Sony FDR-AX100

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Mark Rosenzweig

Thanks. You have to log in to Vimeo to access the original,

I'm a member, but didn't notice I wasn't logged in.

Uploading original XAVC was brilliant!

The flowing water to my memory looked much better on Vimeo than it did at 4k on youtube. Did you notice that?

Folks shooing 4k on the Red feel that this is the best way to shoot FHD because the supersampling increases quality so much. David Taylor at Cineform confirms that 4k 420 can "become" 2k 422. No details yet.

[Ron Evans]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

David Taylor at Cineform confirms that 4k 420 can "become" 2k 422. No details yet.

I think the fact that by scaling to 2K the 4K 4:2:0 will have 4 times more colour information than a 2K 4:2:0 recording. There is of course 4 times more luminance too to scale to the 2K image and in my scaling from my AX1 it does produce a noticeably better image than shooting 2k. This shows up in face details of people who are small in the image. The noise too gets smaller so more acceptable. This is the same sort of response I got scaling HDV to SD years ago.

Using the Neat filter and then scaling produces a beautifully clean image. Downside is I think I need to upgrade to a supercomputer to do all this for anything more than a few seconds!!!


Ron Evans

[Ron Evans]

Originally Posted by Cliff Totten

I would LOVE to see a side by side, AX1 and AX100 low light shootout. What a great A/B test that would be!

Hmmm,...what will Sony add to this possible AX100 "pro" NXCAM model?

CT

I too would like to see that test. Did you compare to your NX30U that at least would give a guide. I know that in the theatre last week the AX1 and the CX700 were at the same settings for the dark scenes but with some light the CX700 was still about a stop faster than the AX1. NX30U should be about the same. The NX5U is more sensitive but noisier.

Ron Evans

[Glen Vandermolen]

Has anyone seen this video of the AX100's rolling shutter? Wow, it looks bad. It's only one video, and we have no idea what the settings were, but what do you think? Can any owners do some test shots to check on the skew?

Sony AX100 4K video camera – how much rolling shutter is too much? | EOSHD.com

SONY 4Kãƒ�ンディカãƒ* FDR-AX100 試ã�—撮りã�—ã�¦ã�¿ã�Ÿ1 - YouTube

This video may have already been posted, but I'm not scouring 47 pages to look for it.

[Ken Ross]

Yes it was really bad, but good luck finding any other video that looked that bad. I guess if you have a rapidly moving train a few feet from your camera, or pan so quickly you'll nauseate your audience with or without RS, then for that person it may be an issue. That's why these guys that shake their cameras violently to detect RS, always amuse me. Who shoots like that??

So, since virtually every other video doesn't show this problem, certainly not to this extent, it's not a big issue IMO.

[Cliff Totten]

Originally Posted by Glen Vandermolen

Has anyone seen this video of the AX100's rolling shutter? Wow, it looks bad. It's only one video, and we have no idea what the settings were, but what do you think? Can any owners do some test shots to check on the skew?

Sony AX100 4K video camera – how much rolling shutter is too much? | EOSHD.com

SONY 4Kãƒ�ンディカãƒ* FDR-AX100 試ã�—撮りã�—ã�¦ã�¿ã�Ÿ1 - YouTube


This video may have already been posted, but I'm not scouring 47 pages to look for it.

I saw that video too and I was very concerned by it at the time. Now that I own an AX100? Rolling shutter is nothing for me to worry about any longer. Im a serious pixel peeping nerd...the stuff I have shot myself is perfectly fine. Whew! No more fear of that.

Now...24p at 1/24 shutter?....you need to be careful with that. Its the only combination that will really roll on you. All other higher speeds are fine. 30p at 1/30 shutter is not bad and any faster shutter will not be an issue at all.

[Adriano Moroni]

What do you use to increase the colours of a 4k video like film? Many people use Neatvideo but I don't like to use it. Some suggestions?

[Mark Rosenzweig]

Originally Posted by Adriano Moroni

What do you use to increase the colours of a 4k video like film? Many people use Neatvideo but I don't like to use it. Some suggestions?

There is a Cinematone setting in the camera to do just that (more vivid colors, different gamma, more red for a film look). Here is a video comparing that mode to the regular one in a low-light setting. More comparisons are needed:

Sony FDR AX100 4K Test Video: Cinematone Comparison in Low Light on Vimeo

[Les Wilson]

Originally Posted by Cliff Totten

...Now,....If Sony would release firmware that would unlock the HDMI and add RX10 style, simple "contrast" and "saturation" +/- tweaks....Sony would then have a "perfect" camera to fight the GH4....

Speaking of the GH4, does Sony turn off the overlay displays after 10 seconds on the AX100 like the GH3 and maybe the GH4?

Seriously, adjusting the color is needed when matching up to other cameras. Are there no controls on the color? If not, it sounds like the VG cameras all over again.

