Xperia PRO :: You'll WANT this phone!!! By The Art of Photography

Okay, this is cool, so this down here is my Sony. A7S iii. I've got it in a small rig cage up on the top. Is the brand new Sony Xperia pro I have covered several Xperia phones on this show the most recent being the Sony Xperia 1 mark ii. This is a phone, but it's very different. This is a smartphone, that's capable of 5g.

It also has a HDMI input on it. So what I can do is I can take a signal from the camera. I can feed that into the phone. The HDMI signal will support up to 4k at 60p, and you're able to do a lot with that. So I'm going to give you some use cases.

I'm going to show you why this is probably the most unusual smartphone I have ever seen. This is going to take things to a whole new level in terms of content creation. What you're able to do, but first, let's break down the phone, and let's talk about the Xperia pro. I did a review on the Xperia one mark ii when that came out a few months ago. In fact, that was one of my favorite phones of 2020.

, the other two being the iPhone 12 Pro max, as well as the Samsung note, 20 ultra Xperia 1 mark ii was a unique smartphone and my favorite feature of it was the cameras. I think it had the best lenses and the best autofocus system of the cameras, and they introduced raw support. So you get a lot with the Xperia one too, so the Sony Xperia pro is going to bring a lot of features and functionality of the Xperia one mark ii over. In fact, on the surface, they look very similar you're, going to see that it has the same camera system in it has all the same. Specs there's a few differences.

The first one you're going to notice is on the outside. It's almost like it's built into a case. This is a more heavy-duty phone, and we're going to get into why? Because, if you're going to be pairing, this up with cameras and using it in the field for production purposes, you're going to want something a little more rugged. Another addition to Xperia pro is: we now have a button that is dedicated to being a custom, app launcher. So, if you're in the field, you don't want to dig through the touch interface and find things you can assign that to something.

So if I just want to pull up the network visualizer or want to pull up the monitoring app, I can just do it with one press plus. We also have a HDMI port, which is essential, because this is how we're going to connect it up with a proper camera. This is also a 5g phone. We've got a snapdragon 865 chipsets. We also have a boost in ram.

You get 12 gigabytes of ram, and now the storage has been raised to 512 gigabytes. The obvious reasons is: if you're going to be doing, production types of stuff, you're going to need more memory to facilitate that, and probably more storage in the phone 5g has been impressively integrated into this phone. So one of the unique things about this is there is actually a four-way antenna design. In addition to that, we also have an app that runs native in the phone called network visualizer when you open this up. This is going to give you a visualization of how the antennas are receiving throughput.

It gives you sort of histogram. If you will, if you're concerned, about your signal, strength or your reception at all, you can open up the visualizer and actually see it, and obviously, if you're, in an area that doesn't support 5g, the phone will default back to 4g signal and anyway, if you've ever been in a remote area, and you're trying to get something uploaded, you're doing a lot of this or going to the back of the room. Well, you don't have to anymore. You can actually see where the signal is coming from, which is a really nice addition. Let's talk for a second about context and Xperia pro and why I think that this is such a game-changing device for a phone.

So when you look at the last 10 years or so, mobile technology has changed the way that we not only consume content, but the way that we create content. So, for instance, from a consumption level, we can watch YouTube. We can watch Netflix, we can do it from our phone, we can do it while traveling, we can do it on the go, because we have connectivity and a perfect screen and the processing power to make that all happen. It's also changed the way that we create content and people who don't really consider themselves content. Creators, probably are everyone.

If you have an Instagram account a Facebook account or even just texting people, you have the ability to be at the moment to capture images and capture video from your phone that are pretty good quality and be able to upload them to the web or even live stream, and share that in a very immediate context. Now what Xperia pro is going to do for us is. It gives us the ability to use the HDMI signal to hook up a camera and not only for video but also for stills. This opens up an enormous amount of possibilities. Now these examples are all from a consumer standpoint, but also consider this in a professional context, if you're a photographer, who shoots sports, for instance, when you have the game-winning shot, and you work for a media outlet, and it has to be on the website in a matter of seconds, there has to be a way for that to happen, and right now there is there are devices, there are boxes you can do, but the integration into something as simple and as compact and small as a phone with 5g connectivity is a big game.

Changer a few weeks ago, there was an article on megapixel where someone had spotted someone using a gimbals and an a7r4 shooting a football game. This was fascinating because it gives you a different camera angle, a different style and a different way of producing what the game looks like and if you've ever watched, a NFL game, you realize that those are very highly produced events, and this gives you another tool to get something out of that. Another flavor that you can see and so combining that now with a device like this once again, it's small it's relatively affordable, considering the devices that we have available currently for something like this, that don't even support 5g but to be able to shoot video and have that beaming back to the broadcast truck and used in the editing process or the broadcast of what you're viewing. That's pretty amazing. Let's look at some use cases of what you can actually do with Xperia pro.

