This is the lens that ships with the Sony NEX VG10 the 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 manual zoom lens. I find this lens very useful indeed it is definitely the right lens for the job, a very sharp lens I may add. The 200mm end gives you some stunning shallow depth of field shots. I can’t quite get away with the dynamic range of colours this camcorder produces from deep blacks to pillar box red to very true skin tones.

The camcorder records at full 1920 x 1080 25p this has been confusing me of late as Sony are very cagey about telling us what this camera records on, they even print 1080 50i on the box but the first pictures on the LCD tell you we are filming in progressive.

This is the “Pancake” 16mm f2.8 lens to be quite honest you are only loosing 1 stop between the 18-200 at f3.5 and 16mm at f2.8mm so we don’t get to see what it can achieve in true low light conditions. The optical qualities of the 16mm lens are as good as the 18-200. There is an “A” mount converter LA-EA1 which converts from the “E” mount to the “A” mount. You have a vast range of lenses for the Sony “A” mount system and some mega sexy f1.4 ZEISS T* lenses.

The 16mm E lens has the ability to be converted from 16mm to 10mm fisheye, now as you can see this is mega wide. My only observation is that it’s optical properties are not as good as leaving the 16mm without the converter but as a throw away shot in a wedding it would be fantastic.

During my mammoth corporate edit this week I had the occasion to need further footage of people walking in a town centre so I used the VG10 and the shots were converted from 1080 25p down to 720 50p and no one will be any the wiser plus the shots are very punchy indeed. I must thank Ian one of Preston Media customers who was very kind in bringing his NEX-5 lenses with him…16mm and WA converter.

I am warming to this camcorder the more I use it and I hope to film a video review at the beginning of the week for posting ASAP.