New Sony CX series cams? What do you like? Why?

[pope 0]

Looking to get new/replacement Sony CX series AVCHD cameras. I love my CX100, but know I'll have to replace it one day. I like the 110, and the 150, but they're discontinued. The 160 seems like it has freefall issues.

What newer model cameras has anyone here tried? What works well in a skydiving environment?
Love to hear your opinions!
cheers!
pope

[5.samadhi 0]

I just got a cx110 for 200 bucks...I didnt think I would beat that price so I bought it.

just out of curiosity what more would you want that the cx series doesnt provide???

I guess I'd like the SD card to not be underneath.

[JarheadNYC 0]

I have a CX100 and love it. Although I just bought a CX110 for a new camera helmet setup and just jumped it this weekend gotta say I love it smaller & lighter great video. Only bummer is that the memory card slot is on the bottom of the camera, other than that gotta say happy so far. Can't help you on the newer CX models :(

Live every day as it was your last, one day you'll be right!

[Cookie 0]

Hey Pope,

We have a new CX210 in the house. Bill and Trunk did some testing in Eloy and said the footage was ok, however no filter thread for a lens. We are currently doing the design work to build a housing for it.

[pope 0]

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Hey Pope,

We have a new CX210 in the house. Bill and Trunk did some testing in Eloy and said the footage was ok, however no filter thread for a lens. We are currently doing the design work to build a housing for it.

Yo Cookie howzit?
I'd be very interested to see what you come up with! It's a drag that you have to come up with anything at all though...no filter threads? Lame!

I love my CX100, and if I could buy 20 of them right now I probably would...even CX110s and 150s...but They just don't seem to be available anymore. Bummer.

Has anyone looked at the HDR-XR260VE? It's still expensive, but looks viable.
cheers all!
pope

[freefallcrab 0]

Hi Pope - this thread comes at a great time for me as I am finally going to come to the 21st century and ditch my old PC7s and 9s and get an HD video camera. In fact I was in Carrefour in Abu Dhabi yesterday (I see you are in Dubai so any local deals you are aware of would be really interesting to me) and saw a CX160 but was not familiar enough with that model to buy one (no thread for my .42 lens??) .A couple of weeks ago they had a CX150 but now they are discontinued I think. So, I am following this thread with great interest and soaking up the good ideas. I was also worried about sourcing the bits for the Cam-eye equivalent for these cameras but Stephan at SD2 assures me he can hear when the camera is running on his Bonehead FTP and does not bother with Cam-eye (or whatever it is called with non-LANC cameras). BTW do you jump at the Palm or SD2?

Use your wings Johnny....

[davelepka 4]

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Stephan at SD2 assures me he can hear when the camera is running on his Bonehead FTP and does not bother with Cam-eye

Is this a tape-less camera? I use a side mount, and could 'somtimes' hear my PC-7 running over the aircraft noise. Now I have a CX, also side mounted, and I don't think it really makes any noise at all. With a FTP, it's got to be top-mounted, what exactly is he hearing?

[DSE 5]

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Stephan at SD2 assures me he can hear when the camera is running on his Bonehead FTP and does not bother with Cam-eye

Is this a tape-less camera? I use a side mount, and could 'somtimes' hear my PC-7 running over the aircraft noise. Now I have a CX, also side mounted, and I don't think it really makes any noise at all. With a FTP, it's got to be top-mounted, what exactly is he hearing?

I'd have the same question. Either I'm entirely deaf (and nearly am in one ear now), or my CX 100's are silent (unless playing back or zooming)

[freefallcrab 0]

I must admit I was sceptical about hearing a FTP top-mounted camera operating when in record mode. I have had various PC7/9s mounted on the top of my FTP with Cam-Eye to save embarrassment. I cant remember ever hearing one of those cameras through the helmet over the aircraft and wind noise, although in fairness I never actually tried to hear one. One of my concerns with the upgrade to HD is that the Sony CX series is not Cam-Eye compatible (something to do with a lack of a LANC port I believe?) but there is a similar device whose name escapes me available for CX video cameras. This is one more thing I would have to bring in from abroad as they are not available in the UAE so it was something I specifically asked about when I was chatting to one of the local camera guys. I would have thought that the camera would have to be very noisy to hear it recording through an FTP but that is what he said....

