PXW-Z150 first impressions

[Cliff Totten]

Haha! I love this place!

It's the disagreement of ideas that makes it fun. If we all just sat arround and just agreed with each other everyday, how dead and boring would that be?

I agree more with everything that Doug teaches more than he actually knows!!. I just preach that i believe in possible exceptions to rules sometimes and that its OK to challenge long time believes. Its OK to explore different techniques or workflows.

Hell, 10 years ago...damn...3 years ago, I too would have said AF sucks, it will always burn you and NEVER use it. I used to preach that to my friends. My EX1r?...I dont think I ever seriously used AF on that. Why?....because that Fujinon geared lens was awesone....and the AF sucked.

However, i am now seeing a real technology change today that has made me question myself. Sony is working VERY hard on the AF technology and it truely is becomming a viable and practical tool today.

Its only going to get better and better at an exponential rate. Im all about getting the shot with the tools i can use....without, of course, getting burned by something "auto" screwing me up.

In the end, i dont care if i use AF or MF. I just need to nail focus as tight as i can get it. If get 100% what im going for, the ends justifies the means for me.

A real, highly skilled camera man uses a steadcam rig and spends hours practicing his skill. Me?...I "cheat" and use my DJI Ronin gimbal. Am I a cheater or an amature for using an electronic gimbal system? Maybe, but I get my shot and thats all I really care about. A friend of mine told me once, "Real camera guys learn how to use a real steadycam rig and dont rely on computerized gimbals" Sorry, i like my gimbal and it makes stabilization easy and quick.

Love the debates we have!!!

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Cliff Totten

OK, to be serious. If anybody can control "fly by wire" zoom, iris, exposure and perfect 4k focus on a one quater 4k resolution monitor on a chaotic run and gun scene....all simultaneously, moving together at once....than i take my hat off you or anybody than can. You are right, i certainly cannot do all things at the same time

Not with fly by wire lenses, almost all of my lenses are fly by wire but none of them are accurate enough, focussing speeds depends on how fast you turn the focus ring and the end result is very unpredictable. Some work quite ok though but don't ask me to repeat a focus pull and nail it time after time, that's impossible, no matter how skilled you are.

[Cliff Totten]

Well?....I guess we might say that if you are repeating focus pulls, than Id say you are probably not in a true "run and gun" situation. For me, I consider some sports or filming COPS doing a drug raid. Or, maybe the ulitmate...war correspondence.

If im running arround Syria with a Z150, I can imagine myself keeping one hand on either focus or iris ring. Maybe the one my hand is not on is on auto.

But yeah...fly by wire controlls are "buffered" by the camera and that makes 100% manual control much more difficult.

All this talk makes me miss my EX1r!

CT

[Paul Anderegg]

The only time I have ever even attempted autofocus in run and gun, is on my A7sII with f1.4 or f4.0 OEM lenses. It amazed me how well it worked in unbelievable dark situations in 4K. The problem with how I shoot run and gun at night, comes down to the lighting...high contrast brightly lit objects at varying distances, and the fact that lots of shots are not subject centered. I do use AF with face recognition on the X70 and Z150, that works very well when I hold the camera two feet to my right so my interview subject can look at me off camera. to my right.

In the daytime, or with subject centered content, I might actually trust these cameras to do a passable job. I prefer cameras that allow you to manually crank and hold when in AF, like my old X180 and my current JVC 650.

Paul

[Rob Cantwell]

ok I'm impressed by the PXW-Z150, seems like something I could work with.

On the AF discussion, yea i've been burned by AF both on the PMW 200 and the AX-100's so for weddings etc. I went full manual and I've never had to edit out a out of focus clip since, course it's not as simple as that is it? you can have a cam set up unattended and you think the subjects will stay right where they are, but sometimes they might move out of the focus! AF can save that situation eh?

I covered a football match yesterday with the AX-100 and tried MF but had to turn on AF, TBH I found it difficult to keep the action in the frame not to mention the focus, oh yeah the sun was in and out too so the exposure was a bit ropey as well to say the least, however out of a full 90 minute game I'd say the AF failed not more than maybe three or four times.
My 2 cents!

:-)

[Ron Evans]

I run my AX53 and AX100 with touch focus most of the time though when just shooting the family it is in auto focus. Exposure is always in AE shift with gain limit and fixed shutter speed. I find I need to have AE shift about -0.5 most of the time as the normal auto for the Sony's slightly over exposes in my mind. My wife uses the AX100 when we shoot theatre for the closeups and then she is in manual focus but uses touch focus to set the focus. Nice and quick and she can touch the thing she wants in focus. Has focus peaking to confirm. The control is always on AE shift so she can also move that too if she finds the exposure just off a little. Have zebra active for her too. It means she can focus more on the framing most of the time. I think the value of letting these small cameras expose in AE shift is it lets the engineers set the gain and iris at the optimum lens setting for the available light. They know where the sweet spot is for the camera in this price range. Looking at the data code the lens in this mode is rarely wide open there is always some gain. If you use the "exposure " control then you loose control of all parameters and I think the shutter speed is important when matching to other cameras shooting at the same time. The exposure control does of course really fix the exposure.