Bruce G. Cleveland
May 18th, 2008, 08:55 AM
I just wanted to post some positive comments about the Sony Z7 I purchased a couple of months back. I have been sitting here with it and not really having a good chance to check it out in a real situation like a wedding. Some people have had bad experiences with the camera. I feel some of the complaints are not justified and just plain picky, but I really did not have a chance to try out the camera at a wedding until yesterday. We don't have any weddings until mid June this year. My good friend Bob from MVP video had a wedding yesterday and graciously offered to let me come and try out my camera at his wedding, after clearing it with the bride and groom. So here are some of my observations.
1. This is a manual camera. I feel the manual/auto button should be on manual. Once in manual mode, gain, shutter and iris need to be in manual as well. There is an option to just select certain settings in manual and leave the camera adjust the others. If you are manual controlling iris and leave the gain in auto, the camera will adjust gain to compensate for where you have the iris setting. Same is true for shutter speed. So gain, shutter and iris need to be controlled manually. Also, white balance has never been easier to set. I set A for inside the church and B for the entrance. Very slick to set and then go back and forth between A and B. There is also a 3rd setting that is a pre-set you can go into menu and set this one for, say outdoor setting, and also set it with a specific temperature.
2. Focus has probably been one of the most talked about problem areas with this camera. I am not completely convinced that everyone is reading the manual and really learning how to use this camera. The big issue with focus problems people have been having I think has to do with having the A/B setting on the focus ring. I am still not sure what the purpose of this setting is for. All I do know is that if the ring is in the A setting, focus is going to be a problem in auto as well as manual focus. This setting needs to be in B mode, in my opinion or your footage is going to be a nightmare. The other issue I think is keeping the camera in the macro focus mode. This is a great setting to use to get very nice closeups, but do not leave it on. With it off though, you will not be able to get very close to subject. I do feel thought that leaving macro focus on will give the problem overall focus problems in general. One thing I really noticed is that when this camera is zoomed all the way in on manual focus, the depth of field is extremely short. I found it somewhat hard to focus exactly on the bride. Also this lens must be a wider angle than am used to, because it did not seem to zoom in as close as I am used to with the 170.
3. A small thing, but I think could be overlooked is the ND knob. Make sure this knob is clicked in position. It can be a tad off and cause vignetting on the video.
4. A couple people have recently had a theory that the gain on this camera, when set on 0, is actually +6 and that to get the 0 setting we are used to we have to set it on -6. I did some shooting at -6, and it seemed pretty dark. I do feel that 0 may not be 0 and think that in the future I will shoot at -3, as suggested by Douglas Spotted Eagle on his training video.
Summary:
The church had lots of light with lots of windows. Our company has shot weddings here before and the windows always caused us big problems. Not with the Z7.
After looking at the footage I shot yesterday, I could not be happier. I was able to take all the shots I wanted to, since my footage was not needed. This allowed me to really try to replicate some of the issues some people have been having. Focus seemed to be a real issue. I have heard that the camera had problems focusing and would hunt. I saw none of this. This camera had none of the focus issues I have heard about and I really experimented shooting into shots with lots of people. All the shots with panning were also in focus. Auto focus was on most of the time. As I mentioned, when zoomed in all the way, the DOF was very narrow and fairly hard to focus, as difference between focus and out of focus was a very small turn of the zoom ring.
Got home and looked at the footage and was blown away at the color and clarity. I feel this camera has gotten a bad wrap from the start. After having it for 2 months or more, I finally feel good about my purchase. it is a great camera to operate and very easy to shoot in manual. I know some people have been on the fence about whether to get this camera or not. From my experience yesterday, I can finally say I would recommend this camera. If I was in the position, I would get 2 more. I am of the opinion that most of the problems people have had with this camera are due to user errors from some of the things I mentioned in this post. I know I am probably angering some users with this comment, but that is what I feel.
Bruce
1. This is a manual camera. I feel the manual/auto button should be on manual. Once in manual mode, gain, shutter and iris need to be in manual as well. There is an option to just select certain settings in manual and leave the camera adjust the others. If you are manual controlling iris and leave the gain in auto, the camera will adjust gain to compensate for where you have the iris setting. Same is true for shutter speed. So gain, shutter and iris need to be controlled manually. Also, white balance has never been easier to set. I set A for inside the church and B for the entrance. Very slick to set and then go back and forth between A and B. There is also a 3rd setting that is a pre-set you can go into menu and set this one for, say outdoor setting, and also set it with a specific temperature.
2. Focus has probably been one of the most talked about problem areas with this camera. I am not completely convinced that everyone is reading the manual and really learning how to use this camera. The big issue with focus problems people have been having I think has to do with having the A/B setting on the focus ring. I am still not sure what the purpose of this setting is for. All I do know is that if the ring is in the A setting, focus is going to be a problem in auto as well as manual focus. This setting needs to be in B mode, in my opinion or your footage is going to be a nightmare. The other issue I think is keeping the camera in the macro focus mode. This is a great setting to use to get very nice closeups, but do not leave it on. With it off though, you will not be able to get very close to subject. I do feel thought that leaving macro focus on will give the problem overall focus problems in general. One thing I really noticed is that when this camera is zoomed all the way in on manual focus, the depth of field is extremely short. I found it somewhat hard to focus exactly on the bride. Also this lens must be a wider angle than am used to, because it did not seem to zoom in as close as I am used to with the 170.
3. A small thing, but I think could be overlooked is the ND knob. Make sure this knob is clicked in position. It can be a tad off and cause vignetting on the video.
4. A couple people have recently had a theory that the gain on this camera, when set on 0, is actually +6 and that to get the 0 setting we are used to we have to set it on -6. I did some shooting at -6, and it seemed pretty dark. I do feel that 0 may not be 0 and think that in the future I will shoot at -3, as suggested by Douglas Spotted Eagle on his training video.
Summary:
The church had lots of light with lots of windows. Our company has shot weddings here before and the windows always caused us big problems. Not with the Z7.
After looking at the footage I shot yesterday, I could not be happier. I was able to take all the shots I wanted to, since my footage was not needed. This allowed me to really try to replicate some of the issues some people have been having. Focus seemed to be a real issue. I have heard that the camera had problems focusing and would hunt. I saw none of this. This camera had none of the focus issues I have heard about and I really experimented shooting into shots with lots of people. All the shots with panning were also in focus. Auto focus was on most of the time. As I mentioned, when zoomed in all the way, the DOF was very narrow and fairly hard to focus, as difference between focus and out of focus was a very small turn of the zoom ring.
Got home and looked at the footage and was blown away at the color and clarity. I feel this camera has gotten a bad wrap from the start. After having it for 2 months or more, I finally feel good about my purchase. it is a great camera to operate and very easy to shoot in manual. I know some people have been on the fence about whether to get this camera or not. From my experience yesterday, I can finally say I would recommend this camera. If I was in the position, I would get 2 more. I am of the opinion that most of the problems people have had with this camera are due to user errors from some of the things I mentioned in this post. I know I am probably angering some users with this comment, but that is what I feel.
Bruce