Sony PXW-X70 announced: Pro XDCAM version of AX100

[Ron Evans]

I think in iAUTO the small Sony cameras actually change the PP parameters rather than use a default set and on the consumer versions of course these settings are not available.

Ron Evans

[Christopher Young]

Originally Posted by Lou Bruno

When set to actual AUTO a picture profile set prior will still function.


When set to Intelligent auto, one will lose any picture profiles.

Correct. Not only that the stabilization mode goes to ACT (active) where the camera actually zooms in on the sensor by 1.08 x. If I'm on sticks there is no way I want any stabilization of any kind switched on. I leave the menu setting set to AUTO. That way I don't lose my PP settings.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Christopher Young]

Originally Posted by Tim Akin

About +1 is as high as I can go. I really like the black gamma and the knee settings, seems to help the DR quite a bit.

Yes Tim I understand where you are coming from. The + 4 Black level works fine for me in daylight settings where most of my work takes places. Indoors if it's an interview 90% of the time that will be lit correctly so again I have no issues with the +4. Fully understand though if it's a lower light situation where knocking down the black levels makes sense as you are lowering the noise floor into the blacks. The noise is still there but it becomes less visible.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Christopher Young]

Originally Posted by Todd Mizomi

With these settings. are you also underexposing a little to help protect the highlights?

I usually set my zebras around 70-75 and set exposure so that I start to see them in the highlights of the face. Indoors and in shaded areas it's fine, but in late afternoon out in the sun, I seem to be easily blowing out my highlights on my subject if they're side or backlit from the sun. I'm wondering if I should underexpose more and bring it up in post.

No not really. I just find with the knee and slope settings that I'm using control the highlights a bit more gently and give a more natural looking roll off into the extreme highs. My knee and slope do tend to bring the whole exposure range down a bit hence the lift in the black gammas and black levels to lift the exposure more in the mid and lower ranges. So in effect the higher end is down a bit but the mid range and lower values have been raised to compensate.

If exposing for skin tones, especially Caucasians, I find 70 IRE for the Zebs to be the absolute max. In fact I wish they could be set lower. Soon as I see the first sign of Zebs on the brightest part of the face at 70 that's generally it for me.

For general scenes outdoors I would generally set my Zebs at 90 IRE and as soon as the brightest parts start to show Zebs I back off. Bare in mind that I'm using a knee that's coming in at 87.5 IRE. With the settings I posted I find this little camera handles highlights pretty well. It's no fourteen stop A7s or an FS700 or FS7 but for the money it’s a great little performer and punches well above its weight.

Every situation is different of course so there are no hard and fast rules. This is where practice and experience start to pay off. 

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Terence Morris]

There has obviously been a lot of interest in the video quality of the X70. Would anyone care to comment on the audio preamps. Are they basically on a par to others in the XDCAM system?

[Anthony Lelli]

yes but if you are used to a shotgun on one channel and the internal on the other channel then the X70 won't allow that. it will be internal or XLR . So if you need ambient then you'll have to add a second XLR

[Terence Morris]

Addendum: It is useful to have those XLR inputs on my PMW200 in a pinch, although I mainly use my Sound Devices 702 and separate the audio entirely for quieter "atmospheric" scenes. For the PMW the noise floor is adequate for interviews or higher noise floor environments. My hope is that the X70 is at least comparable with the PMW-200...?

[Christopher Young]

Terence,

I find the audio to be as expected on an XDCam albeit a baby XDCam, quiet and clean. Bare in mind that as tiny and as cheap as this camera is Sony have seen fit to place it firmly in the XDCam family which is one of their major broadcast ranges.

I am not sure whether you are aware that In XAVC mode the audio is 24-bit 48 kHz like its bigger PDW, 700 and 800 brethren. Editing with it I see and hear no difference. Wouldn't know I wasn't working with regular XDCam disc based audio.

Chris Young
CYV Productions
Sydney

[Terence Morris]

This is what I had hoped and expected - which is pretty good. Thanks for the feedback, Chris.

[David Johns]

Hope my quick test video is of use - it was recorded in AVCHD (16-bit 48k Linear PCM audio) since my editor, Sony Vegas Pro, won't handle the X70's XAVC-HD files yet, sorry.

Sony PXW-X70 camcorder audio tests (vocal and pre-amp noise) - YouTube

Regards
David

[Terence Morris]

Excellent - thank you for putting this up. The noise floor is more than adequate for general use. Quiet, clean gain as Chris mentioned.

