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Well I have given my new NanoFlash a good workout over the past few days shooting in the heat of the Arizona desert and shooting monsoon thunderstorms. There are a few things I need to sort out to really get the most out of it, in particular mounting it on the camera, but despite that I have to say I am extremely impressed.
In this short review I’m going to concentrate on the Nano’s usability. I will write a separate post with more details on the image quality later in the week. It’s pretty obvious that recording at higher bit rates with improved color space will give better pictures, but there are a few extra functions that really make the NanoFlash a “must have” box.
On un-packing it’s unimpressive. Just a simple, small black box with a few good quality connectors on the bottom, a couple of slots for the Compact Flash cards, a very large LCD display and a few control buttons. On powering it up there is a delay of a few seconds as the unit checks the compact flash cards. You are then presented with a very simple menu that allows you to set up the way the unit works, changing things such as the codec, bit rate, record control, power saving mode and a few other item. I didn’t need to refer to the manual to get the unit up and running, it really is very straight forward to use.

One of the really neat functions is the pre-record buffer. This is a memory that records around 4 seconds of footage. When enabled, when you press record, the 4 seconds prior to when you pressed the button is recorded. This was great for shooting lightning! Wait for the lightning bolt, then quickly press record. Using this saved me a tone of wasted footage as each clip I recorded has a lightning bolt and is only as long as it needs to be. This will also be great for sporting events and interviews where the interviewee has a tendency to start before you’ve said action!

One trick I was able to do with the Nano was to record timelapse with the XDCAM EX1 camcorder of a developing thunderstorm, recording onto the cameras SxS cards and then use the NanoFlash with pre-record to capture any lightning bolts. Normally this would require 2 cameras!
The unit can be set to go into record whenever it see’s the camera’s timecode running. This worked flawlessly and meant that I could just stick the NanoFlash on the back of the camera and just let it get on with the job, no need for separate remotes or two lots of record buttons to press. If you turn on the NanoFlash’s low power mode when you turn off the camera and the HDSDi feed disappears the NanoFlash put’s itself it to a very low power standby mode, so there is no need to turn it on and off separately during the course of a typical days shooting. It wakes itself up as soon as it detects the return of a HDSDi signal.
One small point is that to manually make the unit record you press the record button, to stop you press the stop button. When your using a camcorder you get used to pressing the same button to stop and start recording. It’s a very minor point but confused me for a moment.
The NanoFlash LCD gives you an indication of how much space you have left on your cards with a percentage bar graph, there are further level displays for audio levels and it tells you the mode you are recording in. The display is large and very clear.
I have not played with the external audio or remote functions so I cant comment on those. What I will say is that the NanoFlash has exceeded my expectations in every respect. The design is simple and functional, nothing fancy here, but it just works so well, it feels very solid and I am confident it will survive the rough treatment my equipment gets on my expeditions to film some of the worlds most extreme weather. I shall be using it to improve the quality of the footage from my XDCAM EX’s, which is very good anyway. I will also be using it with my HXR-MC1P minicams which currently only use AVCHD, the NanoFlash should really improve the quality of these.

So in summary.. stunning value for money, amazing quality and simple but clever functionality make the NanoFlash a must have box that will probably outlast all my cameras giving many years of usefulness.

Part 2 with pictures and quality assessments will follow later in the week.