Sony FDR-AX100

[Anthony Lelli]

good news :

@ Dave and Ken

following the goal of "making it work" I did a test on a real soccer practice session at night, tonight. Lights were poor but I had to check the whole 4K system at the shutter speed of 1/125 (because that's what I'm going to use for the real coverage)
the setting therefore was the actual setting that I'll use on a real soccer game
tripod on fluid head, camera 0on macro-rail , plus ikan 15mm rail system to hold the monitor on articulated arm and a temporary mount for shotgun and lights, two handle bars , lanc remote, 7inch monitor via micro hdmi (that's surprisingly tight, better than the mini of other cameras)
camera in 4K 30p , shutter 1/125 manual, iris auto , gain auto. Custom white balance based on the monitor by "eye" -my eye LOL
no stabilization (off)

3 surprises:
1. the panning was a lot smoother than my previous landholding tests (so the stabilization contributes to make it that bad)
2. the AF was easily fooled and out of control (this is bad news for me, but the lighting was really poor. I'll have to test more on that, but it's not going to be such a big deal, used to shoot in manual focus many soccer games with the XL1 -back then-)
3. Outstanding noise reduction, cinematone (cool, really cool. I'll keep it as a standard setting). The exposure may need a minus as compensation (the camera like to shoot a little bright, but I didn't pay particular attention to that, tonight to be honest)

the most important aspect was that the panning and zooming at the same time went well. I kept my usual shooting style that I do with 1080-60p. On 4K I'll pay more attention to the pannings of course but I didn't tonight for this test, in purpose.

the footage in 4K is nothing less than amazing


info on the lanc remote :
it's a vivitar 8-button 20 bucks remote that will activate 8 zoom speeds plus 1 variable, selectable right on the remote and while shooting. Plus gives start-standby , focus, on/off of the camera, on-screen info on/off (only LCD). That's the only lanc remote that works on the multiport with the 10pin adapter (for the records a libec 3dv and varizoom didnt work at all)
info on the hdmi:
it's clean, no icons and no info.

as always shooting for real can make a huge difference, in this case I didn't expect such a good outcome. I really didn't
life is wonderful, sometimes.

[Wacharapong Chiowanich]

Having played with the camera for a week, test shooting only in 4K/25p mode all I can say is I wish I could get a usable panning shot at a shutter speed above 1/50th. Unless I do a very slow creeping pan for a cooking show I really can't see myself using a shutter speed that high (1/120, 1/125....etc.) and get a usable footage.

That may be great for pulling stills frames but how would you make it look even OK on the computer monitor? There's no doubt the single wish list that would make this camera truly great is 4K/50p, 60p. That's why the AX1 has its place.

[Anthony Lelli]

Originally Posted by Wacharapong Chiowanich

Having played with the camera for a week, test shooting only in 4K/25p mode all I can say is I wish I could get a usable panning shot at a shutter speed above 1/50th. Unless I do a very slow creeping pan for a cooking show I really can't see myself using a shutter speed that high (1/120, 1/125....etc.) and get a usable footage.

That may be great for pulling stills frames but how would you make it look even OK on the computer monitor? There's no doubt the single wish list that would make this camera truly great is 4K/50p, 60p. That's why the AX1 has its place.

the shutter speed keeps targets in motion under control, but has very little to do with the bad panning of the AX100 when stabilized, which is most likely due to an intentional bad processing or to a faulty software of the stabilization which is extremely complicated on the AX100 (involving croppings, even zoom focal adjustments). Also the framerate gives a very little relief. The stabilization turned off on the other end makes a big difference for shooting on a tripod actually. Please get the camera again and use it before spreading info on the wind about something that you don't know squat about it.
now try 30p and 60p on the camera that you actually have and tell me if you see any difference panning. 60p helps but very little, mostly for slow motion but panning is pretty much the same.

[Wacharapong Chiowanich]

I've tried everything including mounting the camera on a tripod so I could turn off the stabilization when panning or tilting. Actually this camera's stabilization in the standard/optical-only mode is nowhere near impressive and the active/digital+optical mode though more effective, reduces the resolution by cropping and rescaling and as you say may interfere with the motion when panning the camera.

