Alibaba heaven. If you know what Alibaba is (Chinese merchandise website), this is Alibaba heaven. ANYTHING and EVERYTHING you can possibly want available in one market. Hundreds if not thousands of shops lining the streets for a square mile or more filled with people like this. One of many such markets in the Chongqing Provence. This is a still taken with the NX30, but plenty of video footage to share coming soon.
I’m still in Chongqing China and have been shooting a lot of fascinating footage–mainly with my trusty little Sony HXR NX30 because it’s so small and light to carry around.
I’ve decided that what I’ll do with the footage is a new video which is part travelogue and part commentary on run and gun camerawork since everything I’m doing is hand-held.
I’m often asked about how I do camerwork, so I thought a lot of interesting footage–often in difficult circumstances (such as small streets and alleys filled with thousands of jostling people) would be a good way to talk about run and gun camerwork.
If we get the time, Laury will take my X70 and shoot me shooting with the NX30. That should be interesting.
The main reason I’m here, though, is to document my wife’s production of a number of bronze commissions and particularly the in-progress Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown statue for which we will produce a new fundraising video to raise the balance of funds needed to cast it in bronze and ship it back to England—so that may have to come first.
In any case, I think I’ll get to this new video sometime in the next 3 weeks. I really looking forward to it.
The Video Whisperer 
I recently noticed Sony’s HXR-NX30 was no longer available at B&H in NY. What replaced it and have you tested or bought one yet? Finally, what about the PXW-X70 in lieu of the baby Sony for run and gun work?
I recall you’ve got one and wonder about your opinion because I’m about to re-equip my 3-camera studio. Anyway, I think a threesome of these might suit me just fine for capturing in HD for posting a series to YouTube and possibly for DVD release. The only question in my mind if the quality would hold up for use by stateside public TV broadcast if my series about model airplanes takes off (pun intended). I’ve seen several shows about children’s crafts, cooking, painting, and other examples of host-based episodic programming. Thoughts?
Basically I cannot afford too much in the way of cameras because I need three of them. I’ve seen footage captured with an X70 and feel they would be fine for my principal requirement but I wonder what an outsider thinks in light of the hope for broadcast.
Cheers, John Beech
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Hi John, the X70 should meet local broadcast standards. It meets BBC which is pretty high. I love it. Price, size, usability, access to menus and controls. Pretty ideal for its size and price. I’ve just upgraded mine to 4K which is always an option for you (though you’d have to pay for EACH camera unfortunately). Though you wouldn’t be outputting in 4K, it gives you more control in post. You can crop up to 400% if need be and still have HD quality. You see my review on it. It’s pretty old, but pretty good in terms of showing you what the camera can do and how it works. It’s on this site somewhere. Image quality is great even for straight HD output and that’s probably because of its 4K capable image sensor.
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Fantastic still shot.
How do you do that with the Nx30 just grab a frame ??
Is there any specific way of saving it so do you get that kind of fantastic quality which format do you use for the print. Jpeg
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Merrily, I thought you had an NX30. It’s got a still mode. Just push the button on the left rear and viola! You can take a 21 megapixel still. Push it again and you’re right back into video mode. (to take a still the shutter button is on the TOP rear of the camera.)
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Sounds really exciting. I’ll look forward to seeing your videos. I spent some time in China. It is an amazing place.
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