James, I did see that refurbished 730 last night on eBay and again this morning. Looks like all three of us were watching. Clive, I'd been checking Gumtree but must have missed that one.
Let's know what you guys think of it and your view as to whether you think it could be a good roving cam on guests outside at weddings here in the UK. I'm not bothered with the audio for that sort of thing.
If anyone hears of a used CX730, let me know; these cameras are like hen's teeth!!!

Peter, I would happily settle for a Panasonic. But my main cam is an EA50 ... and Noa's been generous enough to contribute a lot of videos showing that the CX730 can be matched up to the EA50 with a little post production...

It should save me a lot of headache from missing any essential shots now ... I always do 'arty' stuff with my EA50 as I use a lot of manual lenses ... but when I need backup wide angle footage this handycam should save me from beating myself up after the event is over! At the moment I was using my NEX 5N as I sold my VG20 when I bought my EA50, but the 5N isn't really that reliable as it over heats too easily.

Now I should be able to just hit record and forget about it.

@Chris yes, I actually got lucky ... I placed bid on a pre-owned one at £700, but lost the bidding war and it ended at £720 'ish' and then came along the Littlewoods refurbed one at £600 after all the discounts! ... Just as I was about to buy I saw one on Gumtree and snapped it up!

Don't forget folks that the Panasonic TM900 and successors easily compete with the Sony - just that Noa uses the Sony whereas many of us use the Panny's.

Like I said before, there are no bad high end handicams, they all preform very good where each camera has it own strengths and weaknesses, what I found important was that it had a very wide angle lens and at 26,5mm I think it's the only handicam in it's class that goes that wide. The sony cx is also easier to match in post with my nex-ea50 where a panasonic might cause issues.

Noa will be proud!

nah, not really :) To me a camera is just a tool, if it was called panasonic cx730 I wouldn"t care less, as long as it doesn't break the bank and performs well enough I"m happy. The camera does some things exceptionally well and other not so well, for my use I see more benefit in what it can do well and I just work around it's shortcomings.

Noa

Need some assistance from you please.

Just got my Sony CX760 about 30 minutes ago (not the CX730 ... they're the same though aren't they?)

How do I set the Gain on this ??? All I see when I press down on the small knob near the lens is exposure so i'm assuming this is the equivalent of ISO/GAIN. When I change it up and down, I don't see a number to actually be able to tell what level it's on, other than what I see with my eyes

How do you do it?

So far the camera is amazing. I can really see this helping me a lot when I go on shoots now. I'm going to sell my Samyang 14mm F2.8 ... don't think i'll need it anymore for wide angle shots as this handicam will suffice.

EDIT: Also in terms of colour profiles, quick glance all I saw was Cinematone. When you say you can match this in post to your EA50, your not using it with Cinematone on are you? it looks too contrasty to me so I want to record flat as possible.

How do I set the Gain on this

I have set the dial to "exposure", if you set it to "iris" you can lock the f-stop but the camera will still adjust exposure automatically using gain or shutter.

If you set it to "exposure" the camera tries to keep a constant 4.0 f-stop in bright conditions, it will keep the gain at 0db and when you turn the dial to adjust exposure it will use the shutter to compensate for incoming light.

If you then point the camera to a dark indoor area and adjust exposure it will first drop the shutter to 1/50 and then change the iris to wide open (f1.8) and once that is reached it will add gain.

You can only see the gain values in playback mode (there is a option in the menu to turn that on so you can see what the camera did, but you can't see what it is doing during recording)

The question is, why do you need to see what the camera is doing? You just turn the dial to set the exposure and let the camera handle the rest, the image is perfectly usable up to 24db gain, you can disable the low lux feature so it only goes up to 21db gain but I have this enabled all the time.

About colout profiles, I only know of a x.v. color setting which is set to off on my camera, to what "cinematone" setting are you referring, where do you see this in the menu?

The cx760 is the us equivalent to the cx740 eu version.

Thanks for that. I wanted to know because I didn't know what steps it took first, but you've just explained all of that now!

I've enabled low lux too which is under 'Manual Settings'

The cinematone feature is under 'Camera Settings' as soon as you get past low lux etc you simply continue scrolling down to see it. I have this turned off, with this turned 'on' the image looks quite dark and contrasty.

