Changing Room Camera

Review: Sony NX5U video camera

The big takeaway from this week's overhaul of Apple's Final Cut Pro video editing software is that tape-based media is dead. The new Final Cut Pro X is positioned to best work with the new crop of cameras that shoot direct to memory cards and internal flash memory, everything from the iPhone and point and shoot models, to digital SLRs like the Canon 5D Mark II and higher-end video cameras like the Sony NEX-VG10 and HXR-NX5U .

I've been playing around with the $3,999 NX5U for a few weeks, a model that offers a sturdy body, massive zoom lens (29mm to 590mm in 35mm equivalent) and two slots for SD memory cards. Having the dual slots means that unlike the tape days, when you lost precious time changing the videotape, there's no loss here. The video capturing continues, advancing to the second card. You can get about two hours of recording on two 16-gigabyte cards.

I'm a digital SLR shooter: I love the look that comes with having the bigger image sensor of cameras like the 5D and Canon's 60D — amazing depth of field, brighter colors, and fantastic reproduction in low light.

But composing images on a DSLR can be a pain. It's really hard to focus on the back of an LCD in bright outdoors, sound issues abound, and you can only shoot up to 12 minute clips. You can always click the record button and go another 12 minutes, but you're bound to lose something.

So for any important event — weddings, school plays, sports, speeches and the like, where you need to capture the entire thing, without stops — a real honest to goodness video camera is a must.

The bad news is that since the video market has all but disappeared, in the wake of DSLRs and pocket-size cameras such as the (soon to be dead) Flip, most consumer video cameras are clumsy to use, have few, if any controls (record, zoom and playback), are horrid in low light, but have excellent zooms. They sell for between $300 and $500.

To get a fully functional camera, with the ability to plug in external microphones, switch from auto to manual and get a decent image inside, you need to jump all the way up to $2,000 and more.

Sony's NEXVG10 is $2,000, but it's downright bare bones compared with the NX5U.

The NX5U is everything I'm looking for — almost — in a real video camera. The lens is fantastic — you can shoot from super wide to ultra close-up — the dual memory card feature is terrific, and sound is easy to monitor and run with the twin XLR audio inputs.

Hidden camera found in YMCA locker room | CJOnline.com

WICHITA — Police in Wichita are investigating how a camera came to be hidden in a clothing hook in a YMCA changing room.

Police said the pinhole camera was inside the hook on a door to the family changing room at the North Branch YMCA. The camera had a clear view of the changing room.

The Wichita Eagle reported the camera was found by a woman who accidentally knocked it to the floor Monday. Police said there were no explicit images of children in the footage in the camera, but would not say what images the footage contained.

Shelly Conrady, spokeswoman for the Greater Wichita YMCA, said it was the first time a secret recording device had been found in a local YMCA locker room. She said YMCA employees are being trained to detect hidden cameras.

Hop on pop, the politics and pleasures of popular culture

Camera, a practical magazine for photographers

The Private Investigator's Legal Manual, California

Camera craft

Girl making, a cross-cultural ethnography on the processes of growing up female