Use your wings Johnny....

[davelepka 4]

The thing that gets me is that the CX line has no tape drive, so there's no noise associated with recording.

Either way, what you need is a Hypeye controller to run a CX camera. It's a super nice switch and it does a lot more than just record on/off.

I'm sure they're not that hard to get ahold of. They're the gold standard for all CX cams, and with all the shit going on at Skydvie Dubai these days, I have a hard time believing they don't have them there already, or have a regular shipment of skydiving 'supplies' coming into the DZ all the time.

[bodypilot90 0]

so the cx110 and 150 are the same size how about the others cx100 and the cx210? is the video about the same in quality.

[NoValidTitle 0]

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Hey Pope,

We have a new CX210 in the house. Bill and Trunk did some testing in Eloy and said the footage was ok, however no filter thread for a lens. We are currently doing the design work to build a housing for it.

ewwwww

I've been wanting to find a skydive friendly cam that can shoot 1080p and has a filter thread. Bonus points if I can use my hypeye, but not a deal breaker. Will this housing have threads? I've seen housings like that for other cameras.

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

[Laszloimage 0]

You can use your CamEye-II with any of the CX camcorders. All you need is an adapter. Please PM to me if you're interested.

[freefallcrab 0]

davelepka - thanks I will check it out with the DZ ( I have tor order a bunch of other stuff through them anyway so it wont harm to ask about a Hypeye controller.

laslo, thanks - PM on its way.

Guys, thanks for all the advice, much appreciated.

Use your wings Johnny....

[pope 0]

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I must admit I was sceptical about hearing a FTP top-mounted camera operating when in record mode. I have had various PC7/9s mounted on the top of my FTP with Cam-Eye to save embarrassment. I cant remember ever hearing one of those cameras through the helmet over the aircraft and wind noise, although in fairness I never actually tried to hear one. One of my concerns with the upgrade to HD is that the Sony CX series is not Cam-Eye compatible (something to do with a lack of a LANC port I believe?) but there is a similar device whose name escapes me available for CX video cameras. This is one more thing I would have to bring in from abroad as they are not available in the UAE so it was something I specifically asked about when I was chatting to one of the local camera guys. I would have thought that the camera would have to be very noisy to hear it recording through an FTP but that is what he said....

I can't hear my CX series camera recording (but I have my "chime" turned off) But I can feel my DSLR taking still pictures though, so I understand what Stefan is talking about. Relatively speaking though, I don't have *that* many camera jumps, so maybe I'm just not used to it :)

The CX series cameras can be controlled via the half-moon port with the Hypeyes (not the Cameye) which are sold in the UAE at the Palm DZ (this is the DZ where I work, not the Desert DZ).

Come by and say hi sometime!
cheers!
pope

PS: Don't buy the CX160...you should have grabbed the 150 while you could! I'm having all kinds of problems finding CX150's, 110's, 115's and 116's. If anyone has any leads on where to get a decent number of these, please let me know!
thanks!

[Laszloimage 0]

" The CX series cameras can be controlled via the half-moon port with the Hypeyes (not the Cameye)"
Actually you CAN control the CX camcorders with CamEye-IIs. All you need is an adapter. Many people are using those adpters for thousands and thousands of jumps

[Laszloimage 0]

I just coming from B&H photo in NYC where I played with the new CX-190, CX-200, and CX-210. The cheapest is the CX-190 for $300. This model has no touch screen just a small joystick on the upper left of the screen to navigate the menu. No internal memory either. The CX-200 for additional $40 has the touch screen. The CX-210 for $380 has 8GB of internal memory as an addition.
No thread for wide angle lens, but I guess a step up ring can be glued on (it's a crude solution, but would work...). No optical image stabilization which is important for us skydivers.
Big advantage is the card slot is back on the side (the opposite side of the CX-100 though). They use SD cards instead of Sony memory stick (SD cards are cheaper and these cameras have no problems with the no brand cards either....). The other very cool thing is the CX-200 (I tested this only on this model, but basically all cameras are the same) was able to take 18 5mp still shots in a 50 second high quality HD recording time without interupting the video. This feature still needs to be tetsed in free fall... but I can see the potential to use it for both video and stills for tandems at the same time. I'll upload some stills to (I'm at a bar right now...Will see how these cameras are...

