprisingly good at low light but not like a Canon 5d MKII or MKIII. The sound is awesome. It's really simple to use and the white balance, auto exposure and auto focus are amazing. I can't understand how they made it so great with so small a unit.

The only annoyance for me is getting the video off the internal memory is a pain. I had to use that funky Sony cable that it comes with that I lost, and hook it to an external drive formated with a FAT file system. I finally figured it out, but I use a Mac and it was such a pain I ended up just using memory cards. I'm told you can import into Final Cut X, but I couldn't even get it to recognize my MacBook Pro Retina.

A feature that seemed like pure gimmick to me is the projector. You can project onto a wall or car or something what you just shot. Oh my gosh. My kids and friends are addicted to that. I would sometimes shoot amazing footage on a Disneyland ride because it smooths out the shakes so well, then entertain everyone in the line by projecting the footage.

A month after buying it and shooting nonstop for two straight weeks with it, I'm still in awe of how good it is. I'm usually a very tough critic of camcorders because this is the first one I've really loved after having owned and sold 8 of them.

I bought this camera for my business and with new technology very skeptical when cameras go compact. I took a chance and bought it with very few reviews. Using 3-CCD cameras this little had many of my peers had doubts this would do anything but professional filming. When it finally arrived, I had them look over the controls, the touch screen, the options, settings. They were all impressed with this little package from a cosmetic view and economically felt really nice to handle. On my first shoot, I had to get used to the different locations of the buttons and focus knob. I found focusing very easy and used a HDMI external monitor. I also used a couple wired Lav's for my piece and found all the controls as easy to use as the bigger models. The biggest surprise was the low light quality and setting the camera to low lux on, it picked up colors that my other cameras would not. In a small room with a 80watt bulb, it did a terrific job. The floating lens is also a fantastic feature of this camera and the light weight meant I could maneuver it much easier in tight areas.

After the shoot, it was fun to project the video to my client. They were surprised as I was to have this feature and the quality of the built in 24mp camera pics really made a big impression. I found this camera identical to its Sony HDR-XR520V with a smaller internal memory (compared to 240gb), has the same internal GPS but without maps, has a mechanical floating lens, bigger capacity battery and added the dual XLR handle. The better processor with a 24mp camera is amazing. The pictures are crisp and saturated very nice. The extra L.E.D fill light/flash is also a bonus. Overall, this is a great camera and 1/2 the cost of 3-CCD that beats our current camera in capturing low light situations and the useable bells and whistles make it a perfect small business pro equipment must have.

Cons: Using the eye piece that small is unrealistically unusable. They could of knocked off another $25 to keep that off the camera and leave the LCD. The touch screen feels old and outdated compared to my smart phone. The lens hood lock and release is a joke. Otherwise, the external mic and built-in mics are very good. Because I have large hands, I found slipping it into the handle sleeve a bit cumbersome so I bought a threaded pistol grip that worked quite well. I will be buying a couple more.

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This is a really great camcorder. It is the camcorder with the built in steady cam. I've noticed this: you can film under fluorescent lights with camera set in auto white balance, and the colors will turn out PERFECTLY. Never seen anything like this before. This is really a camera with a built in steadycam. If you've ever tried to use a steadycam, you'll know how difficult they are to balance and operate. Not with this camera. Very difficult not to get a steady shot every time. Steady walking, steady everything.

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I am a motion graphics designer and bought this camera for graphic uses. It's small, has great features, and is easy enough to use by a non-professional videographer. Works great with my Mac, the camera is recognized and I can just drag the files to my computer. The files import easily into After Effects which is my app of choice.

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