The other day we brought the EX1 and the RED ONE out for some testing.

An odd thing happened with my EX1 that I have never seen with this camera.

At full zoom I focused at near infinity (over 150 ft.). ODDLY, the right side of the screen was out of focus and had really bad CA. I'd say it was at least 1/3 of the frame on the right side.

I noticed this same problem with other similar far focus zoom shots taked that day. The next day I tried recreating this issue. Before testing. I pulled the camera out of manual focus, and then back. (maybe it somehow shifted?). I need to test more, but it did not seem that bad, although it did appear a tad soft at full zoom and near infinity focus. I will post this shot.... It's odd, believe me...

I need to test more.

My EX1 shows the same effect. Had it at prime support for 4 weeks now to fix the problem and got it back today with things almost unchanged: When I turn the zoom to max. tele, I can either focus on the left or the right side of the object. I am getting annoyed about this ...

Besides the issue with the disappearing paint on the backplate was fixed. But now if see, that alomst all paint at the ND-filter button and the costum-keys can be rubbed off.

Don't want to wait another couple of weeks and will discuss with prime support the opportunities to get a well-oiled cam with visible inscriptions.

Rgds, Eva

Eva,
I only saw the focus issue I described at full zoom while focusing at near infinity.


I need to test more to be sure.

Do you have this problem when focusing on shorter distances less than 10 meters?

I performed more tests with info listed below.
http://dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?p=856315&postcount=8
I will post images tonight.

Do you have this problem when focusing on shorter distances less than 10 meters?
YES, I do. Looks like the optical axis between lens and chips is improperly adjusted. To test it, I use a plain fine structure (e.g. the rough plastery in my living room) and can show how the focus moves from right to left and vice versa. I found out about this when doing some landscape shooting, where the trees on the left hand side did not look as sharp as on the right hand side. If will follow up with prime support to get rid of this and will report later.

Thanks Eva.
Let us know how things work out for you.

How far away was your wall, less than 4 meters?

It sounds like what I saw, but in my case the right side was out of focus.
Also, mine was only showing the issue at far focus. I'm not sure at what focus distance that this issue starts to appear.

I do know that my close full zoom tele shots looked fine.

I'm going to do some more tests.

Thanks Eva.

How far away was your wall, less than 4 meters?



Mmhh, even less. I've prepared a small pdf-doc with some pics, but failed to upload it onto my website cause I've exceeded max. allowed storage. Have to delete some stuff and try again. Will do this tommorrow, need to hit the sack now, uhhh...

Given all the issues from vignetting to back focus and now this I am beginning to think the lens on this camera isn't the best thing about the camera. What F Stop does the distance focus issue occur? I had a Canon 18x professional lens which had a similar problem and the cost to repair it was prohibitive.

Well, after more testing, it appears my camera does have an issue.
The left to right focal point changes a lot sooner than I thought!

I ran tests at full tele zoom and focusing at several distances.
Even focusing at 30 feet, the problem was easily seen.
The right side is out of focus and displays horrible CA.

At shorter focus distances there's less problem.

I'm really puzzled here. This is my second camera. The first one had the vignetting problem.

Any thoughts on what may be causing this?
I'm going to contact Sony support today.

Steven,

That's a weird one. If there were a flange/backfocus irregularity (chip misalignment etc.) you would expect it to be most evident at the widest zoom settings, not full telephoto, where depth of backfocus is the greatest.

So I am leaning toward an internal lens problem of some sort.

I agree.

I'm a bit puzzled about the whole thing...

when we have a new probelm with the camera, would it be best
to mention serial number and FW.
Regards brian

I'm sure most cameras are fine, but I suggest everyone grab their cameras and verify they do not have this issue.


Zoom all the way in and focus on objects on the same plane at greater than 60 feet away.

Look at the image on your monitor and make sure their is not a shift in focus across the image plane.

I will be attaching examples to my post tonight. It's not pretty!
Even focusing 30 feet at full tele there's a gross focus deviation across the image plane.
Also the out of focus side has bad CA.

What you would expect at full tele is that the DOF is the shallowest. If you are not at a right angle to the object (a wall maybe), could you be seeing the focus change because of the DOF?

