Hi,

is there a possiblity that someone could post a file into their dropbox of some late night footage at some of the higher ISO/gain settings? i would like to see how these files look for myself, with my own eyes. tired of people saying how grainy it is, but not being able to get my hands on one to see for myself in Premiere Pro how bad it actually is, whether is can be cleaned up with a noise reducing filter or not. just would like to see with my own eyes.

i know i keep saying i'm right on the verge of getting one, but i just am not sure. i'm not getting my money to buy it for a few days. it would help me decide if i can live with it, or if i should hold out for a FS100.

i appreciate it if someone could make this happen, as the low-light tests on vimeo are fine, but it compresses the footage so i don't know how much i can trust it.

i only need a few seconds worth.

Hi Chris

I'm assuming you need some footage that is purposely grainy ..like a dark dark room and the camera gain allowed to go to 30db?? I limit my gain to 21db so I have nothing that you could call "grainy" as at 21db it's pretty much clean ..even dark backgrounds ... I use an LED light as a fill only for my subject in dark shots which doesn't light the background but at 21db or less it's pretty much flawless.

Maybe someone could take their gain or ISO limit off and let the camera go wild but I really cannot see the point?? If it's too dark exposure wise at 21db or around 3000 ISO then all you do is add light or use a faster lens. It's the middle of the day here so for now I have nowhere dark to film that would be practical!

Let me know later if you find any footage otherwise I could try some later this evening?

Chris

i only need a few seconds worth.

I can give you a bit more, did some iso tests some days ago with my nex-ea50, 550d and gh3, nothing scientific but clear enough for me. On the nex-ea50 I used the pp3 preset which is quite flat, I should have tested with the preset turned of as well because the flatter the preset, the more noise you will see. On the 550d I used the neutral preset and the cinestyle one (here you can see what a flat preset causes) and on the gh3 just the standard preset.

If at the next wedding I have a better example (preferably when there is red lights because that brings out the noise much more) I"ll put my nex-ea50 side by side with the gh3.

If you pm me your emails address I"ll give you a link from the file that is on my google drive.

thanks so much!!!

I can give you a bit more, did some iso tests some days ago with my nex-ea50, 550d and gh3, nothing scientific but clear enough for me. On the nex-ea50 I used the pp3 preset which is quite flat, I should have tested with the preset turned of as well because the flatter the preset, the more noise you will see. On the 550d I used the neutral preset and the cinestyle one (here you can see what a flat preset causes) and on the gh3 just the standard preset.

If at the next wedding I have a better example (preferably when there is red lights because that brings out the noise much more) I"ll put my nex-ea50 side by side with the gh3.

If you pm me your emails address I"ll give you a link from the file that is on my google drive.

ok sent you a message with my email address :-)

Just send the link, interested to hear what you think of the results. :)

i don't know if i have the eye to tell the difference. seems all three cameras are about the same

Here are some (I think 200% crop) frames from each camera, the gh3, nex-ea50 and the 550d there are also 2 frames from the same camera but a different preset (which is why there are 4 frames) curious what others find without knowing which camera they are looking at?

All images are at 6400iso except for the nex-ea50 which only goes up to 5000iso, when I look at the recording on my big screen the nex-ea50 produces the most visible noise to my eye.

I hope I can get a better example at this weekends wedding depending on the lights that are used.

thank you so much for sharing all of this. seems like it can be a lot noisier than i thought it would be

Normally I"m not such a pixelpeeper, I just look at the final image from a normal viewing distance on a HD tv and on that the nex-ea50 showed the most grain but important to know is that certain presets are (much) more noisy, pp3 on teh EA50 is pretty flat and I"m sure if I would have used no preset the result would be different. The 550d looks the worst when you use the cinestyle preset, the image just falls apart.

The gh3 does display clear grain at 6400 iso but is sharper then the others, there is one frame where you need to look at the tv in the top left corner and more specifically the ventilation lines on the side or look at the letters on front of the tv, on the other camera's that's turned to mush while the gh3 still shows the most detail, this should theoretically give a better start point to apply neatvideo when that would be necessary since there is more detail.

