Sony FDR-AX100

[Jeff Harper]

You heard correctly, Noa, the viewfinder and LCD screen are very good on the camera. You won't be disappointed, except that you may regret that you waited so long to buy the camera. It is FUN to have such a large resolution image, you will love it.

[Noa Put]

I know Jeff, I already am starting to work with 4K on my GH4 and the cropping ability without any visual quality loss has proven to be much more useful then I expected, problem is my funds have dried up :)
I was thinking of using the gh4 in combination with the ax100 which should cover most of my needs and to sell my 2 cx730's, any takers here? :)

[Dave Blackhurst]

I know sometimes a topic gets a little "hot", sometimes members come here to vent frustration (one sub-forum has a "special" place for that even!), but do try to be a bit more thoughtful and respectful, perhaps you will learn more and a bit faster. Generally even when we disagree, we're polite and gentlemanly about it!

A good "cameraman" learns as much about the TECHNICAL aspects as they can - makes them a BETTER cameraman, no matter WHAT they shoot with. As much as we'd all like "auto" cameras that get the perfect shot every time... it doesn't work like that... and many of us here know quite a lot about the "tech" side of things, either in cameras or other related industries.

As an on topic example, I can't recall ANY camera I've ever owned that didn't decide to "focus" on the "wrong" thing at one time or another (usually the worst time!)... locking on the background when I wanted the foreground, or the foreground when what I wanted was in the background... or center frame when I wanted right, and so on! Tracking can help. face recognition can help, touch focus can really help (at least the camera has a clue of what you're thinking)... bad light is ALWAYS a challenge, peaking is an option for manual.
Prior experience with other similar cameras is 100% applicable!

Still no luck uploading pics of the MiShoe adapter... haven't forgotten... and I still haven't gotten around to firmware updates, I WILL do a little test shooting first, would like to see if I can confirm the AF and 1080 upgrades... not that it will matter if they don't "work", as there's no "backing out"! I've never had a problem with Sony FW upgrades though, and the 1080 improvement has me "intrigued"... can I get me some 60p that is "almost" 4K?!?! Got to clear some time to find out!

We've therorized, and I've seen in practice that sometimes Sony can squeeze more out of a sensor as they work with it more (yeah, sometimes it's in the "next camera"... bleah). Now where's those RX updates, darn it!? I'm hoping the 2.0 firmware doesn't leave the image quality from those cams even further behind...

[Pete Bauer]

MODERATOR NOTE:
Ok, I'm fed up with the ad hominem BS and the amount of my holiday weekend wasted in cleaning it up (I've removed at least a dozen posts totally and edited perhaps half a dozen more due to flaming or retaliatory commentary). Thread closed until Obstreperous Rex reviews.

PS: If anyone posts anything out of line, THAT IS WHAT THE REPORT POST BUTTON IS FOR (the little red triangle icon in the lower left of a post). Please do not feed the trolls!

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

With over 1500 replies it's hard to keep track about what has been posted about the camera.

I guess a dedicated forum is somewhat past due?

[Noa Put]

That would be great, this camera has generated a lot of interest it seems, positive and negative :)

[Dan Carter]

Originally Posted by Chris Hurd

I guess a dedicated forum is somewhat past due?

Sounds good.

[Alister Chapman]

Maybe lump all the very similar cameras into one forum, the new XDCAM shown at Broadcast Asia, the AX100 and the CX900 all appear to be based around the same internals.

[Anthony Lelli]

The eyecup of the Panasonic AG-AC90 fits perfectly on the VF of the AX100 . Unfortunately is currently out of stock @ panasonic service parts

[Noa Put]

The ax100 just went down from 2000 euro to 1700 euro in Belgium! (that's with 21% tax included) Glad I waited a bit :)

[Anthony Lelli]

I did a soccer game at night and unfortunately the AX100 in 4K didn't pass the first 4 minutes of the pre-game practice. The AF was decent under a much better lighting of my first tests but the RS was making the shoot impossible. Who followed me during this week in this forum can tell that I did try, pretty much everything to shoot the AX100 in 4K! Switched to 1080 for the actual game and everything was perfect. This AX100 with the new firmware gives amazing 1080 actually, hands down the best Ive ever seen. A note about rendering: the XAVCS gives even more clarity than the original, it's fast. Again the best codec I've ever seen in action under vegas (better and faster than XDcam). There is a little problem with the size of the file rendered which is considerably large. A simple pass with handbrake and the size is reduced 4 times. Same quality but 4 times smaller. Hard to believe but it worked. If you post on youtube then handbrake is necessary (and fairly fast to be honest, so not a big of a deal after all).
For fast action the AX100 is the best 1080 today available (beside broadcast) but the RS makes it not fit for 4K . This concludes my week-long experience with the AX100 on the field.

[Alister Chapman]

Well my experience with the AX100 is that used appropriately the 4K is really impressive for a camera at this price point.

Yes, it does suffer from rolling shutter but the combination of a good 12x optical zoom, good codec and low noise sensor with reasonably good dynamic range means means it is capable of producing a really good image. Add to that the good LCD and rear EVF as well as excellent focus tools often only found on high end pro cameras and in the right hands the camera can produce beautiful 4K and HD images.

[Anthony Lelli]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

Well my experience with the AX100 is that used appropriately the 4K is really impressive for a camera at this price point.

Yes, it does suffer from rolling shutter but the combination of a good 12x optical zoom, good codec and low noise sensor with reasonably good dynamic range means means it is capable of producing a really good image. Add to that the good LCD and rear EVF as well as excellent focus tools often only found on high end pro cameras and in the right hands the camera can produce beautiful 4K and HD images.

my review was related to soccer games at night only. From my experience (covering soccer games for a decade now) the 4K of the AX100 in that scenario will only be good for portraits of the players but only if they stand still, don't run and the camera doesn't move. Basically for stills in motion but with not too much motion (better no motion at all). It is my duty to report: if I wanted to get the info from the marketing brochures then I'd go to the Sony store, not to dvinfo.

[Anthony Lelli]

Youtube workflow example for AX100 in 1080:

in 1080 for a shoot of 50 minutes in continuous the AX100 writes one big file (17GB in XAVCS) . no more splits (finally! - no more copy /b in cmd)

if no edits are required then the file can be processed in handbrake directly from the card that will reduce the size tremendously. Pretty much the same quality.

One of the formats that I'll use in handbrake for youtube is to put down to 1280x720 , RF quality 23 , x264 preset to medium. This way I can upload 1 hour and 40min to youtube with a size of approx 1.7GB (youtube will not download files of more than 4GB).

(1920x1080 for 100minutes footage will be reduced in handbrake to approx 2.6GB). for comparison AVCS in Vegas will write the same 100minutes footage in a file of approx 8GB)

The results with both XAVCS and Handbrake are very good thanks to the stunning quality of the AX100 in 1080.

no more splits is a very welcome feature from Sony: that alone saves me the time to join the splits in DOS that usually takes an eternity. Since I have to deliver overnight Sony just saved me at least 20 minutes and possible errors typing the command in CMD resulting (often) in additional 20minutes.

I'm about to seriously appreciate this AX100 . Outstanding 1080 and breathtaking 4K (for static shoots) , all for a simple workflow in both Vegas and Handbrake (for Youtube).

I see that blu-ray is considering discs for 4K and that can be a serious change in distribution (that in my opinion is still in the hands of youtube or on-line services nowadays).

Anyway this is the best workflow I could come up with considering that I am still new with the camera: suggestions are welcome (for AX100 files)

[Pat Reddy]

Alister, nice review of the AX100 on Youtube.

Pat