I guess if you can get acceptable results with that combination of shooting techniques of yours then fine, I have no problem with that. But the 180 degree shutter rule for slow frame rate cinematography has been there for a reason. It's certainly not some stupid number invented by people who didn't know what they were doing.

[Alister Chapman]

There is no drop in resolution when you use the active steadyshot. The sensor is super-sampled so you can crop in to the image at the sensor level without loosing any image quality. However I prefer to turn this off as it can make pans stutter a little more as the electronic stabiliser tries to hold on to motion within the frame.

Pan judder and high resolution are not good friends. As you increase image resolution the edges in a scene become more obvious and your eye's will latch on to these, so when they move you will notice judder more. Try simply defocussing a shot and comparing that to a well focussed shot, the judder will appear to be lower in the defocussed shot.

If shooting sports, moving vehicles etc it's likely that the viewers focus of attention, the players, the cars etc, will be fairly static within the frame and this is what the viewer will be looking at, so they won't notice the background (which may well also be out of focus) judder.

Another thing that makes a difference is noise. As image noise is largely random, a noisy picture will mask some of the judder as the motion of the noise is random from frame to frame. The less noise there is in a shot the more obvious judder becomes.

None of these are unique to the AX100. The AX100 "suffers" from having a very clean, very sharp image often with very deep DoF. Reduce the DoF (use ND not faster shutter), maybe add a little gain (or a touch of noise/grain in post) and you might be surprised by how well your pans work.

[Wacharapong Chiowanich]

Alister,

There 's an interesting test of the active steadyshot on the Sony CX900 which also engages the Clear Image Zoom. Though the test was done at 1080p resolution as the the CX900 doesn't shoot 4K I feel this is quite similar to what I got when zooming in near the tele end when in active steadyshot mode in 4K. At the wide end or close to it the difference in resolution is not really noticeable in practice. Over at the dpreview.com site they also found something similar when testing the Sony RX100 Mk3 with the test chart when active steadyshot was used in the video mode as well.

-

Stabiliser test: Sony HDR-CX900 stabilizer - YouTube

I haven't yet shot anything at 1080p with my AX100 but given the two cameras have more or less the same hardware the results should be the same at that resolution.

[Ron Evans]

Anthony, I have a FDR-AX1 which can shoot 30P at 60 or 100 Mbps and 60P at 150Mbps so I am able to shoot at exactly the same frame rate with the same codec with and without image stabilizer just like the AX100. There is a big, big difference between 30p and 60P. For your information there is also a noticeable difference between 30P at 60Mbps and 100Mbps. An advantage of 4k is the ability to crop and pan the image in post to 1920x1080. However you may find that 30P at 60Mbps with image judder may not give you this capability without a lot of artifacts. Scaling will give you the advantage of getting close to a 422 image though.

You have clearly been happy with 30P in the past, your choice. I find the judder of 30P unacceptable to me for anything other than fixed camera shots. That includes everything on Youtube !!! Information content is most important which covers all the cell phone videos we see but if the intent is a quality image then minimum judder is a must and why the professional broadcasters use 60i or 60P for sports .

If you want 4k think more than 4 times the storage and processing power for edits. If that is unacceptable to you then 4k is not for you now.

Ron Evans

[Alister Chapman]

Sure there will be a difference in image quality when you shoot at longer focal lengths.

Have you never noticed how with most optical zoom lenses the longer the focal length the softer the image becomes for all kinds of reasons. To expect a 12x shot to be just as sharp as an 18x or 24x shot, whether optically or digitally done is crazy, especially at this price point.

In practice the AX100's clear image zoom is virtually transparent at 4K and compares very well to most purely optical zooms. I've just never been a fan of electronic stabilisation as it tends to un-naturally grab and release the image as it tries to hold it steady.

