Name: Sony PXW-X70 XDCAM Hand-Held Camcorder, 1" Exmor R CMOS Sensor, 12x Optical Zoom, - Bundle With 62mm Filter Kit, Spare Battery, 32GB SDHC U3 Card, Cleaning Kit, Card Reader, Memory Wallet
Brand: Sony
SKU: SOPXWX70B
Price: 1798.00 USD
Availability: Discontinued
Rating: 4.37 (19 reviews)

Sony PXW-X70 XDCAM Hand-Held Camcorder, 1" Exmor R CMOS Sensor, 12x Optical Zoom, - Bundle With 62mm Filter Kit, Spare Battery, 32GB SDHC U3 Card, Cleaning Kit, Card Reader, Memory Wallet

Sony PXW-X70

Sony

Sony PXW-X70 XDCAM XAVC HD422 Hand-Held Camcorder

Adorama

Video

Video Cameras

Professional Camcorders

Sony Professional Camcorders

Sony PXW-X70 

Top Rated Gear: Sony PXW-X70 XDCAM Hand-Held Camcorder, 1" Exmor R CMOS Sensor, 12x Optical Zoom, - Bundle With 62mm Filter Kit, Spare Battery, 32GB SDHC U3 Card, Cleaning Kit, Card Reader, Memory Wallet Configuration: Camcorder Only

Solid camera, a solid kit, and it all came very quickly.

Great Buy

Great Camera!! I have purchased 2 for documentaries and interviews.

Sony PXW-X70  for Documentaries and Interviews!

Small easy camera to use. Great video,.
 Very light in weight.

Great

Working with adoramos to get the camera was fast and easy the staff was extremely attentive and diligent.
The camera works well great product

Fantastic in all aspects but most customer service

This is a great piece of equipment. I purchased it to us to video our church services.

awesome video

So far so good. This camera produces some great quality footage and the camera stabilization is good as well. Very excited to use this camera. It does have a night mode option with a small IR light that works great for close up interviews in pitch black conditions. Overall very satisfied.

A little hard to use..learning curve, but great video and compact. Get 4k added.

Great camera

Firstly  know that I am a very experienced and respected shooting producer who travels the world shooting corporate videos, product roll outs, travel related products and have concurrent 4k documentaries in production and post production. Early in my career I used Sony when shooting for broadcast and corporate events and I loved them. My fly packs for the last 10 years have been for the most part Panasonic. I love their professional and prosumer camcorders/cameras, have a small Red as well as well with the NIkon DSLRs I use for stagnate deep focus video.

Cutting to this review: I recently purchased and now returned this Sony PXW-X70 camcorder. The plan was to use it as a B roll camera with other travel projects that could be done from a backpack. At nearly 2k plus 499 for the 4K option - this camera is mid pack in modern a cool small form factor. I really wanted to like it but once opening the box I realized it was more a toy than a professional device Here are my few gripes. I love that it is light but hate that if feels so plastic, rattles in ones hand and has that fragile feel. I am unsure it can withstand the abuse of a true working camera that gets kicked, dropped in a bag or withstands the mist of a foggy San Francisco morning. Another main beef is that the power supply is to crap if you are going out every day - the tip will wear out and the perpetual to snap an end is real. The power cable from the supply to the camera cord is cheap and will short out in quick time too. The compression rates for Sony video are sub-par despite the fine image quantity and Sony's disappointing 4k  work around for 500 dollars is just lame - Moreover Sony chose to not seek and place better codex suggests they didn't thinks about how eating up and taking way too much storage messes with current and legacy editing systems and processes. There are also serious issues with button placement and menu options which hide in the strangest layers. There are many others reason I found found but being too negative on a cool prosumer camera might be stretching it, I am sure it will work for many. It just doesn't work for me and my various demands I place on my camera every day.

Potential great camera disappoints

Solid performance.  The videos came out crystal clear even in low light.  Cannot go wrong with XDCam.

Great camcorder with all the features that you'd ever need as a hobbyist

Sony web site is a nightmare. Try calling customer service, it takes a week or more for them to get to you

Sony customer service STINKS

This camcorder seems to do everything pretty well.  Be aware that it won't shoot 4:2:2 ten bit in 4k, but at 4K it's less important unless you need to meet a broadcast spec.  Footage is gorgeous even in low light.  I'm still getting to know it, but it is very easy to use and hasn't disappointed me in anything yet.  Very portable and the codec edits well in DaVinci Resolve Studio.  It might be interesting to wait for sony to update this camera, since it came out in 2014, but it still holds up pretty well with the 4k upgrade, and hard to beat at the price.