So, first, you can use it as a monitor. So this would be something like using it like you would in ninja 5 there are others, but this is a 5g phone. So it's going to bring us to those broadcast possibilities that I talked about before, and you can't do that with just an external monitor when I reviewed the Xperia 1 mark ii, one of the things that's really impressive on that phone is the screen. The Xperia pro has the same screen, so you can use this in a variety of applications. So, for instance, just as a monitor you can pinch to zoom.

So if you're shooting stills- and you want to be able to have critical focus you're in a situation where you don't want to look through the viewfinder, maybe you're working with a model, or maybe you're, working on still life from a low angle. Something like that. You can pinch to zoom in and do critical focus. You can also do this in video as well, and so it works great as a monitor, but because we have 5g connectivity, there's a number of things that we can do in both stills and video from this standpoint as well, and you can also be connected to the phone via USB for tethering applications last year, I did a video on the Sony a92 specifically on connecting that via Ethernet to a ftp server and what you can do in studio to do that. Now, one of the downsides with the Sony a9 is it does still only so I can be in the studio.

I can be shooting stills, it's essentially tethering over to Lightroom or whatever application. I want it to be tethering to because it's able to just push those functionalities via ftp. So one of the things that's really cool about this is this: gives you a remote application? Let's say that you're back in that sports example, you're, shooting stills of a game and that game-winning shot or game-winning goal has to be up on the internet. What you can do is you can actually set up ftp as you're shooting to be uploading those individually. Now, if you don't have any way of doing that in the field, there are some devices that have been available for this, but be able to do this with your phone, particularly the Xperia pro is pretty amazing, and so you can actually use push ftp through the phone.

Now one of the frustrations that I had back then with what the a9 was able to do is that it supports ftp with stills only well now, with the a7 s3, we can do stills and video via ftp, and as long as the camera's powered up the phone's powered up, you can throw it in your backpack, and it's constantly uploading in the background. So, if you're working with an editor or somebody that can retrieve it on the other end, one thing to clarify is that you're not going to use Xperia pro as a recorder, so you're not going to put a HDMI signal into that and then record onto the phone main reason being? Is the size of the data? You've got a much higher quality camera at this point, and so storage is going to be clearly an issue on something like a phone, but you can use Xperia pro as a monitor via HDMI. You can also plug the camera in via USB you're, going to record natively inside the camera, and then you can have that ftp push going and that will upload it somewhere. The most popular use for Xperia pro is going to be live-streaming now. Xperia pro has the same camera system as the Xperia 1 mark ii.

It's one of my favorite camera systems of any smartphone, and I think it is just absolutely outstanding. However, this does give you the option, because we have that HDMI signal now to take an input from a much fancier camera, with a much better quality and bigger lenses, and you're able to use that for live-streaming. And so the way it's going to work is that most streaming, services such as Instagram or Facebook are built to use the cameras that are built into the phone and in some cases I'm thinking Instagram. They really only use the main camera. So this is interesting because there are some workarounds, so YouTube will natively support Xperia pro and, if you're, using an external camera, to do this.

Another way to do this, that'll serve as a workaround to things like Facebook or Instagram is to use a third-party app like stream yard or Streamlabs that will essentially access services that use a ramp server. So this includes things like Vimeo twitch, Facebook YouTube, so on so forth, and what you're going to do is when you open it up. It essentially sees the HDMI connection as a fifth camera in this case, and so you can select that, as your camera you're good to go, and you're up to stream. Let's talk about speed and upload for a second, so with a 5g connection, Sony you're, saying you're going to get a maximum of 131 megabits per second now. This is probably not consistent.

Your average is going to be more like 115, which is still pretty impressive, especially when you compare that to 4g, so your maximum on 4g is going to be 37 megabits per second, the average being around 30. So it's a considerable speed bump if you've got good connection with 5g. As I mentioned earlier, there are some devices out there that do facilitate taking a HDMI signal and being able to upload. So things like live use, solo or even trade. There is a considerable cost difference in both of these things.

You also don't have the advantage of the screen and having a phone that you're doing it with, and they're HD only, and they only support 4g. So Xperia pro is letting you do this with a phone with much better specs than anything. That's out there. Currently, one thing I have not talked about yet is the price point, so Xperia pro comes in at 2500 u. s.

This is not cheap for a smartphone. This is very expensive, however, when you consider that what it's doing is its bridging professional application with connectivity with portability and with the size of what you're able to get out of a phone and when you consider the alternatives out there, that we've used in the past for doing this type of thing, it's actually very affordable. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. This is the unique phone that I have ever seen, and I think that the possibilities that it opens for live broadcast, especially but also ftp, is outstanding. I would love to know what you guys think so drop me.

A comment below I'll see you guys in the next video until then later.

Source : The Art of Photography