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We had a chance to have a quick playtime with the new Sony NEX-EA50 here at IBC. A very interesting camera at first sight, as it has a very nice and ergonomic form factor and a digital zoomrocker, ideal for the newsgathering kind of work, all built around a large sensor.

We felt the camera also had some downsides to it.

We recorded some footage and realized the quality that comes from the same APS-C sensor that’s also used in the older Sony VG-20 is not as nice as we initially expected. Granted, what we recorded was grabbed at 24db, in a really bad lighting environment, but it must be said that it’s a different kind of image than the ones we’ve seen from cameras like the Sony FS100, 700, the Canon C100, or other Canon HDSLR’s for that matter, that pretty much spoiled us in that regard.

Also the autofocus didn’t really work in the environment at the Sony booth. It was slow and it kept auto-focusing on the background that had all the detail and light in it, it felt more or less like the kind of auto-focus we’ve gotten used to on large sensor cameras, contrast based.

The camera felt surprisingly light and sat nicely on the shoulder. We hope Sony works on a higher end camera with that form factor and zooming functionality, it’s nice. The price-point is definitely a reason to take a closer look at the camera. We’ll take a more in-depth look on that camera soon.

You can donwload the source files for the EA50 footage from the vimeo video: LINK