Sony FDR-AX100

[Pavel Sedlak]

Thanks Ron, recording is clear.

It is interesting for me that 4K consumers camera has twice bigger chip than 4K professional camera with twice price. Pixel count is the same (20mil vs 19mil) so the physical size of an effective pixel is much better at AX100 than at professional AX1.

The lens for 4K needs the best sharpness (level of details) so F2.8 iris is the expected solution. It would be really interesting to test the AX1 lens at wide F1.6 iris for 4K resolution.

[Ron Evans]

Neither camera uses all the pixels on the sensors as the sensors are not 16x9 but sized for stills. So they are both cropped to 16x9 hence the effective pixel sizes of about 14 for the AX100 and 8.3 for the AX1. I think Sony wanted have a camera in the same form factor as the NX5U or PMW160 so used the lens/body from these cameras meaning they needed a 1/3" sensor with enough pixels. They then needed a sensor with around 8Mpixel ( for 4K ) that when cropped was close to 1/3". Hence the sensor from the HX30V ( I think ) . Start adding in a 20 X zoom lens with three control rings, XLR build in , programmable buttons dual record slots ( will be three ) paint functions etc and the price may be more than the PXW-Z100 !!! At F1.6 my AX1 has a very good image compared to any of my other cameras even in the theatre at 18db and a lot sharper when downconverted to 1920x1080.

Ron Evans

[Pavel Sedlak]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

I think Sony wanted have a camera in the same form factor as the NX5U or PMW160 so used the lens/body from these cameras meaning they needed a 1/3" sensor with enough pixels. They then needed a sensor with around 8Mpixel ( for 4K ) that when cropped was close to 1/3". Hence the sensor from the HX30V ( I think ) . ... At F1.6 my AX1 has a very good image compared to any of my other cameras even in the theatre at 18db and a lot sharper when downconverted to 1920x1080.

Ron Evans

Sony is a big chief .-) , but their cameras specifications are much worse than the picture result from those cameras. I had a personal FS100 experience, where chip was about 14mil pixels, but Sony spoke at specification only about 3,5mil eff.pixels, but result picture was very good.

So yes, a pixel count is only the one point of view, the practice is another view. I would really like to compare these models AX100 and AX1 at the same scenes with highlights and big contrast, 1" vs. 1/2.3" (with the same pixels gross count) are such different numbers! (Different count of the effective video pixels is some another question for the good color interpolation at signal procesor).

If you have some lowlight or highcontrast pictures it would be nice to see them, if you can put them to vimeo.
It is important for me to know how much is picture the result of an interpolation and massive denoiser power (of digital work .-) ) and how much is picture the result of physical pixel size and really good optics. I think that physical pixel must to have a certain size for good result, in opposite case is result often like a "digital feeling monster", too much of the processor work degrade the result.

Thanks very much, Ron.

[Joey Atilano]

I found a 1 hour video about it but it is in Japanese.

?? HD Users 2014?1?? ????4K????????? Sony FDR-AX100??? - YouTube

[Ron Evans]

Wish I could understand Japanese as it looks like a fairly detailed review. It looks like the iris moves in steps like the consumer cameras rather than continuous like the FDR-AX1 maybe another marketing difference.

Ron Evans

[Dave Blackhurst]

Even in Japanese, there were a few things to pick up on! The OIS looks pretty decent, the camera itself looks nice, if big compared to recent "handy" cams. Looks like the 120fps is going to be 720 rather than 1080, but couldn't figure out if it's continuous or not (like the FZ200)... would be nice if it's more than just the few seconds of clip that has been typical with Sony.

Will be interesting to get hands on one of these, as I see it the high bitrate 1080 60p will be a nice leap over "current" consumer cameras, the large sensor should be nice to shoot with (I've found the RX10/RX100M2 to be pretty capable). The 4K will be a "bonus", even better If the 30p turns out to be workable for high motion scenes.

Since the AX100 should intercut nicely with the RX10 and RX100M2, those three cameras will make for a nice multicam "package" that covers a lot of ground and produces some good footage for event type shoots and any possible "personal" use!

[Cliff Totten]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

Wish I could understand Japanese as it looks like a fairly detailed review. It looks like the iris moves in steps like the consumer cameras rather than continuous like the FDR-AX1 maybe another marketing difference.

