New Cameras

I'm a couple of days slow on this but there have been a load of new DSLRs announced by Sony, Nikon and Canon. I didn't post anything on them straight away, partly because I've been busy, but also because I've been a little underwhelmed by all of them. 

First up are the Sony translucent mirror A55 and A33. It was all sounding very good with a good price point, tilty screen, autofocus etc until they revealed the cameras record 1080i. Eugh. Sony seem to have a bizarre obsession with 1080i that is not shared by anyone else in the filmmaking community. First they ruined the very promising looking NEX10 with it, now these cameras as well. Please stop doing this Sony!

Next up is the Nikon D3100. Again all looking very promising with a cheap price, autofocus and 1080p h264 recording. Then we find out it doesn't have manual controls for video. Frustrating! All the problems with these cameras are simple software issues. This is however a step in the right direction for Nikon codec wise and we should expect to see their higher end models adopt 1080p in the nearish future.

Lastly is the Canon 60D. Actually not a bad offering (certainly the best of the bunch) but I think everybody got a bit carried away hoping for a new improved codec. The 60D sits right in between the 550d and 7d in terms of features, build quality and price. We should expect video quality to match that of said cameras, but with the nice bonus of manual audio control (please could we get that on the 550d and 7d Canon) and most importantly a rotating flip out screen. Low angle and high angle stuff just got a lot easier. I'm not sure if its a big enough improvement to tempt me into getting one, but for people looking into getting either a 550d or a 7d it's certainly going to be a real contender.

To me it seems like the manufactures are getting the hardware right and then messing up the firmware. I can't quite figure out why either, if they made the best video mode then lots and lots of people would buy their cameras. That doesn't sound like too complicated of a business strategy to me.