I think it is morally acceptable for you to do your part in the economic recovery by having a succesful business and continuing to grow your business. If buying a Z7 helps your business and you can afford it, then you should go for it.

Well Greg, as I mentioned I will flip-flop with this decision several times before I decide finally. I feel best when I look at this kind of thing after looking at it from many angles.

Hi Jeff,

Why would you consider the Z7 if it also has cmos? Same rolling shutter issue.

I think I am looking into the XH-A1. I know the low light is not great but at least no Rolling shutter problems and not that severe of a lens ramp. I might have to see if I can rent one and check it out.

Just to put you right Todd - the XH-A1 lens ramping is exactly the same as the FX1000's - f/1.6 to f/3.4 20x zoom.

I would look at the Z7 because of the lens ramping, or lack thereof. It's not gone, but it's much less.

And you are correct to look at the Canon also. I've been amazed at the level of "love" the Canon owners have for their cams.

In my case I know next to nothing about the Canons. All I do know about them is when I see footage shot with them I am usually very impressed. They are great cameras, and initially I didn't look at them because of poor auto focus (so I heard) and relatively poor low-light. I had been waiting for two years for the Sony HD replacement for the VX2100, so I never really looked anywhere else. That might have been a mistake on my part, maybe not.

Now, any Canon users out there don't beat me up because of my statement about the poor low-light...I am not stating that as fact but simply repeating what I heard. I must say I also read a number of people state they thought the Canons were just fine in low light, and from footage I've seen it would seem to be true.

Wow, Tom, that's too bad about the LR on the Canon. Todd you're just having a devil of a time getting this sorted out, aren't you?

Tom is right, I have the A1 and it is f3.4 at the end, my advice is learn how to use the camera, know its strong and weaknesses and use that to your advantage, and research before you buy, rolling shutter and lens ramping has been mentioned every since these camcorder came out, why buy it before you do your research and now hated it, if you think you can live with rolling shutter fine, if you think you can overcome lens ramping by using auto gain or stand a little closer or slower shutter then fine, if not don't buy it.

Just so you know where your particular aperture value comes in the scale, have a look at this line-up of numbers. It shows all the half-stop values between f/1.4 and f/11

1.4 1.7 2 2.4 2.8 3.3 4 4.8 5.6 6.7 8 9.5 11

So a 20x zoom that starts at f/1.6 is actually slightly wider than the half-stop value at f/1.7, but it's f/3.4 is a smaller aperture than the half-stop at f/3.3. This means (in theory) that the lens loses nearly 2.5 stops as you zoom. As a comparison the Z7 loses just over half a stop - impressive for a 12x zoom.

I say 'in theory' because design and production tolerances mean that even if it loses 3 whole stops it will still pass inspection. And if it's a 18.7x zoom it will still pass inspection

tom.

You got that right!!! This is very frustrating. I am with you on the extrme close ups. They are a must and I don't want to fight the lens ramping.

I use GL2's now and I figured I could get past the low light performance of the XH-A1 but not if the lens ramping is the same. I guess the biggest deal breaker on the Sony is the cmos. I can't afford post production time with that problem. What to do, what to do??

How about a Canon CCD cam with interchangeable lenses? No rolling shutter, and your lens ramping is a non-issue.

Wow, why didn't I think of that earlier?

Yeah, that shouldn't set you back more than $6,000-$7,000. :)

New JVC camcorders
 

There will be 2 new JVC camcorders available soon:
JVC Press Release - New Final-Cut-Pro™-Ready Solid State Camcorders

Well the one you'd want to look at is the 700 with 1/3" imagers, but that puppy weighs about 9lbs! I for one wouldn't bother with the 100 with its 1/4" imaging chips. Chips that small will never perform as well as 1/3" or 2/3" imagers. The 100 is supposed to come in at around $4,000, so I have no idea what the price of the 700 would be.

I didn't mention them for the same reasons Ken.

Tom, that is priceless info on the Z7. Great stuff. Thanks for breaking it down.

Rolling shuuter thumbs up
 

On the subject of rolling Shutter I have just edited a dance concert two camera using a Z1 and FX1000.

The concert had a huge light show with lights flashing everywhere and it was really full on.

Happy to report that I had no issues at all with rolling shutter. The two cameras handled the lights the same.

The editing involved a bit of slow motion and I didn't see anything that made me go "Wow look how bad that is" in relation to rolling shutter.

The FX1000 was a little better in low light.