Nice entry-level pro camcorder

This camcorder is excellent

I like everything from this camcorder, except one thing: its codec. I have Sony FDR-AX53, it is a 4K camcorder (which I really love it) and it uses the codec XAVC-S which has no problem playing or editing, but this PXW-X70 uses a very "weird" MXF which some editing software does not like it.  Why Sony does not use the popular XAVC-S, why uses the XAVC-L??? Because of this I take out one star. But compare to my AX53 I like the AX53 much better. Its focus is perfect and very fast.
Overall, I bought this X70 among all other Sony camcorders is because of its Zeiss lens, but I really don't like its XAVC-L codec at all.

Good Camcorder but....

I like this camcorder the visuals are grat. I like the manual operation in some situations  I had problems using the xavc files.  The Vegas pro was the only editor I found that handled the file a.   A file converter also handled them.

OK machine.  Buy tickets for 1080p. 4 know not worth the effort .

This is a great camera for both pro and hobbyist. Easy to use  good for run 'n' gun. Image quality is excellent and the price is affordable for both. Adorama's got a winner on their hands with this one.

This is a great camera for both pro and hobbyist

Everything I had in mind when I bought it is in this little package. Shot one concert with it. I have to figure out what needs to de done to the audio as far as tweeking in post, but happy with it so far. All of the codecs work seemlessly with Adobe bridge,premier pro and after effects. Looking forward to a summer of filming.....if it would stop raining. However don't relie on online reviews of this camera. Download the manual and READ it. Many reviews on line had bad info, they didn't read the manual. Be well!

A low weight, compact easy to use camera

This is a great camera!

Excellent all around camera that shoots 4k
20 megapixels,Zeiss lens, good in low light and compact design. It's a winner!

Great camera for the price

My overall opinion on the camera itself is rather favorable. I've had the X70 for about a week now and took it for several days of shooting in the Sierra Foothills. The fit and feel of the camera is nice, feels solid and well constructed (except for the zoom rocker which could be a bit better sealed against dust and moisture).

The dual XLR audio inputs are what really make this a step up from the AX100, more of a pro camera with line, mic and phantom options. If you want to output video beyond the 50Mbps, you also have an HD-SDI (especially useful for broadcasting or sending to an external recorder). And Sony has included the colored peaking for fast and accurate focusing (as found in some of the camera's bigger cousins like the PMW-350).

BUT let me tell you why you should wait to buy this camera. Sony has labeled this fine piece of technology as XAVC. What they don't tell you (unless you call ProSony) is that it is not XAVC-intra like the F-5 and F-55, which happen to be supported by all the big editing programs. No, friends and neighbors, this is XAVC-long GOP, and nothing can read this codec.

By nothing, I mean FCPX with the XAVC plug-in cannot. Edius cannot. Sony's own Vegas Pro 13 cannot. I'm not sure about Premiere Pro. Aftermarket transcoders cannot (of the three free ones I've tried).

Sony Creative Software folks say the new Catalyst Prepare will be able to read and transcode, but that software is not yet available. Catalyst Browse, however, will transcode XAVC-L to ProRes but only one file at a time (no batch projects) which is a huge issue if you've just shot 119 clips over your weekend in the Sierra Foothills. In fact, I am writing this review as I manually transcode every file.

That said, if you don't mind shooting video on any of the X70's lesser formats like AVCHD, you'll be okay.

Does this product launch fall into the dismal failure category? Yes. The PXW-X70 camera is well worth your consideration for its performance in its price range, just not until Sony finishes developing everything needed for it to work.

Once all these bugs are worked out, I'll have no problem bumping this review up to 4 or 5 stars.

Sony PXW-X70 XDCAM Hand-Held Camcorder, 1" Exmor R CMOS Sensor, 12x Optical Zoom, - Bundle With 62mm Filter Kit, Spare Battery, 32GB SDHC U3 Card, Cleaning Kit, Card Reader, Memory Wallet

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