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Thanks to Sony Europe I have been loaned a new Sony HVR-Z7E to try out for a week.

I’ve been wanting to take a Z7 out for a spin for a while, as firstly I am on the look out for a new camera and secondly I’m sure on a future TV job I’ll be handed a rented Z7 or a Z5 to go out and make some TV.  

Out of the box here are my first 3 reactions:

1. The lens is great, it comes with 12X zoom, 4.4-52.8mm (equivalent to 34-384mm in 35mm photography terms), not only is it interchangeable, it has an iris ring (I never liked the fiddly iris control on the Z1)  and a lever to crash zoom. As I mainly do run and gun Reality and ob doc type shooting this ability to zoom fast is a bonus. A with shoulder mounted cameras like the DSR450 you can quickly pick out tight shots of faces during a scene before returning to you wide. This will keep your Editor happy cutting around conversations, and trust me that’s important.

2. The Z7 feels chunky in the hand and the balance is good. It is heavier than the Z1 especially with the Compact flash adaptor  but for me that’s good. As I mostly handhold, a heavier camera is easier to keep steady and to fluidly move around your subject. 

3. I’ve just started trying out capturing tapeless to the card and I’m going to load these clips into Final Cut Pro later to see how that works. The fact the Z7 can take tapes is great feature as I have collected lots of Mini DV  tapes over the years shot on the Z1 and PD150. I’ve just been playing one back through the camera and as you’d expect it works fine

I use my old PD150 as a deck to digitise from (not recommended if you do a lot of diigitising) and if I get rid of it I’ll need my next camera to still run the min DV’s as well as using the Z7′s solid state workflow for shooting.

I’ll be writing more about the Z7 as the week progresses. If you have any questions give me a shout by using the ‘Ask’ graphic on the right.

UPDATE:

Ok so the Z7 has been returned to Sony who were good enough to loan it me. I did a VoxVop shoot with it which was a useful test for the speed of the camera.

What I discovered:

The lens control is indeed great. It took me a while to figure that there is a ring at the front of the lens which you can push and pull to switch between auto focus (not recommended) and manual. The fluidity of the zoom meant I could get in really quick to the interviewees but the best thing was the ND filter has more options than the Z1 (it has 1/4, 1/16, and 1/64).

This meant I could throw distracting backgrounds out of focus without being far away on a long zoom (you need to be in fairly tight to subject for Vox Pops). On the Z1 it was a struggle and you would end up with overly sharp backgrounds when filming people from a close distance on a medium zoom. Pro Cameras and lenses like those used on the DSR would always win in these situations but not now.

What else? I found the hand holding easy and balance good, the iris ring is a big improvement over the Z1 and I could tweak exposure very slightly without it looking obvious on screen. Like any new camera it takes a while to get used to all the buttons and the different layout so goes without saying, practice first before a big shoot. 

When I had a look at the rushes they looked great and the colours and contrast range was a pretty impressive. I didn’t get much time to play with the tapeless workflow, and CD’s you get in the box. Next time!

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