Continuing my search for the perfect camcorder for wildlife and travel I bought a Sony AX-700. I should say at the outset that for wildlife, a camcorder is far more convenient to use handheld than a mirrorless camera. A camcorder is more compact, has a sufficiently long focal length lens for most purposes and can be held without shaking much more easily. I can speak from experience since I have both. But camcorders do not sell well and the few manufacturers bring out a new model very rarely.
I was looking for a camcorder with more reliable and defined-area autofocus than is available with the contrast only autofocus systems on Sony and Panasonic camcorders with a 1/2.5 in sensor, where the camera will often focus on what it can focus on rather than on what I want it to focus on, even when the object is in the centre of the viewfinder.
The Sony AX-700 has phase as well as contrast autofocus. The sensor is bigger (13.2 x 8.8 mm) than in my previous Sony and Panasonic camcorders (5.8 x 4.3 mm) but not so big that the depth-of-field at wide apertures and with the lens at full zoom is minute. It is the cheapest but most compact of the professional non-broadcast range of camcorders introduced by Sony in 2017 since it lacks the audio handle and microphone of those ‘higher’ in the range.
I have now had the opportunity to use the AX-700 at home and in Iceland.
The curate’s excellent parts of this curious egg of a camcorder are: the quality of video output and the autofocus which is truly outstanding whether using a wide autofocus area or a small central area. The increase in weight over the 1/2.5 inch camcorders is worth the trade-off.
But there are outstandingly bad features. The buttons, menu system and manual can only have been devised by somebody who has never had to use the results of his or her efforts. The menu is turned on by pressing a button under the lens on the side while controlling the selection by a joystick on the back panel alongside the start/stop button. The arrangement of the menu items is illogical and although the functions of the pre-labelled menu buttons can be changed there is often little advantage in doing so because for many functions, pressing one button is insufficient and the menu itself has to be brought up.
I defy anybody to understand setting up for slow-motion on first reading the manual. This is because it takes a while to realise that the camera does not record, say, 100 (120 in USA) frames per second, to the card, leaving the editor the choice of what to do in post-production. No, it stores footage taken at high frame rates and then records to the card the completed slo-mo video at 25 (30) fps—eventually since it takes time for this process to be completed and further shooting is impossible until that clip is produced.
Really annoying is the description of Super Slow Motion. I had to actually try the different settings using a falling pencil at my desk to see what the instruction manual is trying to say. And all that has to be done with manually set exposure and manual focus.
Bob Myers of AVP Studios produced this excellent review of the AX-700 on Youtube. It is well worth watching and I will not repeat his criticisms here, other than to agree with them:
A number of difficulties seem to arise from the fact that for any of the ‘special’ features like slow-motion this is not a 4k camcorder. It is really a 1080 machine that will shoot 4k at 25(30)fps. But even at 1080 there are many features that cannot be used with autofocus and autoexposure. One might have thought that it would at its price shoot 4k at 50(60) fps but it doesn’t.
The AX-700 is probably over-priced and slightly over-heavy (although it will run for hours—no 30-minute limit) without overheating which suggests some of the weight is in heat-dissipating metal).
In conclusion, Sony’s AX-700 is not the perfect wildlife and travel camcorder. Many useful functions needed within seconds cannot be changed or accessed quickly enough. It is on the ergonomics where it falls short.
This camcorder then is typical Sony: some brilliant features let down by poor ergonomics, poor user interface and poor documentation.
