I am an elder at Central Church in Ewing, NJ and oversee our video initiatives. We host three Sunday services that attract around 600 attendees in person and about 200 online. Our contemporary services, which include announcements, devotions, and sermons, are live streamed at 9:30am each week. We do this with a 5-person video team: a director and four camera operators using a mix of Sony FS5 and Sony FX30 cameras with 24-105G, 70-200GM, and 18-105 PZ lenses. We use HDMI output and convert to 12G SDI which is sent to our BlackMagic system. This system, which operates in 4K, streams in 4K to YouTube and downscales to 1080p for Facebook. We manage IMAG projection in our worship center with only 2-3 frames latency.
For our social media, we use a Sony FX30 and a Sony A7iii for stills. Our church’s social media manager saw what we were doing on our livestream with the Sony cameras, said, “I want that!” and sold his previous camera equipment. He has never looked back! The Sony color science, IBIS, and autofocus are a dream for him, and the efficiency of shooting vertically for social media is improved with the FX30, which he loves.
Seven years ago, Facebook Live came out and the pastor of my church asked me to organize a livestream since I’m “such a techie” and work in advertising (I’m an Associate Creative Director, Art). But I knew nothing about video. The first camera we bought was a Sony PXW-X70, mainly for its features (HDMI/SDI, 4K capabilities, big zoom + AF). Over the next few years, we bought a second X70 and then added a PXW-Z150.
Then the pandemic hit, and while other churches were rushing and struggling to set up a basic video system for the first time, we got pretty good at the video system and were able to help other churches in the area get up and running. Because we loved our Sony camcorders so much (the colors were amazing, they were easy to use, all the I/O ports were right), we kept recommending them to these other churches and they became Sony churches too!
In the fall of 2020, many volunteers came forward to help. We looked for lenses with easy manual focus and shallow depth of field to match our video equipment. We purchased some older Sony models, including the FS5, which offered the performance and functionality our church needed at a fraction of the cost. The FS5s used the same generation of color technology as the X70 and Z150, so mixing and matching during the transition was really easy.
We worked with four Sony FS5s for a few years, but our handheld camera operators were looking for a more ergonomic option, so we went with the Sony FX30. Its form factor allowed the camera operators to balance their camera much better, it still had the same color profiles as our FS5s (we use Cine2 gamma up to Rec709), incredible autofocus (constant manual focus was always a challenge on the FS5), and IBIS, which minimized camera shake. If our budget ever allows (miracles do happen, we can dream!), we will replace our two remaining FS5 cameras with FX6 models, swap out our crop sensor lenses, and increase to 5 and 6 camera operators per week.
I’ll say it again: Throughout Central Church’s video history, we have always stayed loyal to Sony cameras. Their reliability, incredible color science, consistency and interchangeability with other Sony models over the years, amazing I/O options, lens offerings, and now IBIS and autofocus have always impressed us. All of these features have made it easy for us to train volunteers with no prior experience and get them up and running quickly and with great results. In our region (Central New Jersey, East Central Pennsylvania), Central Church in Ewing is known for its excellent video production, surpassing even the quality of other churches with budgets ten times ours. We remain a resource for other churches looking to improve their video capabilities. Many of these churches use other competing brands, but many of them, after hearing about our successes, have switched to Sony when their budget allows.
My story is a testament to how Sony products help nonprofits like our church achieve high standards in video production. We couldn’t do this well without Sony products, and with Sony equipment at the heart of our video work, we will continue to get better and better.
This story was told by Todd Perkins, Elder | Director of Video Ministry at Centra