Ron Evans

I think what he is doing is stepping up the gain values. He seems to have it cranked quite a bit there for a minute. If thats the iris than woah...that would be unusable.

CT

[Ken Ross]

It's pretty apparent the OIS is much better than it is in the RX10, so that's a good thing.

Personally, it seems I got verification of what my editing program, Edius7 Pro states, it is compatible with the codec used in the AX100.

C'mon March, get here already! :)

[Ron Evans]

Yes Edius Pro 7 or Vegas Pro 12 will edit XAVC-S but slowly unless you have a very powerful PC. Vegas Pro 12 will also encode to XAVC or XAVC-S but Edius will not encode to these formats at the moment. I have a FDR-AX1 and both programs will edit but for Edius I have returned to converting to HQX ( at 3840x2160) to make editing smoother when on a 1920x1080 timeline with files from my NX5U and NX30U. Vegas Pro 12 will edit at full frame rate with a reduced preview resolution. My PC is an i7 3770, 16G RAM, GTX560 and almost 5T of hard drives. I also have a 6core AMD system that will not play XAVC-S files in PlayMemories more than a few frames per second. I expect if you have a dual Xeon system then things may be fine !!! XAVC is much easier on the systems so it is the decode of the Long GOP of XAVC-S that is the problem needing lots of cores to decode. Crop and pan work fine in both Edius and Vegas, my main reason for 4K.

Ron Evans

[Bill Koehler]

Originally Posted by Pavel Sedlak

It is interesting for me that 4K consumers camera has twice bigger chip than 4K professional camera with twice price.

It is of course easier to provide the long zoom with the smaller sensor(s) of the FDR-AX1.
And the FDR-AX1 of course has XLR's built in from the get-go.

I find this time of year impossible to make a decision. Every year I wait for the two big
North American shows, CES and NAB, and then start making camera decisions.

I will be very interested to see if at NAB the RX10/FDR-AX100 sensor+a new lens gets mated
to a FDR-AX1 body+back end. For lack of anything else call it the FDR-AX10.

[Ken Ross]

Ron, so are you saying Edius7 will edit 4K XAVC-S natively but can't output XAVC-S? I thought it could and that's how Grass Valley promoted it.

[Jack Zhang]

Originally Posted by Bill Koehler

I will be very interested to see if at NAB the RX10/FDR-AX100 sensor+a new lens gets mated to a FDR-AX1 body+back end. For lack of anything else call it the FDR-AX10.

The optics of the Sony G Lens would have to be changed to use the 1'' form factor of the sensor, as the G Lens is currently only limited to 1/3'' sensor design at the moment.

[Ron Evans]

Originally Posted by Ken Ross

Ron, so are you saying Edius7 will edit 4K XAVC-S natively but can't output XAVC-S? I thought it could and that's how Grass Valley promoted it.

Correct. Edius will edit both XAVC and XAVC-S but will not render to these formats. XAVC editing is smooth on my system but XAVC-S will not play smoothly at full frame rate which is why I have taken to converting to HQX to edit with much like I did when AVCHD came out a few years back. I do not recall Edius promoting rendering to XAVC or XAVC-S. You will need 7.21 to edit XAVC-S.


Edius is my main editor but I do have and use Vegas Pro12 which will edit and output XAVC or XAVC-S


Ron Evans

[Bill Koehler]

Originally Posted by Jack Zhang

The optics of the Sony G Lens would have to be changed to use the 1'' form factor of the sensor, as the G Lens is currently only limited to 1/3'' sensor design at the moment.

Well aware of that. It's why I said "+ a new lens".

[Ken Ross]

Originally Posted by Ron Evans

Correct. Edius will edit both XAVC and XAVC-S but will render to these formats. XAVC editing is smooth on my system but XAVC-S will not play smoothly at full frame rate which is why I have taken to converting to HQX to edit with much like I did when AVCHD came out a few years back. I do not recall Edius promoting rendering to XAVC or XAVC-S. You will need 7.21 to edit XAVC-S.


Edius is my main editor but I do have and use Vegas Pro12 which will edit and output XAVC or XAVC-S


Ron Evans

I do have 7.21 Ron, so that's not a problem. I may have to add Vegas if GV doesn't upgrade to render to XAVC-S.