10 thoughts on “New SONY 4K camcorder FDR-AX100 ($2K)”

1. It’s weird how youtube is fuzzy for the first few seconds and then the hi res picture seems to kick in. And boy does it kick in here. On my 27 inch iMac, these are the sharpest pictures I have ever seen. Almost looks too good for a small handy cam.

2. Upgrading from a NX70, this looks like a no-brainer, however, what about XLR Mic placement? Sony have the XLR-K1M attachment (it looks very similar to the NX70’s) but how does it mount on this camera. Is this another Sony gotcha with no cold-shoe?

3. I’m i drunken or are these pictures better than those I’ve seen from the PXW-z100??

   HDW : It won’t be the first time the domestic boys get it right, this camera has a 1″ sensor, far bigger than the z100 and AX1…WHY ?

4. I would be wondering how much bit depth can be squeezed out from its XAVC-S codec? With such high res, a 10 bit image is equally important ,,,

5. It is XAVC-S 8 bit, only 30P and likely 60Mbps so we have yet to see video with camera movement like panning or zooming on fast subjects. Image will not be as good in these conditions as the FDR-AX1 or PXW-Z100 with higher frame rate and data rates. They also have a 20x zoom which was available from the NX5 and likely the reason the sensor size is 1/3″ !!!! My FDR-AX1 at wide angle F1.6 in good light with a fairly static subject has a wonderful image too !! Downsampled to 1920×1080 is sharp and clean. It is also easy to make it look bad as its about 2 stops slower than my NX5U but noise is more pleasant and fine grained. If there was a 60P version of the FDR-AX100, at the AX1 data rates on QXD cards, I would love one.

   Ron Evans

6. Even with 8 bit video, the image quality looks extremely rewarding. It is exciting to have this series at high res, low noise and maintain 1/3″ sensor size, this is amazing! how about the new processor from this camcorder of Sony, besides handling higher bitrates and frame rates, if i don’t think it wrong, will this 4K series have improvements over sensor readouts hence resolving the CMOS skew issue? it seems at this stage of our technology, global shutter is still not a common application.

7. I was all excited about this camera but I use my current Handycam to take stills too and really like the geo-location data it saves in the EXIF data.

   Can it really be true that on a very high-end “prosumer” camera like this that Sony dropped the GPS? That would be extremely disappointing and likely means I’ll wait or look elsewhere. I don’t want to lug around separate cameras for video and stills.

   I did wonder if perhaps there was a GPS accessory that would work on its shoe. I’ve not been able to find anything like that though.

   -Mike

8. They also have a 20x zoom which was available from the NX5 and likely the reason the sensor size is 1/3″ !!!! My FDR-AX1 at wide angle F1.6 in good light with a fairly static subject has a wonderful image too !! Downsampled to 1920×1080 is sharp and clean. It is also easy to make it look bad as its about 2 stops slower than my NX5U but noise is more pleasant and fine grained. Right!!!!!!

9. This is not a video example of the AX100 worth basing any decision to buy on.

   Watch it and see that apart from 2 shots, about 5 seconds in length, ALL the shots are from a camera on a tripod !!!!!

   Not much of a “Handycam” if you need a tripod to get good results.

   Let’s see a real Video where the camera is held in the hand like the photo of the camera shows.Lets see how quickly it focuses, how good the stabilisation is.

10. It actually has a 1″ Exmor R cmos sensor not a 1/3″