You're kidding John, right? $3000 Nikons have apertures marked. $20000 lenses for the IMAX body have apertures marked on them. Pros don't have to look at the sky and guess, and nor should we.

tom.

Ha ha

Well both kidding and serious

the point being a pro would get to know the kit and make it work for him/her

Forex: I dont need to be reminded that 3/4 of a foot scale is 9 inches

like wise 3/4 of a ParaDoX10 scale is f1.6 0db (yes its 1.6 not 1.7 as previously posted)

the point being anyone putting more than 10 tapes through such an exquisite machine would quickly pick up on that and numbers become irrelevent

John, I tend you agree with you now, having used the PDX-10 for a few weeks. But when I first got it I felt it was a major oversight. I guess I'd still be happier if the F-stop was displayed though, but it really isn't hard to get used to. OTOH, sometimes it's nice to see the focus distance displayed in the finder. For some reason it seems they only felt they could display 2 parameters. On the PD-150 it's f-stop and shutter speed while on the PDX-10 it's focus distance and shutter speed.

But it kind of puzzles me why they use such a huge, clunky font to display all this info in the finder. As per another thread, both the LCD and finder are really quite high resolution. I often find those big numbers intrusive in the field of view. You can punch the display button and hide some of them, but not all while in record mode. I get this sense of deja-vu, like I'm staring at my Apple ][ screen back in 1978, when I see big uppercase characters like those ;-) It probably has something to do with legacy firmware from older cameras.

Also, with the addition of the touch screen on the PDX-10, it's kind of arbitrary which menus are accessed via the screen vs. the hard menu button/thumbwheel. The Sony engineers need to really re-think the whole human interface; maybe we'll see this when the PD-150 gets an update?

You said it: ParaDox10... I love that! :-)

PDX10 or PD150
 

Hi Derek.

Was exactly in your shoes a month ago.I coundn't decide either.

I bought the PDX10 and am very pleased.

If and when the PD150 adds 16:9, I will complete my arsenal of cameras, for good...

Regeards

P

Well, don't say "for good" on the completion of your arsenal of cameras :) You'll want the cameras that will eventually come out that will over 2.35, 1.85, etc aspect ratios on top of the 16:9 and 4:3, and of course have HDTV quality (at first) and eventually Star Wars Episode II digital quality. :)

We'll here's my decision, for those that care: I'm not buying either. I only have a short-term need for a camera for the near-term because as of Jan 04 I'll be in grad school and be busy with other stuff, not working on films. So I'm renting for my short film shoot in Sept. After that, I'll go to school and hope that HDTV quality 16:9 cameras are out when I graduate in Feb 05, because I'm buying my camera upon graduation, as I intend to start filming more and more.

Happy Memorial Day to all,
Derek