[bodypilot90 0]

Thanks, are the stills triggered by a switch or some automatic setting or maybe both?

[Laszloimage 0]

The stills are triggered by a switch. Hypeye supposed to have the remote capapbility (has the port anyway...) to take stills. Say it simple you can plug a 2.5mm switch (like Pro Mouth Switch) into a Hypeye and the camcorder should take a still when you press the switch.

[freefallcrab 0]

Pope - thanks for the comments. If I find any of the cameras you mentioned I will let you know. I will be swinging by the Palm tomorrow so I will look you up.

Laszlo - I am going to go for the adapter so look out for my order!

This is a really useful thread. No one has said 'this has been covered before, use the search function' (yep, done that) and it is bang up to date with people's latest and current views on new and recent cameras. Thanks for all the input guys and thanks to pope for getting the ball rolling.

Use your wings Johnny....

[eetula 0]

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I just coming from B&H photo in NYC where I played with the new CX-190, CX-200, and CX-210. The cheapest is the CX-190 for $300. This model has no touch screen just a small joystick on the upper left of the screen to navigate the menu. No internal memory either. The CX-200 for additional $40 has the touch screen. The CX-210 for $380 has 8GB of internal memory as an addition.
No thread for wide angle lens, but I guess a step up ring can be glued on (it's a crude solution, but would work...). No optical image stabilization which is important for us skydivers.
Big advantage is the card slot is back on the side (the opposite side of the CX-100 though). They use SD cards instead of Sony memory stick (SD cards are cheaper and these cameras have no problems with the no brand cards either....). The other very cool thing is the CX-200 (I tested this only on this model, but basically all cameras are the same) was able to take 18 5mp still shots in a 50 second high quality HD recording time without interupting the video. This feature still needs to be tetsed in free fall... but I can see the potential to use it for both video and stills for tandems at the same time. I'll upload some stills to (I'm at a bar right now...Will see how these cameras are...

has anyone noticed that none of those models are listed on gethypoxic.com?

there must be a reason for that?

[bodypilot90 0]

Could be the fact that they are new models. If they can take good stills and video then the amount of money saved on still camera and lens would be a big plus, don't you think?

[davelepka 4]

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The other very cool thing is the CX-200 (I tested this only on this model, but basically all cameras are the same) was able to take 18 5mp still shots in a 50 second high quality HD recording time without interupting the video.

Let's hear more about this. What's with the 50 second time frame? Is that a Sony thing, or just you seeing what the camera could do during an average tandem jump? So 18 would be the limit in freefall, but we could take additional still both before and after the jump on the same card?

Are these manually triggered, or on a timed interval, like one every 1.5 seconds or something? Does it have the D-port for a Hype-eye, and would the Hype-eye be able to trigger the stills?

It seems like every year we get just a little closer to being able to do video/still in one camera, I wonder if this is the year? I'm not willing to make a huge sacrifice in terms of quality, but we could get a nice 8x10 out of the stills, that would pass my 'good enough' for tandem test, and it'd shelf my still cam ASAP. I'm always up for smaller, lighter and simpler when it comes to a camera helmet.

[DSE 5]

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It seems like every year we get just a little closer to being able to do video/still in one camera, I wonder if this is the year? I'm not willing to make a huge sacrifice in terms of quality, but we could get a nice 8x10 out of the stills, that would pass my 'good enough' for tandem test, and it'd shelf my still cam ASAP. I'm always up for smaller, lighter and simpler when it comes to a camera helmet.

You won't, and therein lies the problem. There are people happy with GoPro's for tandems too, but the upshot is that some folks don't care much about the quality as long as it's not pixilated.

I can quickly shoot a still with the 760; any one looking for an 8x10 print will immediately notice the gamma issues and distortion caused by low-grade lenses. If your bar is shooting for 8x10 while also simultaneously capturing good video, we're still a little way off. Not far, but still off.

[bodypilot90 0]

see this

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The stills are triggered by a switch. Hypeye supposed to have the remote capapbility (has the port anyway...) to take stills. Say it simple you can plug a 2.5mm switch (like Pro Mouth Switch) into a Hypeye and the camcorder should take a still when you press the switch.