For a 35mm lens at comparable focal length (440mm) DOF is only 3.5 ft at F2.0 at 150 ft. I'm not sure how this is for the EX1; it could be 20x as long.

However to exclude this, focus on something small/contrasty at the left side of the LCD and then pan so it's on the right. It should still be in focus.

If it changes, there could be some alignement issue or maybe even an issue with the lens internals.

George/

What you would expect at full tele is that the DOF is the shallowest. If you are not at a right angle to the object (a wall maybe), could you be seeing the focus change because of the DOF?

/

No sir!

All focused objects were on the same plane.

In fact, one test I will be posting tonight is my wife and step son leaning against a wall 60 feet from the EX1. The EX1 was aiming directly straight at the subjects (no angle). The wall was not on an angle to the camera..
Yes, I intentionally kept the apeture at wide open and used ND filters and shutter speed to obtain a reasonable exposure.

I realize the DOF will be tighter, but there should not be this much focus deviation. There's clearly an issue here.

On top of that, one shot I have focus near infinity (full tele zoom), the defocused area has EXTREMELY bad CA. It's not pretty. that's for sure.

I think you're right about the lens or internals. There's something shifted for sure.

repeat post...

Ok,
Here's some images displaying the far focus issue at full tele.

I'd like to thank Maxim from Aerialsfilm for hosting these images.

My wife and step son against a wall ( same focal plane).
f1.9
focus distance 60ft
http://www.aerialsfilm.com/stevet/Images/EX1_far focus_60ft_at full tele_wife_son.jpg

can't remember the exact fstop, but probably between f1.9 - f4.
focus distance ~125ft
http://www.aerialsfilm.com/stevet/Images/EX1_far focus_125ft_at full tele.jpg

can't remember the exact fstop, but probably between f1.9 - f4.
focus distance ~100ft
http://www.aerialsfilm.com/stevet/Images/EX1_far focus_100ft_at full tele_lake_ducks.jpg

f1.9
focus distance 30 ft.
http://www.aerialsfilm.com/stevet/Images/EX1_far focus_30ft_at full tele_ground.jpg

Steven - I think I'm seeing softening on both sides (I'll check it in Photoshop).

Could you try putting a focus chart on the wall and panning it to either side and the middle of frame? This is a good way to compare sharpness of the different parts of the image.

Steven, no offence, but to me everything looks a bit soft in these grabs (both sides, and the middle as well). I'm not saying the problem doesn't exists, but to illustrate it a focus chart or something similar would be better, like Eric said.

No offense taken,but,

You need to pull up:

http://www.aerialsfilm.com/stevet/Images/EX1_far%20focus_125ft_at%20full%20tele.jpg

It's a 1920x1080 image, so open the image full frame.
Look at the guy fishing and compare to the guy with the girl on the right.
Look down at the rocks and grass. They are at the same focal plane across the frame.

There's a dramatic difference here and is real obvious on a 24" monitor.
In fact, this is the first shot we looked at after running some RED tests.
We both went... what the heck is that...
If you can not see a difference between the middle of the screen and right side,
maybe there's something wrong with your monitor?

Also, like I've been mentioning in this thread, the problem is when the EX1 is at or near full tele AND focusing on distant objects (over 25 feet).

I plan on setting up a rez test, but I know the issue is shown at far focus.
I may set the chart up at as far a distance as I can and still be able to frame it.

BTW, I do not use detail ON, therefore, the overall shots may appear a bit soft.

I'm not sure the about the turn on point for this issue, but it was not there in previous work.
We do event work and we rely on a lot of tele shots. I've only had this camera since the end of January.

I couldn't really see anything so I checked it out in photoshop and cropped it, put a line through roughly where it starts to blur.

You mentioned you had different results on different days, could that just be humidity in the air? Smear on the lens? Sorry if that seems naive. Don't know much about lenses.

It doesn't look like an optical problem to my eyes. The guys with the fishing rod's shirt has a lot of red in it too. Could this be a problem with IR contamination, at least in part?

None of the posted images look exactly in focus anywhere in the frame. I know at the long end of the focal range zooms at this price point mightn't be that great but I'd expect better than that. At the same time there's atmospheric effects to consider, the slightest heat shimmer can play havoc with mpeg encoding as well as distort the image.

