Sony FDR-AX100

[Charles W. Hull]

Originally Posted by Dave Blackhurst

OK, everyone "report" this message to remind Chris to give the AX100 it's own sub forum!

Perfect Dave; how do you report a message?

I said the same thing about 50 pages back.

[Mark Rosenzweig]

Sony FDR AX100 4K Video: The Streets of Central Bogota on Vimeo

[David Dixon]

Originally Posted by Charles W. Hull

Perfect Dave; how do you report a message?

I said the same thing about 50 pages back.

I didn't know either, but it's the little red/white triangle at the bottom left. It says it's supposed to be used for spam or offensive posts, but I did it. Hope that request wasn't a rhetorical one...

[Hans Stephan]

... done ...."Report Post" #1740 from this thread.....

[Dave Blackhurst]

Nope, I wanted to remind Chris the AX100 community needs it's own playground <wink>.

I self reported once I posted, so Chris knows what I'm up to!

Suggested a "4K" area and a section for these 1" class Sony cameras (AX100, X70, RX series Cybershots).

[Chris Hurd]

Originally Posted by Dave Blackhurst

OK, everyone "report" this message to remind Chris to give the AX100 it's own sub forum!

That was an excellent tactic, Dave -- brilliantly executed too. Well done, sir.

Originally Posted by Dave Blackhurst

A 4K section is also viable, as there will be plenty to learn and share about 4K/UHD capture, post processing, and hopefully delivery!

We've had that for awhile:

HD and UHD ( 2K+ ) Digital Cinema Forum at DV Info Net

...but perhaps it needs to be re-branded and re-positioned.

[John Mitchell]

BTW - it's largely been reported in this thread that all CMOS sensors exhibit rolling shutter. This is not strictly true - for example the Sony F55 features a global shutter. The sensor was designed from the ground up for all pixels to be read out at the same time. Of course you pay for that. Roughly $29k at B&H. Don't expect to see global shutters at this price point any time soon.

[Noa Put]

Don't expect to see global shutters at this price point any time soon.

The black magic 4K camera has global shutter and is just a bit more expensive then the ax100.

[Len Imbery]

Originally Posted by John Mitchell

BTW - it's largely been reported in this thread that all CMOS sensors exhibit rolling shutter. This is not strictly true - for example the Sony F55 features a global shutter. The sensor was designed from the ground up for all pixels to be read out at the same time. Of course you pay for that. Roughly $29k at B&H. Don't expect to see global shutters at this price point any time soon.

I saw a YouTube video that shows a good example of rolling shutter and then the same footage of it after being corrected in FCP... It still wasn't perfect but it improved it quite a lot....

[John Nantz]

Len - Thanks for pointing out that FCPX can help correct for rolling shutter. Seems to me I heard this before but obviously forgot about it.

I've been struggling with what next cam to get and that problem been high up on my deal-breaker list; consequently, the short list is really short. And getting shorter as the 3CCDs have become really few and far between in addition to some that have other compromise issues, low light capability being one of them.

Not asking for perfection, just some improvement. Some cams apparently have built-in software that try to help with rolling shutter and I wonder if combined with FCPX there would be a greater improvement.

As an aside, when FCPX added multicam to it's capability I tried it out with a piano player and it was unbelievable how well it worked. Very first time just basically drag-and-drop the B-cam clips and bingo! Matched up with the audio perfectly!

Thanks to your post I'll be on the lookout for more information about the FCPX rolling shutter correction now.

[Dennis Freeman]

Can anyone comment on the firmware upgrade for the FDR-AX100?. Is the focus improved significantly, and is the zoom rocker control improved?
Thanks
Denny

[Dennis Freeman]

For anyone interested in purchase, B&H has a $200 price drop on this camcorder.
Denny

[Tom Wells]

SONY FDR-AX100 PROBLEM

Using my Sony FRD-AX100 cameras (yeah, I have two of them) has become nearly impossible.

I would like to use the cameras in PROGRAM AE mode. If I press the PROGRAM AE mode button, I am presented with this message box on the screen:

"Set the adjustment for brightness to auto."

After much looking up and reading the manual and following the menu trees I concluded there was no way to find anything labeled brightness. So perhaps one of my custom settings (AGC LIMIT or something else) prompted the message.

So I returned the cameras to the factory default state using that menu selection.

Surprise! The error changed, but the PROGRAM AE was still unavailable.

The error message now read:

"Turn off Intelligent Auto."

Interestingly, if I went to another menu selection and selected it, or pressed the MANUAL button (or nearly any other button) the error returned to the original:

"Set the adjustment for brightness to auto."

Still can’t activate the PROGRAM AE mode.

Both cameras have firmware version 2.