The a.x.v is under Image Quality on mine.

ah ok, now I see, my menu is in Dutch so I had to look for a different name, this is set to off as well as I can see it raises contrast which I like to avoid, I also have x v setting to off because it enhances something in the image. In that way I have a unaltered image when I take it into post. It's too bad Sony didn't allow the camera settings to show up during recording but only during playback but I guess that kind of cripling happens more to protect higher end camera's.

For a moment I thought there was a slight difference in firmware with the cx730 & cx760 but yeah, the fact you had it on a different language setting would explain it !!

Any chance when you have a few minutes to spare you can pop up some links to videos done solely with your CX730, or ones where you integrated footage from both the EA50 and the CX730 ...

I've seen some scattered around the forums before, just want to see them again now that I own one too :D (I'm not being lazy, i've searched for your videos but many of them show up as deleted now)

here is one for starters, the church footage (in- and outside is all cx730 incl the opera singers at the end, all steadicam footage is canon 550d and all the rest nex ea50.

the tilt shot from the church tower at the beginning of the video was done handheld, then you can see the stabiliser at work.

Sarah + Frederic on Vimeo

will post some more later on, sleeptime now :)

ok, one more before I go to bed :)

better example here, all church footage (incl slidershots), indian ceremony and speeches is cx730, steadicam is canon 550d. you might not notice but the speeches where done at 21 to 24db gain as I had to zoom in and it was dark, you can see some motionblur as some shots where at 1/25 shutter)

Also the balcony shot in church was a sony xr520, again shooting at high iso as it was dark in the church.

https://vimeo.com/51005614

Yep seen these videos, didn't realise most of the footage was from the CX730 ... with your creative vision, this tool is all you need Noa !

No video light ? do you use the video light at any point ? I was also suprised by how bright this little LED light actually is !

I have used the inbuild videolight but think only twice or so since I have the camera, it's not dimmable which makes it too bright in some occasions.

Noa, another question, in the video above (indian wedding).

The slider shots you initially do in the church. Do you turn of image stabilization for these? as I noticed the footage is clean without any choppiness. I was told when ever using a camera on a tripod or stabilization device to turn of image stabilization for a smoother look.

And do you film everything in 50p ?

I am not sure anymore but I think it was still on, when the lens is fully wide the ois doesn't have much negative impact but when you are on a tripod and zoom in you could end up with a unusable image if you pan or tilt and leave the ois on, the image will bounce all over the place trying to correct when you stop panning. It's actually easy to see, just try it out and you"ll see what I mean, the further you zoom in, the worse the camera will try to correct. I have ois set to a touch button on the lcd screen so it's quick and easy to have it on or off.

I do film in 50p only now.

Noa and James, I have managed to get a CX730 and it's a great camera. Can either of you suggest the best render setting with footage shot at 1920/50P....I'm using Sony Vegas Pro 11.
In comparison to my Panasonic AC160 in a side by side half screen test, the pans on the 730 have a fair bit of strobing as if it had been shot at 24 or 25P. That's not happening with the Ac160.

I am looking to replace my Panasonic TM900 cameras for next season for Sony cams to match up with my EA50 and VG20 - i cannot find CX730 cameras anywhere at all. I love the low light of the TM900 cams but need much tweaking in post to match my Sony cams

According to Amazon they have been replaced with Sony PJ650

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-PJ650-Full-Projector-Camcorder/dp/B00B59E9V6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375871401&sr=8-1&keywords=cx730

Anyone had hands-on with this camera? Slashcam rate it better than the CX730

http://camcorder-test.slashcam.com/compare-what-i-cmp-u-cmd-i-view-u-mode-i-docompare-u-lang-i-en-u-id-i-227-y-293-u-name-i-Sony%20HDR-PJ650-u-bname-i-Sony%20HDR-CX730-u-cmd-i-vergleich.html

Peter, I have the 730 and it certainly fits the bill for me. I see that the camera is unpriced on the Sony UK website so I imagine that they regard it as discontinued. The PJ-650 is a lower spec camera than the 730 so not sure what Slashcam are claiming. The 650 has a 1/3.9 inch sensor (quarter inch then!), whereas the 730 has a 1/2.88, (bigger than 1/3 inch and almost twice the area).
To get 730 optical performance, you need the PJ-780 which also brings 32GB internal memory and a projector. The mic. system has also been redesigned.

