New Sony PXW-Z150

[Cliff Totten]

I'm pretty neutral on AUTO anything. I can't say I love the idea or that I hate it either.

However, I CAN say this. If anybody is familiar with the Sony A6300's phase detection AF. It's touted as the fastet and most acurate in the world.

I took mine out to my backyard over the weekend and chased my two running dogs in the day with a very shallow depth of field. I MANUALY pulled focus on my crazy dogs running circles at full throttle. Then I switched to AUTO focus and let the A6300 do the same. This went back and forth for 20 min.

The result? Altough I think I did pretty darn well considering the chaos, the A6300 averaged FASTER response than I could. Sure, it missed and so did I, but the A6300 nailed lightning fast and was able to hold tight as the dogs ran at me....better than I could.

I was shocked!

A6300....this is not your dad's AF anymore. I'm sure that more of this is comming. Get ready to actually like it.

CT

[Ron Evans]

Tend to agree Cliff. It really depends on the project. If the subject is story being told as film style then full manual with all the shallow depth of field etc will end up being needed to get the effect. However if it is an event with lots of people running around etc then a consumer camera in full auto tracking many faces and adjusting for focus and exposure will be hard to beat if the object is to have everyone in focus and exposed well. When I shoot the family it is now the AX53 in full auto with full face detection, stabilization 60P etc. Just like you with the dogs there is no way I can compete in manual to give the impression of "being there ".

Ron Evans

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Cliff Totten

It sound like you are saying the your camera's auto logic is "always wrong".

In a lot of situations I have to shoot in I can only say yes, it's almost always wrong and that applies to all existing camera's, not mine only. I don't even shoot in extreme situations, just indoor and outdoor shooting throughout a wedding day, letting the camera handle exposure and me correcting with EV will be an endless battle trying to get it right, everytime a person crosses the frame or if a brighter light appears in the background the exposure will jump up and down and no way to counteract that fast enough without being very noticeable.

Using the EV can work well enough in very controlled situations, like on a unmanned static camera that doesn't move during it's recording, if you then would have changes in light with a appearing and re appearing sun and if you have no way to control the camera then autoexposure with a EV change depending if the camera under- or overexposes is your best bet to get home with usable footage.

If it's a camera that you control however, there is no reason whatsoever to use a autoexposure and ev function, my full manual control will always result in better results.

[Cliff Totten]

Well Noa? I certainly cant speak for you or anybody else. But I generally have no problem getting the exposure I want from full MANUAL or partial AUTO too. After 25 years of shooting, I'm pretty good at getting what I want from either. I know when I can and when I wont use them.

One thing I never had fun doing on my EX1 was zooming with my right hand on the zoom rocker and using my left hand middle finger on the focus ring while simultaneously resting my thumb on the iris ring and riding that in real time. For years it felt like a funny circus trick. Plus, just juggling the alternating thoughts..."iris, focus, iris, focus, iris, focus, iris, focus,....CUT!,.....whew!" This is not to even mention all the shot framing ideas that goes on in your head during all that thinking and processing.

CT

[Ron Evans]

Noa, with some theatre and dance shows the light changes are very fast and wide. I can almost guaranty manual will not be as good as auto in some of these circumstances. As Cliff mentioned trying to zoom, focus, switch gain position and move iris at the same time is doomed. Most of the time I run my NX5U in full manual but have a button set for AE shift and when things get a little crazy switch iris and gain to auto and engage the button. WB and shutter speed are always manual. If I do not do this I just end up using the output from one of the fixed auto cameras anyway !!! Normally I try to run the NX5U at around F4 since this provides the best quality image and with this iris I do not have to worry about the lens ramping when zooming. Gain is chosen to achieve this on one of the 3 positions. For a show I usually find out range of lighting and set gain switch positions values before hand. However there is always some scene or certainly in a dance show that this will not work. So I set a gain limit in auto as well. So I get 4 gain values to choose from. However on the NX5U there is smooth gain switching on the gain switches but not when you return to auto !!! I set iris then to auto ( which normally then does not change if I am close, ) then gain to auto with the AE button engaged. Just small blip and can work this way until I can go back to manual. On the LCD I can see the values the camera has chosen and set the gain switch so that when come out of auto gain nothing changes. Pressing the iris button to go back into manual also leads to no change and I am then back out of AE shift and into full manual again !! To me this is using all the capabilities of the camera to achieve my objective.

All the stuff I do is shows so cameras run for about 1 hour or so at a time with no breaks until act or show finishes. This could be 2 hours and 40 mins !!! Typically gain at 3db will meet most of the shows however I have had a show where the data code has shown gain used from -6db to +15db ( my gain limit setting ) I had switches set for 0, 3 and 9db !!! During the show I even had indication to set ND1 !! Only comments from my wife ( using AX100 ) was she had to turn the wheel ( AE shift ) more than normal !!! In AE shift the camera is not constrained to the fixed values for gain and I think this is a big advantage. It's how smooth gain switching works the camera slowly moves gain from one value to the other. These intermediate values are not selectable in manual. Just like a CVT transmission on a car. The automatic uses all the gear ratios available and the trick paddle wheels for the driver just select fixed values to make the driver think they are changing gear !!!

Ron Evans