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Where on Earth are the AX53 & AX700 successors? The 4K60 camcorders for <$1000??

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Oberoth
Explorer

Where on Earth are the AX53 & AX700 successors? The 4K60 camcorders for <$1000??

(Sorry, I can't see how you edit a post so had to repost)

Where on Earth are the AX53 successor? The 4K60 camcorders for <$1000?? I've been waiting for a 4K60 camcorder around this price range for over 6 years now, basically since Sony brought us the AX100. But every year all any of these companies seems to do is rebrand their 4K30 again! The AX43 is a prime example of this, it's a rebrand of the AX53 with a few less features for a more or less the same price as what you can buy the AX53 anyway.

 
When the Sony AX-53 came out very late 2015 / early 2016, which in itself was a refresh of the AX-33, this is very disappointing. Are Sony really saying they have no better sensor and processor to make a new camcorder in 2020? When are we going to see Panasonic or Sony bring this to ~£600 price point? HC-VX2 or AX-63? They wouldn't even need to spend that much money developing them either, they could keep the lens and OIS and body and everything else the same, just update the sensor and processors to give us 4K60 using H.265.
 
Why is 4K60 taking so long to arrive at the pro-sumer price point? Phones and GoPros and stuff like that have been doing 4K60 for years and years, in many cases they have even moved from this to offer 4K120 or 8K30. There is no technical reason they camcorders can't do 4K60 pretty easily today, heat has nothing to do with it as I said phones and action cams have been doing it for years and have a much tighter power/heat envelope to work within. Not to mention sensor read outs are much faster today, processors are much more powerful and cooler plus memory cards are much faster. Basically there are no excuses to not bring 4K60 to a lower price point in 2020 but what annoys me most about all this is these companies keep crying out that 'phones are stealing all our customers' but then they are so slow to give their customers new features such as 4K60. Phone companies bring a new phone every single year and move things along significantly every-single-year! So is it really a surprise customers forget amount basic point & shot cameras and camcorders when their phones can do 4K60 or 8k30 but if they wanted to buy a dedicated camcorder like the AX53 or AX700 they can only do 4K30.
 
For my use-case which is filming low league football, handheld, pitch side you do need a proper dedicated camcorder because the image stabilisation is much better on these than it is on a larger sensor in mirrorless cameras plus the fast powered zoom and super fast focusing is very much needed too. I just wish someone brought out 60fps version because I often need to slow down clips for goals or fouls, a 4K60 version of the AX43 or HC-VX1 would be a perfect camcorder.
3 REPLIES 3
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Peter_S.
Genius

Hi Oberoth,

 

Well, that's hard to say. Currently I'm not aware of any plans in this direction.

 

You will find some new products in the semi-pro/pro segment but of course at a higher price point:

https://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/cinema-line

 

Cheers

Peter

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Oberoth
Explorer

Yeah I've looked at those but they are just too big, too heavy, needless amounts of pro controls for what I want and ultimately too expensive.

 

It's like camcorders have been totally forgotten in the last 5+ years. Mirrorless cameras, phones, action cams, have all made massive strides but camcorders haven't moved on at all.

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Win_88
Specialist

Hi @Oberoth

 

I don't know more than you do about this, however, I don't think that Sony would hold back on releasing the product you described if it was possible at this point for precisely the reasons you listed (the market for this specific type of product hasn't received a a fresh entry in quite sometime).

 

Digital imaging is a big deal for Sony, and if you look at how competitive they are in other segments (TVs, Home Audio, Home entertainment and gaming, etc), you'd know how they wouldn't miss a chance of setting themselves apart from the competition in that area.

 

Win_88