Just for a test that I'm far from certain what it means I dropped out the red channel in PS and converted to greyscale, seems to look much better. That may backup my IR theory.

If you are shooting with wide open Iris at Full Telephoto you are going to see all sorts of focus issues with many lenses. Try doing the same shots with and without the ND at different F Stops and see if the problem is triggered at a particular setting. Many lenses get very soft at the Telephoto end.

I can't disagree at all regarding IR, but there's a distict difference with focal plane from center to edge. This particular shot was white balance set about 6300. It's was on the warm side. I set it to this setting to match the RED ONE setting.

The RED also has the IR issue, but his same shot is far better for focus deviation across the image. I can find out what he was using for a lens, but it was not anything special.


Regardless, I'm seeing the right side of the image fall off for focus. It's happening in ALL my shot on the tele end focusing at 25 feet or more.

It was not there before, I have 40 foot zoom shots that look great edge to edge taken outside in sunny AZ.

I will be performing rez chart tests at different focal distances. Unfortunately, the EX1 I would be able to compare will be in Portland OR for a month.

I wonder what kind of new issues are going to appear with us in the Northern hemisphere when the hot summer comes (so far, most of us have been beta-testing the EX1 for Sony Corporation in rather low temperatures).

;)

I know Dan,
the far bank shot was probably close to f4.

I'll try more tests, but yesterday I saw the same thing at f4 at 30 feet.

Also, when I'm shooting f1.9, full zoom tele and focus at 20 feet or less, it looks great.

Doesnt the EX have CAC (chromatic aberration correction) built in. Is there a chance that this isn't working in these cases.

I remember ages ago on this forum a test movie that showed that if you're zooming then the CAC doesn't kick in until you stop and you can see a definate sharpening of the image when it does.

So with these tests have you tried slowly zooming then stopping and looking at the zoom portion and the static portion and see if the issues are the same in both. If they are then it could be that somehow the CAC is off.

It does look like both sides are soft but not just that but it looks more like CA than general softness, although that's difficult to judge.

just a thought..
paul

Paul, that's not a bad idea about checking slow zoom movement compared to the static image.

Having said that, I never really looked at the difference of CA zooming verses not, so I'm not sure if I have a reference to determine if CAC is working or not.

Yes, both sides are soft, but the right side shows more CA and is more out of focus.

After we spotted this issue and compare the RED frame against the EX1, I called up my wife who's not a camera tech.

We asked her what she thought might be wrong with the fishing image. She said the right side looked burry. It's true the left is soft too, but I'm not sure if that may not be normal for that particular zoom shot.

I'll know a lot more when I get a chance to do the rez tests at different distances.

Im looking through a load of footage now. i have some stuff at full telephoto but probably not at infinity. I don't see *anything* like this on any footage shot over the past 4 weeks (and we have around 3 hours of drama shot all over the place INT and EXT). I will try and wave the camera outside and take a look later or tomorrow.

I've been shooting with no detail and as little enhancing on as possible, whether that makes a difference im not sure.

Have you been doing the back focus adjustment? I wonder if there's a chance that can screw up the CAC. Or whether something is set incorrectly when moving between full MF and Auto. I've definately had a couple of moments where something hasn't engaged quite right.

Have you tried adjusting the images in photoshop - scaling the channels differently to see if that clears up the aberrations? At least it would indicate that it is a lens aberration problem, not focus strictly speaking.

cheers
paul

I'm going to test more on Friday morning.

All of my tests have confirmed that it's worse than it was two weeks ago, that's for sure.

Sony had me perform a camera reset (for giggles) and test it again.

They want me to send it in. My back focus is a tad softm(not that bad). I have never performed the BF adjustment myself on the EX1. They want to upgrade to software 1.05 and go through all the camera checks.

I plan on shooting rez charts at different distances and apetures and will include these images when I return it.

I think I'm seeing this on my EX1 as well. I noticed an overall softness with my unit which surprised me, so I proceeded to do the backfocus adjustment, which seems to have improved the overall clarity of my unit. In my tests, however, with the lens completely open, I focused to infinity to about 1/2 mile to a mile away. This was a pretty hot day with visible heat waves coming from the ground. I've attached a frame grab of this.

