Very nice camera. It's a lot more 'solid' than I expected, I wouldn't want to spend a full day 'hand holding' this little pup. I haven't had a chance to 'test drive' it, yet. I'll do that this weekend.

Thanks Scott at TapeWorks Texas, Inc. for your help with my purchasing decision.!

Regards,

J.

I have never done so much research before on getting a second camera to the Z5 I have, and after spending hours on this column and others I finally ordered my NX5E. Arriving on Tuesday and can't wait...

stelios

Stelios...I also spent an inordinate amount of time deciding on the 'NX5'. In fact, I have spent a tremendous amount of research hours on all of my DV purchases. The 'NX5' seems to be a pretty good camera and it has a lot of capability for a <$4K camera. I use mine in conjunction with an Atomos Samurai field recorder, the quality of video it produces is pretty astounding. Of course, I'm no expert and I'm sure there are 'orders-of-magnitude' better cameras out there, just not too many for <$4K.

I'm sure you'll like the rig.

Best regards,

J.

I have had my NX5U since they came out in Canada and it took me a while to get the best from it. At first I was disappointed that it didn't look as good as my consumer XR500 in side by side!!!! It has taken some time to get profiles set up as I like, make sure flicker and macro are off etc etc and learn how to spend a lot of time focusing a shot. I am now happy only thing I wish it had compared to the little cameras is less video noise. I have the FMU128 and it is great.

For the money its a good camera and I am sure you will like it a lot.

Ron Evans

The NX5 is certainly a great camera that will produce some fantastic images...but as Ron mentioned, it needs to be "fine tuned" via the picture profiles. Straight out of the box, the colors are very dull and lifeless. Ron also hits the nail on the head with regard to video noise. IMHO, anything above +6db gain produces too much noise. YMMV.

Enjoy your new toy.

Can anyone recommend some pictures profiles?
Thanks.

Mauricio...do a search on 'picture profiles' or search 'Michael Johnston'. There is a thread with some very good picture profile recommendations. I use a 'modified' version of Michael's and it looks very nice.


Regards,

J.

The station I shoot for uses EX3's. I went around shooting flooding on my day off with my NX5U and gave it to the station. They were so impressed and kept asking what camera I was using. Couldn't believe my "dialed in" NX5 looked better than their EX3's. It's an amazing camera once it's fine tuned and "dialed in". However, right out of the box using the default settings, you may get that sick feeling in your stomach and feel you just wasted $4k. I know I sure did.

The NX5 is certainly a great camera that will produce some fantastic images...but as Ron mentioned, it needs to be "fine tuned" via the picture profiles. Straight out of the box, the colors are very dull and lifeless. Ron also hits the nail on the head with regard to video noise. IMHO, anything above +6db gain produces too much noise. YMMV.

Enjoy your new toy.

I try to avoid anything above -3db gain. Even 0 has noticeable noise compared to the negative settings. I also notice that its *really* easy to hit the gain switch in transport. Unless you're doing a ton of indoor, low-light shooting, I would suggest overriding the values with the maximum gain you can tolerate. In my case I have it set to

L: -6
M: -3
H: -3