Peter, when I got mine on ebay about a month ago, the only place I saw it was £860on Tesco Direct. I can't see it anymore, so maybe the last remaining stock in the UK just sold in the last few weeks.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!

Well I'm happy to keep using my TM900 cams for the rest of this season and will look around in the new year for replacements

Pete

Well I'm happy to keep using my TM900 cams for the rest of this season and will look around in the new year for replacements

Pete

Same here, though if I were buying again I probably wouldn't bother with the version with the onboard solid state drive as 32gb class 10 Sandisk cards are only £25 each.

It appears that some TV stations are now equipping their journo's with similar models. Looks ominous for the cameraman sound guy director and journalist crews.

Pete

According to Amazon they have been replaced with Sony PJ650

the cx730 is not produced and sold anymore, the pj 780 replaced it, should have the same performance but appears to have a much better on board microphone.

Noa and James, I have managed to get a CX730 and it's a great camera. Can either of you suggest the best render setting with footage shot at 1920/50P....I'm using Sony Vegas Pro 11.

I edit 50p in a 25p timeline in edius, then export as a hqavi file for further handling in tmpgenc authoring works, works fine for me, no abnormal stutter is visible during pans.

Thanks Noa, I'll try that. I noticed that the camera wants to default to a shutter speed of 50 on it's best quality setting although I can set it for 100 but using manual exposure seems to overide it.
I was thinking of trying a shutter speed of 100 to overcome motion effects when panning but haven't had the chance yet.

Very impressed with the CX730 having used it for two weeks now. The floating lens is amazing.
eBay buzzed me at 7pm to say there was one just listed for £520 unused so I snapped it up pdq.
I'd been using a Canon 550 for a third static cam in the church but the CX blows it away in low light.
So thanks Noa for bringing my attention to this camera.

Low light comparison on the 550d depends on the lens used, a f1.4 lens at 1600 iso on the camera is still a bit brighter but you have got very narrow dof where with the sony you have got front to back sharpness, so much more usable is most situations. Good to see you like the camera, it has become one of my main workhorses during a wedding. I'd say 50% is done with the handicams and 50% with large sensor camera's and this is a combination that works well for me.

Very impressed with the CX730 having used it for two weeks now. The floating lens is amazing.
eBay buzzed me at 7pm to say there was one just listed for £520 unused so I snapped it up pdq.
I'd been using a Canon 550 for a third static cam in the church but the CX blows it away in low light.
So thanks Noa for bringing my attention to this camera.

Chris what search term did you use for your Ebay alert - I have 'Sony CX730 Handycam' and I get bombarded with emails for camera bags/HDMI Cables/Batteries etc - really frustrating

Hi Peter, all I did was save the search for the CX730 and eBay asked whether I would like to be notified when one became listed. It was a while ago that I did that.
I used the eBay app for my Samsung Android phone and that is where you can find the option to be notified.
You do the search and then 'save' and it then asks you if you want to be notified when that item becomes available.
I don't really know if you can do that using eBay on a pc but sure works fine on a phone. I just tested it again and that's the way.
Hope that helps.
BTW, I don't get any email bombardments from eBay, just that one notification that told me the CX730 was there. I bought it within two minutes of it being listed.

Low light comparison on the 550d depends on the lens used, a f1.4 lens at 1600 iso on the camera is still a bit brighter but you have got very narrow dof where with the sony you have got front to back sharpness, so much more usable is most situations. Good to see you like the camera, it has become one of my main workhorses during a wedding. I'd say 50% is done with the handicams and 50% with large sensor camera's and this is a combination that works well for me.

Spot on Noa, I took some footage for a comparison between my 550D and the CX370. But its not as impressive as I expect it to be. The 550D appears to be better, but only before you realise the DOF difference. You see, even shallow, the DSLR footage just looks nice, wheras the CX370 doesn't look as polished, but is technically better for seeing the view.