The Live Event Producer's Guide to the Sony NEX-FS100

Streaming Media Producer by Shawn Lam

Sony's NEX-FS100 presents challenges shooters never encounter with traditional camcorders, as well as different lens-mounting choices and caveats than DSLR shooters face. In this article we'll discuss the abilities and limitations of the FS100 for live event production work.

Large-sensor video cameras are video camera manufacturers' answer to DSLRs that shoot video. With large sensors designed primarily for video, and not photos, the video image from large-sensor video cameras has less noise at high gain/ISO settings and is subject to fewer artifacts like moiré and aliasing that plague DSLR footage.

I'm not going to go into all the limitations of using DSLR video cameras for event video work as they have been well documented over the last few years, but the purpose of this article is to discuss the abilities and limitations of using the Sony NEX-FS100 video camera for a range of live event production work that requires the camera operator to change focal length while filming, record XLR audio inputs, and record with extended record times.

So before we get into the debate over the pros and cons of zooming with the lens or moving the camera, let's accept that the former is the only option for some event video work, like videorecording a stage performance, a conference speaker, figure skating, or a panel discussion. read more...