New Sony NEX-EA50EH Announcement

[Jody Arnott]

Hi guys,

I'm thinking of getting the EA50 to replace my Canon XA10 as my main camera. I'm also looking for a cheaper backup camera that will produce a comparable image. Is the VG20 going to be the best option?

Or does anyone have any better suggestions?

Cheers for any info :)

[Dmitri Zigany]

I've done one shoot where I had a VG20 as the secondary angle to the EA50. Although, due to the VG20 almost being out of batteries it was set a bit wrong which caused some weirdness, the pictures worked well together. I guess a NEX5 would work too as an even cheaper option.
(See my first impressions thread, for more info and videos)

[Noa Put]

As far as I know the vg20 has a fixed picture profile meaning you have to tweak your ea50 image to match the vg20. That doesn't leave you with many options when shooting if you want to achieve a certain look in camera. Why don't you keep your xa10 as second camera? You have to consider that the ea50 can be compared with a dslr, the slow stock lens does give you some focus room to work with but once you start adding faster lenzes you"ll be happy you have one camera that can keep everything sharp front to back, a lot depends ofcourse what you will be shooting, for weddings f.i. I certainly would go for the nex50 and xa10 combo.

[Jody Arnott]

Hmm I was thinking that but I thought the picture would have been too different due to the totally different sized sensors. Could be wrong..

[Robert Moran]

The 50 amd 20 are very closely matched as I have both and used both on a night time shoot a week ago. (Video will be forth coming.) The output of the 50 is better then the 20, especially in low light, as the support tech, as stated before in another post, is probably better then in the slighly older 20. The other thing that's interesting is the fact the still aspect ration now matchers the video in the 50, something not true in the 20. The 50's a beast but a good beast and the digital zoom is something that changes the game regarding primes and zooms because speed is not lost in using this tech. The system performs without issue and, when matched with the 20, the combination works without issue.

Last but not least, one finds that using primes extensively on a shoot becomes a no brainer thanks to the framing ability of the digital zoom.

[Lee Berger]

I did some tests with the digital zoom and the supplied 17-200mm lens. I shot fully zoomed in optically (200mm) and then added 2x digital (400mm). The fully zoomed in digital is soft and full of macroblock artifacts. To me it's not usable. I also did the test using the 50mm f1.8 prime with the same results. Image grabs from the 200mm test are attached.

[Ron Evans]

Comparing the stills at the same size, in Photoshop , the digital version is more in focus and cleaner so it does a good job I think. I don't see any real problems other than some edges when blown up that would be acceptable I think in that regard both images look the same. What were the shooting parameters?

Ron Evans

[Lee Berger]

Were you looking at both at 100% in Photoshop? If you blow the non-digital zoom photo up to the same size (200 %) then you only have 2 Mega Pixels to work with and it looks worse. If you keep both at 100% then the no digital zoom image is noticeably sharper. I expected the same results as you would get in zooming into a 14mp digital still or 2 to 4K video and that is not what I see. This is even more evident in the moving video.

Here is a YouTube version of the video

NEX Test 1 - YouTube

You can see that as I zoom in the image softens noticeably. I think that if I kept the focal length at 200mm and physically moved the camera in to the 400mm digital zoom framing then it would be noticeably sharper.

[Robert Moran]

I used the digital zoom extensively on a video I shot of carolers. No problem whatsoever.

[Noa Put]

Eventhough it's compressed I do see a loss in resolution when it starts to zoom in, ugh, I really hope I won't have to wait too long for the camera, there are some more user videos appearing on vimeo and youtube and some look great and some not, I saw one yesterday where there where quite bad interlacing artifacts but I saw others where there practically was no sign of it. Now the same with this digital zoom, Robert says it's no issue while I do see issues in Lee's video. As soon as I get the camera I"m out for a whole day test-riding it so I can see for myself what it actually can or cannot do.

[Ron Evans]

I think some of the issue may be the fact there are no ND filters and it was a bright sunny day. I expect the iris was smaller than the sweet spot for the lens/sensor which would potentially cause the softness.

Ron Evans

[Lee Berger]

I ran the shutter up high enough to get between f6.5 and 8 which should be the sweet spot for this lens, but I'm not sure with this size sensor and a lens that goes up to f22. Here is another test I did this evening.
The first is using the 50mm lens and zooming in to 100mm digital

NEX EA50 Digital Zoom Test #1 - YouTube

The second is with the camera moved in to approximate the 200mm digital zoomed image from the first clip

NEX EA50 Digital Zoom Test #2 - YouTube

After this test, while I can see a difference, it may be slight enough to still make the digital zoom feature useful.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Guys

I think that's purely a technical difference..show that to friends/neighbours/family and they won't even see it!! We tend to look for absolute perfection while the average viewer is just looking at content. I watch Reality shows on TV with obvious handheld cameras and see the space between the subjects head changing all the time ..real wobbly footage for us but my wife doesn't even see it..the same would be for a digital zoom!

It would be nice however to know where the sweet spot is for the camera .. that way an variable ND on the lens in bright sun will allow you to find a sweet spot and also control DOF up or down where required...where we are I think an ND just might be important. The 67mm Genus has been suggested but I cannot get those locally at present...but I can get Lightcraft Workshop also around the same price ..anyone used those?? EBay of course has tons of $20 ones!!

Chris

[Noa Put]

Watch out with ebay ones, the ND filter is equally important as the lens itself, put a low quality filter in front of it and you will get image degradation no matter how good the camera and lens is. I have a 100 euro variable nd filter for my dslr and I see it has a negative effect on the image quality. For the nex ea50 I plan to get the best and probably most expensive filter I can find, I just need to figure out what type and how it will be fitted onto the stock lens. If possible I"ll attach these rubber lens hoods to the stock lens which allow a variable nd filter to be screwed onto it.

The problem with a lot of tests you see on the internet is that you don't know what settings the camera was at, I remember seeing videos from the nx5 where the image was clearly soft and later was found out the user forgot to apply the nd filter outside which led to diffraction and resulting soft focus. Therefore I"m so keen right now just to go out with the camera and put it under a series of demanding tests to see how bad the moire and diffraction really is, how much noise it has, how good the ois is, how accurate the autofocus is and how usable the digital zoom is. If possible I"ll try to find someone that is doing a wedding in January or February and try to go along just for test purpose in "the real world".

It's also the very first time I"m buying a camera that has just hit the streets and it has made me a bit nervous.

[Ron Evans]

The NX5U is very sensitive to settings. When I first got mine I was really disappointed with the image quality. My little Sony cams seemed much better. I was setting the iris at f4 to f5.6 thinking I would get better depth of field for the stage shows I shoot.Picture was very soft almost looked out of focus. I also found I had the anti flicker filter on as well as the macro mode ( both on by default !!!) I now get sharp video with iris between f2.8 and f4 even using ND filters to keep in this range depending on zoom. Since the NX5U lens ramps to f3.4 I often set iris around there and alter gain if needed. The NX5U picture definitely gets soft with iris at f 5.6 or smaller so I don't go there anymore. It may be that the EA50 is no different and needs picture profile settings etc to get the best from it.

Ron Evans