[Anthony Lelli]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

Anthony, I have a FDR-AX1 which can shoot 30P at 50 or 100 Mbps and 60P at 150Mbps so I am able to shoot at exactly the same frame rate with the same codec with and without image stabilizer just like the AX100. There is a big, big difference between 30p and 60P. For your information there is also a noticeable difference between 30P at 50Mbps and 100Mbps. An advantage of 4k is the ability to crop and pan the image in post to 1920x1080. However you may find that 30P at 50Mbps with image judder may not give you this capability without a lot of artifacts. Scaling will give you the advantage of getting close to a 422 image though.

You have clearly been happy with 30P in the past, your choice. I find the judder of 30P unacceptable to me for anything other than fixed camera shots. That includes everything on Youtube !!! Information content is most important which covers all the cell phone videos we see but if the intent is a quality image then minimum judder is a must and why the professional broadcasters use 60i or 60P for sports .

If you want 4k think more than 4 times the storage and processing power for edits. If that is unacceptable to you then 4k is not for you now.

Ron Evans

Ron, I'm talking about panning the AX100 that gives countless problems in 4K
Panning and panning only. the framerate doesn't have much to do with it. It's the processing of the AX100, not the lens, not the shutter: the processing, how can I say it better? .. recording the frames into the solid state memory card or whatever it will be.
the stabilization produces more problems , again PANNING. that's the only thing under discussion here.
cinealta ex1/r never had any problem panning, and they shoot 30p . care to explain that?

[Anthony Lelli]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

Anthony, I have a FDR-AX1 which can shoot 30P at 50 or 100 Mbps and 60P at 150Mbps so I am able to shoot at exactly the same frame rate with the same codec with and without image stabilizer just like the AX100. There is a big, big difference between 30p and 60P. For your information there is also a noticeable difference between 30P at 50Mbps and 100Mbps. An advantage of 4k is the ability to crop and pan the image in post to 1920x1080. However you may find that 30P at 50Mbps with image judder may not give you this capability without a lot of artifacts. Scaling will give you the advantage of getting close to a 422 image though.

You have clearly been happy with 30P in the past, your choice. I find the judder of 30P unacceptable to me for anything other than fixed camera shots. That includes everything on Youtube !!! Information content is most important which covers all the cell phone videos we see but if the intent is a quality image then minimum judder is a must and why the professional broadcasters use 60i or 60P for sports .

If you want 4k think more than 4 times the storage and processing power for edits. If that is unacceptable to you then 4k is not for you now.

Ron Evans

the AX1 sports a small sensor, things are easier moving data from a smaller sensor, no doubts. I believe that the recording process (on any camera) involves guessing coded in the software. To make things moving faster. That I believe. And the guessing in the AX100 got confused of was written to move too much guessed data within the actual data captured.

[Alister Chapman]

Resolution and sharpness. HUGE difference between an HD EX1 and the 4K AX100.

[Alister Chapman]

Sensor size makes no difference when it come to moving data. Pixel count makes a difference, more pixels = more data, but size is largely irrelevant.

Frame rate makes a massive difference to motion and pan judder. Of course you also have to have a display that can cope with higher frame rates to be able to take advantage of them or see the benefits. Do you think Peter Jackson shoots at 48fps just for the hell of it, do you think James Cameron is shooting much of his Avatar sequel at 48fps just for kicks?

[Anthony Lelli]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

Resolution and sharpness. HUGE difference between an HD EX1 and the 4K AX100.

my friend, I had to sell the ex1r because of the money but still today I miss it. That camera did everything right. Now 4K is here to stay and life goes on.

[Anthony Lelli]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

Sensor size makes no difference when it come to moving data. Pixel count makes a difference, more pixels = more date, but size is largely irrelevant.

Frame rate makes a massive difference to motion and pan judder. Of course you also have to have a display that can cope with higher frame rates to be able to take advantage of them or see the benefits. Do you think Peter Jackson shoots at 48fps just for the hell of it, do you think James Cameron is shooting much of his Avatar sequel at 48fps just for kicks?

yes your right, it didn't come out right. Now about the "guessing" part ? am I the only one believing that there may be a considerable amount of "guessing" in the processing?

[Noa Put]

Alister, are you planning to do a ax100 review?