Chuck Fadely of Newsshooter reviews the Sony PXW-Z90 4K HDR XDCAM ($2,799) including a breakdown of its hybrid phase-detection autofocus and other key features.
“The autofocus is quite good and will hold on subjects even when shooting through things in the foreground. You can touch the screen to pick your focus point and rack focus by touching different points on the screen. The hybrid phase-detection autofocus shows the focus point with little green boxes on the screen to show what its tracking. You can choose whether it autofocuses over most of the frame (WIDE) in a zone, in the center, or with a flexible spot focus. You can also choose how fast it focuses.”
Here’s their first test footage shot on PXW-Z90
Read the full review on Newsshooter.
5 thoughts on “Newsshooter Review of Sony PXW-Z90 4K XDCAM Includes First Footage”
I would love to know how easy it is to create a soft background shooting anything other than a close up.
That’s not necessarily the main objective of a camcorder. If the “no depth of field look” is what you’re after, you’d be better off with a fullframe mirrorless camera like a7R III or a7SII.
I suppose the holy grail for no budget usage is the camera that can serve to do both or perhaps more realistically an approximation of both. They are hitt No the hire houses in Jan here in the UK hopefully, I’ll take one for a spin then.
Bear in mind that the 1″ sensor in these cameras is considerably larger than the 1/2″ or 2/3″ sensors used for years in $80,000 ENG video cameras
Bit of a mystery SONY did not include (even at 8 bit 4.2.0) a UHD recording option at 60fps.