This is fairly trivial question, regarding the on-camera mic clamp. How much latitude is there for microphone diameter? I downloaded the X70 manual (still awaiting the camera) but oddly can find no technical details about this. I have a Sen MKH 8060, used mainly for boom pole work, but I might want to use it on-camera occasionally. The diameter of the 8060 is 19 mm, and I notice that your ME66/K6 gives 22.5 mm in the specs. Presumably the clamping mechanism will allow for some variance - but I have no idea the range.

[David Dixon]

Yes, that would be good to know. I have the AT 4053b, and even though it's listed as 21mm in diameter, on my XF100 it's too small for the microphone clamp and I have use a couple of rubber o-rings to make it fit.

By the way, David, in the video you mention that you also have the XF200. I have an XF100 and am leaning toward the X70 as an upgrade rather than the XF200. How do you find that the X70 and XF200 compare?

[Cliff Totten]

I posted this comment over on the JVC announcement thread but I figured I would work over here too....

I'm glad JVC isn't playing 4k codec games with these cameras. They are going straight to 150Mbp/s H.264 on cheap SDXC cards. Even Lumix is offering 100Mbp/s on it's $900 consumer cameras. BRAVO guys!

Lumix LX100 - 100 mbps
Lumix FZ1000 - 100 mbps
Lumix GH4 - 100+ mbps
JVC LS300 - 150 Mbps
JVC HM200 - 150 Mbps
JVC HM170 - 150 Mbps
Sony AX100 - 60 Mbps
Sony X70 - Unknown!

What is my beloved Sony doing?....a lowly 60Mbp/s. This looks "ok" if you don't need to grade it. However, if you try to stretch or bend that Sony codec, it breaks apart extremely fast. It is a very "fragile" codec in post with that low of a bit rate.

I really hope that Sony looks at it's competition and decides to give the X70 a bare minimum of 100Mbp/s. And,...moving forward with new models, Sony should give ALL it's new 4k cameras as minimum of 100Mbp/s. Doing any less would really be a disgrace considering that their competition can do 150Mbp/s over SDXC cards. I would expect that 150Mbp/s would be very durable in moderate 8 bit color grading. (yes, we know that 10bit would be the proper bit-depth for real grading)

Again,...Bravo to JVC and Panasonic for putting a respectable codec even in their cheapest 4K models!

CT

P.S. Sony, please give 100mbp/s to your new RX20 (or RX10 mkII) and let 60Mbp/s be just a space saving option.

[David Johns]

Originally Posted by Terence Morris

Regarding the on-camera mic clamp, how much latitude is there for microphone diameter? I have a Sen MKH 8060, the diameter is 19 mm, and I notice that your ME66/K6 gives 22.5 mm in the specs.

Hi

The ME66 wasn't in the on-camera mic clamp, it was in a separate pistol grip. However, the ECM-XM1 (which is a basic top-mic I originally got with a Sony Z5) was clamped in the X70 though it has a rubber sheath around it which brought it up to the right width.

By holding up a ruler to the X70's mic clamp - see my bad photo - it appears as though the minimum width from the tip of each rubber mounting point to its opposite number is around 22-23mm so you're going to have to wrap loads of gaffer tape around that 8060 ;-)

Regards
David

[David Johns]

Originally Posted by David Dixon

David, you also have the XF200. How do you find that the X70 and XF200 compare?

Hmm, tricky one. I really do like the XF in many ways. It's compact, light, ergonomic (I love the tilting handle), has lots of assignable buttons. It's easy to get focus and exposure etc. But the major flaw is how noisy the images are even in decent light.

There's 12 steps of noise reduction available but anything over 8 mushes up the image (see the test on my YouTube channel). There's also lots of tweaks you can do to the black levels etc though I'm not enough of an expert to really know what's the best combination of settings.

I've taken to shooting with -6dB gain in which helps but obviously you take a real hit in anything other than bright light :-(

The X70 I've only had on loan for a week so it's early to say but it's also (obviously) light and compact; has sufficient assignable buttons which are accessible when shooting. Pictures look good apart from a tendency to overblow the highlights (but there's knee settings etc to help with that) and it's much, much better than its CX900 consumer cousin.

But it does have its foibles too - trying to focus when zoomed in is ridiculous, you have to spin the wheel like a mad hamster trying to go round in its cage; the grip really needs to rotate a bit, I find holding the cam level requires your wrist to bend backwards and the camera's (albeit slight) weight makes that uncomfortable very quickly. The fact that it switches on every time you flip open the LCD (eg to take a card out) gets really tiresome!

Overall though, I suspect that if I'd had the X70 on test before I got the XF, I'd have gone for the X70 not least because of its amazing price...(but I'd still be eyeing the XF for its form factor and controls)

Regards
Dave