I went out wood chopping today. Nothing too exciting about that in this neck of the woods where the temperature gets down to 0 degrees at night, even in September. The fact I had sprained my ankle yesterday slipping on some of WA’s infamous pea gravel and had it heavily strapped made it interesting, along with a recurrence of a torn tendon in my elbow, but it was either that or freeze to death.

More exciting though was that I was using the opportunity to road test the new Sony HXR-NX70P.

This little camera, slightly larger than the average consumer camcorder is just the duck’s nuts! It has all the toys a pro needs and demands such as external mic, onboard XLR inputs, shoots AVCHD to 96GB of internal memory and also accepts SD and Memory Stick cards, sports a wide 26mm Sony G lens and has the famed Exmor R engine.

What’s more, it is dust and rain proof with all ports and buttons sealed.

The focus ring can be set for zoom, focus or iris and the menu system and controls layout are a beauty to behold.

All this for AUD$3299.

Oh and the pictures it shoots are brilliant.

With Canon getting into the “baby pro” market, and now Sony following suit and no doubt Panasonic sharpening its T-Squares and drawing boards, this category is about to get very hot methinks. Bring it on!

(More technical info can be found at Auscam Online).