Review: Bebob Coco-ex for the SONY EX camera
One of my favourite video cameras to date is the SONY EX1. It’s a small form factor full-HD camera, capable of outputting lovely high quality pictures. Loaded with nice features, a reasonable Fujinon lens and... it is tapeless. A very popular camera and nowadays everybody seems to have/want one.
Reviewing the Coco-ex from Bebob. Will this accessory be of any value for the SONY EX camera?
Despite its popularity the SONY camera does have a few shortcomings. One of them is the lack of a power tap for accessories like an on-camera light. A few companies jumped into this opportunity and came up with solutions. One of them is the German company Bebob who introduced: the Coco-ex. Read the full review...
A small and clever designed click-on converter. It can be fitted in the back of the EX camera. The standard SONY BP-U60 battery fastens into this convertor and voila, you have a D-tap connecter (sometimes called P-tap) and 2 Hirose connectors.
All you need: the coco-ex and a BP-U60 battery
Now you can power a small on-camera light, a LED light or other accessories like the Nanoflash recorder.
I’ve bought one last year and would like to let you know my findings about this piece of gear in a small review.
The Coco-ex fits neatly in the battery compartment of the SONY EX1 camera
It’s lightweight, small and looks solid. Clever design but will this be a good solution to get that extra power tap for your on-camera light?
Out-of-the-box it feels well build. Connectors are good. It fits neatly into the EX1 camera. It’s sticking out at the end, not really beautiful, but hey, it’s not about looks. The SONY BP-U60 has plenty of juice to power a small LED light for a while. No problems so far. A bit annoying is the fact that you can’t access the battery led-indicators anymore.
The Bebob Coco-ex inserted and ready to go. It is a bit wobbly though. The D-tap is clearly visible
Although the battery is attached more or less securely it wobbles a bit. While testing at home it’s not a problem, but out in the field it’s a different story. On more than a few occasions I accidentally bumped on the Coco-ex resulting in power loss. Really annoying. But it got worse.
The D-tap cable of my LED light attached to the Coco-ex
After using the Coco-ex over a period of months quickly a new issue occured. Occasionally, and seemingly random, you get a “Battery error” message on the LCD-screen of the camera. Together with a warning to “please remove the battery”. Within 5 seconds the camera shuts of and won’t come to life anymore. Completely detaching and installing the battery and the Coco-ex is the only cure.
It happens with full and half charged batteries. It even happens when you have nothing attached to the Coco-ex that uses power! It happens random and I haven’t been able to reproduce the failure.
But in everyday use this is unacceptable. The failure happened on a few important run-and-gun interviews. And you can’t ask a celebrity or political spokesperson to redo a certain quote.
So nowadays I avoid using the Coco-ex.
The battery is inserted backwards into the Coco-ex: the led-status indicator is not visible anymore
The verdict
Pro
- clever design
- solution for not having a standard on-camera power tap
Con
- wobbly, when bumped you have a power loss
- the battery led-indicators are out of reach
- randomly giving battery errors, camera shuts down, making this piece of equipment unreliable
Buying advise
No. Don’t buy this. If you need a D-power tap or Hirose power connection there are way better alternatives in the market. Just Google on the new Swit batteries for example.
Update: read a review of the Switronix EX-L96 battery in this site.
Erwin van Dijck is a video producer, cameraman and editor in the Netherlands. With over 9 years experience in web, marketing & communication and the video production field, he helps companies with producing their movies, promo’s, clips, event impressions, client testimonials, press videos etc. He is available for your next video project.
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