Sony HDR FX7

It's hard to keep up with SONY's new cams for one very good reason - they are skipping numbers! I thought the successor to the very successful Sony FX1 will be called FX2. Or, perhaps, FX3.

When it comes to the product name, Sony isn't content with incremental improvements. We're now straight to number 7. Not so when it comes to the product itself. Maybe, Sony felt that neither Canon XL H1 nor Panasonic HVX200 changed anything in the market, so why bother.

Let's look at Sony FX7 and see what advantages it offers.

• Affordable (Canon XL H1's price is almost 3 times higher)
• Real HD 1080 support (unlike FX1's 1440×1080 chip)
• Good video with low light capabilities (though admittedly worse than FX1 because of the CMOS)
• Long battery life
• Standard HDV (using MiniDV cassettes)

On the negative side we've got:

• Fixed lens (though it has been bumped to 20x zoom)
• No XLR inputs for audio
• No true 24p