Although last year's flooding in Thailand is making it difficult to get a hold of new Sony gear, I was finally able to get my hands on the new Sony A65 DSLR (SLT actually). No one except for Sony actually had them in stock, and even Sony didn't have any body-only versions, so I had to get the one with the cheap kit lens. 

So why choose a Sony DSLR over the other brands, especially when using it primarily for video? Well, for me it's the built-in stabilization, meaning that almost any lens I connect will be stabilized. Not everyone shoots as much handheld as I do, so that may not apply to everyone, but so far it's working out really well. The only hang up with the stabilization is that any lenses that require an adapter (like older manual focus lenses without electronic control) may cause the stabilization to not work correctly or at all as the camera will not know what type of lens you have connected, and it needs to know the focal length to calculate the amount of stabilization to perform. 

Other than that, the image quality is very good, it supports 1080p at 24fps and even 1080 at 60fps (although the compression at that rate is much worse), has a mic-in jack, and makes for a really good still camera as well. Another benefit is focus peaking that really helps you with manual focusing without the need for a magnified viewfinder like the Zacuto Z-Finder or the LCDVF. Speaking of focus, the camera supports auto focus during video, and although that's rarely used in pro video production, it's still a nice feature and thanks to the built in object tracking, it works really well.

The main downside of this camera is the lack of manual audio control, so it's back to the old days of the Canon 5DMK2 before it's audio control firmware update. Meaning I will have to record important audio with an external recorder, but that's usually safer to do than recording onto a DSLR as none of them offer a headphone jack (as of Jan 2012). Another potential issue is how delicate the foldout LCD screen's connection is, I fear that it may break off easily if you are not careful. 

Comparing to the other major (low-cost DSLR) players, the A65 does not appear to be as sharp and crisp as the Panasonic GH2 and I prefer the colors/look produced by the Canon 5DMK2 (but with a little color grading the A65 footage looks great too). Still none of those have built-in stabilization or focus peaking, so it looks like Sony has finally entered the DSLR filmmaker game. 

I'll be sure to post up images and videos from this camera over the next few months as we travel in Europe.