Much depends on the light used, when I shot at the last wedding 6400 iso on the gh3 seemed fine to me, but everytime red light was shining the grain appeared much more and it didn't look that pretty, I"ll see what happens this Saturday if I have some demanding low light situation so I can put the camera better to the test. This I need to know how far I can push it before the image falls apart.

Chris,

Lately there have been several comments about the EA50 being a poor low light performer. In my opinion that is not true. But I have a very sober opinion of it as a $3,500.00 camera. Some guys are expecting miracles from a budget priced camera. I believe you get what you pay for. In that category the EA50 is amazing. It is a feature rich good performing camera, especially for it's price.

And some of the guys complaining about low light and high grain are using the stock lens. Anyone expecting to shoot at ISO 160 at F6.3 in low light is crazy. It ain't going to happen. It is a "KIT" lens. Again, a bargain with short cummings, and damn nice for some things. Fortunately the EA50 is an interchangeable lens camera. Faster lenses are the answer and good glass costs money.

Steve

true steve,
i'm not meaning to throw the EA50 under the bus. we all get what we pay for, and for the price, its pretty awesome. the touch focus and the digital zoom and the fact that it comes with a kit lens that can power zoom is freaking awesome.

The power zoom is nice, but at its fastest speed it is surprisingly slow to zoom. Butter smooth though.

With all lenses, including manual focus the peaking on this camera is amazing. It makes everything easy to focus spot on. I usually run it in yellow on medium. It lights up everything that is within DOF.

Steve

Edit: Before I say butter smooth some guys have an issue with it jumping. Mine does not, or it is so slight I can't see it. There are threads about it.

Hi Steve

I have the same opinion too! I love both of mine to bits and have chalked up close to 100 hours on each too.

Chris Quevedo is simply asking many questions and making lots of comparisons because he intends to buy an EA-50 and doesn't own one as yet ... it's pretty tough to make comparisons on the camera if it's not actually in you hot little hands and simply reading and commenting on theory is quite different to actually using it. Chris will be pleasantly surprised when he actually takes delivery of his camera ... it's a great package at a great price!

Chris

Hey Guys,

My post was not intended to sound cranky. I guess it did? My overall thought that many people expect so much for so little must have come through. I don't mean to sound like $3,500.00 is chump change, at least it is not for me. I am also used to working with cameras that cost many thousands more where the cost of the camera justifies high expectations. We all want the best value for our money. There is a line when expectations become unreasonable for the amount paid. Pound for pound the EA50 is an incredible value. Fortunately we have DVINFO.net where we can share ideas, experiences, facts, and OPINIONS. So my take will remain the same, for now. The EA50 is a general purpose camera that does a lot of things very well for a bargain price. It is far from perfect, but so am I ;)

Disclaimer: My camera was shipped backed to Sony yesterday for repairs. My entire position on this camera may change depending on the outcome of this process. Please don't ask why now. The story is scattered in numerous threads already. Once I have gone through the repair process I will post a detailed thread on the whole process.

Steve

I'll be quick on the draw and say, no worries man. I didn't take it in a bad way. I thought what you said was reasonable and just fine.

Sorry to hear that man, never fun to deal with repairs, no matter how small. I thi k to be honest, I may hold off on a EA50. I found a deal on a fs100 for about the same price. I think I'm gonna take it

The clincher for me was the shoulder mount and I absolutely thrive on shoulder mount cameras! If the FS100 had been a SM then I would have gone for the bigger sensor of course but the design looks very unbalanced even if you put it on a rig ...still an awesome camera!

We look forward to your post Steve and hopefully it wasn't a huge problem with the EA-50 ... mine have been flawless so far and more importantly have paid for themselves many times over already.

Chris? if you go for an FS100 look for the post here about shortening the viewing tube, it's supposed to make the camera way better more manageable!

Chris

Sorry to hear that man, never fun to deal with repairs, no matter how small. I thi k to be honest, I may hold off on a EA50. I found a deal on a fs100 for about the same price. I think I'm gonna take it
I think that's a wise choice. Only reason I went for the EA50 instead of the FS100 was that I couldn't afford the FS100 at that time! (and cannot afford to upgrade now either)