Does anyone have any solution to this problem? How do I use PROGRAM AE on the FDR-AX100?

Tom

PS: Just spent an hour with three different Sony "Tech" support reps who didn't really have any knowledge of the camera - one in fact had never heard of it - without getting any help whatsoever.

[Ron Evans]

Don't have an AX100 but several small Sony's. With exposure set to Intelligent auto the camera has control of everything !!! Exposure needs to be set to just " auto " for AE to work. I assign AE shift to the control dial which you should be able to do in the menu. If you have the camera in manual for all of iris,gain and shutter speed then of course AE shift cannot be available you need to place at least one of them in auto mode. Depending on my cameras I have shutter speed set manually and an up gain limit so that auto will control iris and gain for exposure and AE shift I have on the control wheel for me to control how dark or light I want the image compared to how the camera would like it. I find that Sony's over expose a little so usually have AE shift at around - 0.5.

If you want to run the camera in aperture or shutter priority just set that function to manual and AE shift will still work as long as one of the parameters is in auto.

Ron Evans

EDIT : Just read you post again. Not sure if you are long time Sony user or not but Sony modes are strange !! On different cameras the switch between manual and auto is called different things. However they all seem to operate the same. Switching to manual means the manual controls are available NOT that they are in manual until they are controlled. As far as I can tell from the AX100 manual, Program AE is the switch between auto and manual. In the menu what is auto can be Intelligent auto or normal auto. For AE shift control you need Intelligent auto OFF. Pressing Program AE button should switch between auto and manual. In manual control pressing the iris, gain or shutter buttons will allow you to use the control wheel to change the value and the LCD indication will change from "A" to nothing in front of the parameter. Any parameters with À`in front are in auto. So for shutter priority set shutter to say 60 and nothing will be in front of 60 in the LCD and iris and gain will have A in front of them. Pressing the Prgram AE while in manual will return to full auto mode. Pressing Program AE and turning the control dial will control exposure( default dial parameter ) but with the camera deciding what parameter to use to brighten or darken the image. The difference to AE shift is that the camera controls everything but in AE shift a parameter can be fixed or have a limit set. So iris or shutter speed can be set manually and AE shift will then control the other 2 parameters for image brightness. I am just reading from page 38 in the manual but with lots of Sony experience !!! Not sure if I covered what you want .

[Dave Blackhurst]

I've got the AX100, frankly never used the Program AE button... it appears to me at first to be a "vestigial tail" of unknown use, and the manual references to it are not the way it works nor the way I've used the camera...

If you hit the "manual" button, it enables the wheel, which you can set to various things including exposure and AE shift - I've used both, AE shift perhaps being a little better for letting the camera decide, though I'm not sure(?!). Basically a quick and dirty "global" adjustment to image brightness, with the camera choosing the way to get there, but you also can set one of the manual settings below, and that seems to lock in, letting the camera make adjustments to the un-set items to try to meet the "global" adjustment.

All I need to do to make iris, gain/ISO or shutter changes is to press the applicable button, the indicator changes (highlight box), and the wheel takes control of that function, if you want to adjust another function, hit that button, and use the wheel... full manual control of each setting. press again, the little "A" comes up, that setting is auto. Press a different button, the wheel controls that, manual gives you "global" adjustments...

After playing with it a bit, I realized what the "warning" message actually means - it is a single button reset to "stock" AUTO settings! Play with all the buttons, you you find you've gotten into trouble, hit the Program(med) AE, the camera is in full auto... literally in means press that button to "Set the adjustment for brightness to auto."!

I realize that the instructions incorrectly call out the function of the button, and it somehow seems unintuitive to have a "panic" button on a higher end camera.... but sure looks to me like that's exactly what it is!

Never used it before, spent most of my time memorizing the three button (iris/gain/shutter), and the wheel, plus the ND filter functions... now I know it's there, I guess it's a comfortable "emergency" button to return to full auto...

Sure would be nice if it were something fancier like a way to program presets or something cool like that, but I've just been tickled to have full manual in a simple to use layout... maybe they will make it do something cooler in a later firmware release or something, but I think this solves your "mystery"?

Honestly, I never really looked at the manual, I just started fiddling with the buttons until I figured out how they interact, then set about memorizing location and function so I can dial in what I want while shooting. Early on I found that getting shutter down (60 seems about right, anything above 125 causes stutter in 4K mode) was needed, other than that, a little exposure/AE tweak as needed, and everything looks pretty good...

Hopefully this helps you get it under control, it really is a sweet "manual" design after all the earlier Sonys that were "sort of" manual, but not really. I come from a photography background, so being able to dial in iris and shutter for effect is nice to have once again.