[Ron Evans]

Originally Posted by Les Wilson

Seriously, adjusting the color is needed when matching up to other cameras. Are there no controls on the color? If not, it sounds like the VG cameras all over again.

This is a consumer camcorder. Surely you would adjust to match other cameras in editing. I think if you want the fine paint controls then the FDR-AX1 or PXW-Z100 are the choices though I do not bother and match in editing for fine controls anyway clip to clip. In my use in the theatre with LED lighting ( which can vary color temperature ) the match can change based on set changes and where the camera is pointing rendering camera setup useless. I now set all my cameras to preset indoor when in the theatre and change in editing as needed. That way I can match colour balance and saturation with fine control and monitors.

Ron Evans

[Ken Ross]

Originally Posted by Les Wilson

Speaking of the GH4, does Sony turn off the overlay displays after 10 seconds on the AX100 like the GH3 and maybe the GH4?

Seriously, adjusting the color is needed when matching up to other cameras. Are there no controls on the color? If not, it sounds like the VG cameras all over again.

Les, why would you not do this in post? If you have multiple cameras, regardless of how you have them white balanced, I would think you'd want to tweak this in the editing process anyway.

The typical color level, sharpness and contrast controls that were on some previous Sonys were pretty crude and certainly not how you'd want to 'balance' multiple cameras.

If all I'm doing is using the camera controls to get as close as I can to two cameras like a handicam, I'd just use manual white balance and then worry about it during editing.

As for the info display, no, it does not turn off unless you want it to. Your choice.

[Alister Chapman]

Originally Posted by Cliff Totten

Now...24p at 1/24 shutter?....you need to be careful with that. Its the only combination that will really roll on you. All other higher speeds are fine. 30p at 1/30 shutter is not bad and any faster shutter will not be an issue at all.

Interesting, rolling shutter is normally more pronounced at faster shutter speeds. At lower speeds the motion blur tends to mask the skew, the faster the shutter the crisper the motion so the skew becomes more obvious.

[Cliff Totten]

There are several "anomalies" that I'm noticing with this camera that I cant exactly put my finger on:

30p "harshness" - Tested footage mostly shot in 30p using a 1/30 and 1/60 shutter. (did others too) Slow pans and large amounts of moving objects seem to move with a certain "harshness". I don't believe it's the frame rate itself. I shoot 29.97p on my EX1r and FS100 and I love it. However, the AX100 doesn't look that "smooth" at the same frame rate and shutter speeds.

Could it be the 60Mbp/s codec struggling? This codec doesn't seem to "block up" or get "jagged" when it breaks. Instead, it seems to protest motion by getting "soft". For instance, bark on a palm tree was tremendously sharp at 1/60 shutter with the camera dead on a tripod. Then,...with an ever so slight and slow camera movement, the bark texture "softens" and when stopped, returns to razor sharp again.

A "dumb" way to put it would be: The image is 4K when still and 2k when there is motion. lol It's funny to say it that way and yes, all camera's can say the same thing to a certain extent. Yes, even faster shutter speeds exhibited the same thing too.

I don't think this it's the shutter speed. I think it's the Long GOP CODEC itself that is stressing under the rate of pixel changes.

Does anybody else see this? I'm not seeing it so much when a fast moving object goes across an otherwise static scene, I'm seeing it mostly on very slow pans where EVERY pixel in the image is moving left, right, up or down. It just looks a bit "harsh" and slightly "soft" no matter what shutter speed is used.

Agian,..I have always loved 30p for years,..so it's not that.

Is it just me that sees this??

[Cliff Totten]

Originally Posted by Alister Chapman

Interesting, rolling shutter is normally more pronounced at faster shutter speeds. At lower speeds the motion blur tends to mask the skew, the faster the shutter the crisper the motion so the skew becomes more obvious.

Yeah,...running at 24p with at 1/24 shutter, if you really whip pan fast to the left or right, you could actually take a sharp, straight up and down line and skew it to a very blurry 45 degree angle!l lol

It's not "that" bad. If you know it's there, it's easy to shoot carefully around it. I don't see it causing any significant problems for me.

Alister,...have you signed ant Sony NDA's lately? ;-)

CT

[Ken Ross]

Cliff, I can't say I see this more than in other cameras I've shot with when shooting at that frame rate. I always expect a loss of detail when panning. Just as when I swivel my own head, detail is not as sharp as if I'm looking at something in a static manner.

However let me propose another theory. IMO this camera is sharper than almost any 4K camera I've seen. From the clips thus far presented of the GH4, it's significantly sharper and more resolved than that camera...at least from what we've seen thus far.

Even some very pricey 4K cameras don't seem to have this level of detail. Sooo, perhaps it's that you're starting off with so much detail and sharpness, that when the camera begins to pan, the loss of detail is more obvious because you're starting off so much sharper.

Not sure if that makes any sense, but in my contorted mind, it does.