I was puzzled when the right side of the image appeared more smeared the the left side. I attributed this to CA, but it was more pronounced on the right side than the left, in my opinion.

I also have a Letus Extreme, and the GG image isn't completely centered and Letus said it might be because the sensor isn't exactly centered. I'm wondering if the sensor isn't centered in the middle of the lens how anything can really be uniform with regard to focusing.

However overall I'm still pretty happy with the EX1. If anybody out there thinks I should send the unit in for repair I'd like your opinion.

-Keith

Interesting Keith.

I'd like to see a shot full zoom and focused at 60 feet?

It does appear that it's softer on the right side too.
It appears there's a lot of sharpening in your image.
What was your detail set to?

Hi Steven,

the detail setting is on but all are at 0 so I assume basically it's 'off?'

I'll try to get to the zoom at 60 ft but probably not today. I'd like to know the results. I think I was pretty close to clipping on the framegrab. I did some other zooms in lower light conditions later and I didn't notice the smearing as much.

Thanks Keith.
Actually detail 0 is normal setting for detail on. It's a moderate setting. To turn off you have to set detail to OFF.

I'm sending my camera out today for these issues starting with the worse.

1. Delta focus center to right is worse than center to left.

2. Possibly having something to do with the first issue, CA is real bad
on right side at full tele, more than left.

3. Small amount of vignetting.

4. lettering is coming off of camera on rear.

5. Software upgrade to 1.05

I'd like to thank Maxim from Aerialsfilm for hosting this image.

The is NOT a rez test. The camera was set from the chart at:

12 ft.
full tele 82mm
f1.9

If you pull back the camera to 15 feet, the results are even worse.
If you focus the target on the left side, the center is a bit out of focus. Maybe normal for this lens under these conditions, but maybe a tad high. If I focus
the target on the right side of the frame, the center is definately further out of focus.

In fact just panning with peaking on and stopping when the target is on the right of the frame, there's NO peaking visable on the target. But, if I pan to the left and stop on the target, peaking can be viewed.
What surprised me was that even with the camera set to f4 under these conditions, the right side can still be seen softer than the left.

http://www.aerialsfilm.com/stevet/Images/Focus_delta_CA_issue.jpg

Any thoughts on this?

I just received my camera back for the larger than normal center to right focus difference (focal image plane) on the extreme tele end of the lens.

Cheuk from Sony Service (San Jose) was going to replace the lens. The lens was on back order for another month. Instead he performed an lens alignment.

I'm not sure what this entailed, but the center to edge on the tele end of the lens is now symmetrical.

Also, this adjustment (or possibly another) fixed the small amount of vignetting viewed between 8-25mm. Maybe they were connected.

I have not confirmed if CA is improved on the tele end, but it was worse on the right side at the tele end along with the soft right side at this point, so it may also now be at least symmetrical across the image.

Back focus was never really bad on my camera. Cheuk also said he upgraded the software to 1.05. I'm going to confirm this today, but I imagine he did. He said he performed the back focus cal. BF looks good at all ND settings ON or OFF. It may be just a tad out, but it seems somewhat subjective, so it's probably fine.

I have the extended warranty so I'm waiting to have the paint peeling on the back panel lettering issue addressed.

I'm having some problems with this too after doing some test shots with my new EX1. The right side is definitely out of focus compared to what is in focus on the same plane.

I have attached photos of two good examples.

Is this something I should send into Sony or should I try to do the auto back focus maintenance? From what I have read so far, it seems like sending this into Sony seems like a crap shoot if it will be fixed - or am I just running into the wrong feedback?

This is a bit discouraging, especially with the zoom on the EX1 being only at 14x and how much Sony was touting how good the lens is, maybe I should buy an EX3 instead with a proper telephoto?

If I'm not mistaken, both cameras have the same Fujinon lens.

Thats the stock lens for the EX3, but I was thinking of attaching a different 1/2" or 2/3" longer/higher quality telephoto via adapter. Is that the only way I'll be able to get some quality long distance shots?