Sony nex-ea50 functionality

[Tom Van den Berghe]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

I'd change the 6db gain to a higher value, maybe halfway between 0 and 21? It had always annoyed me you had to choose between only 3 presets but that's the way it always have been on professional camera's, only the ea50 has much more usable higher iso's, on my xh-a1 I had 0, 3 and 6db gain which was about all I needed as 6 db gain allready looked very noisy. Too bad Sony didn't change that behaviour through a firmware update, I"m sure it is an easy fix.

NOa, the nex-ea50 has indeed many usable gains. I had the XH-A1 and HXR-NX5 in the past and 6 and 9db was about the highest without too much noise.

[Steven Digges]

Yes, close it down.

But I would only do that in a big hurry. I keep gain/iso set as low as possible for the aperture I have chosen to use. In other words once I need 21 db or higher, my lenses are wide open, before that I choose my own aperture. But it looks pretty good up to about 21db.

Steve

[Jody Arnott]

Originally Posted by Steven Digges

Yes, close it down.

But I would only do that in a big hurry. I keep gain/iso set as low as possible for the aperture I have chosen to use. In other words once I need 21 db or higher, my lenses are wide open, before that I choose my own aperture. But it looks pretty good up to about 21db.

Steve

Agreed. But I typically don't go above 18dB of gain. I do notice a bit of noise at 21dB.
And I'd definitely open up the iris before I dialled in more gain. If I can expose correctly with 0dB of gain, that is always preferable.

[Tom Van den Berghe]

yes, open up the iris to maximum before using gain. thanks for your help guys! this weekend some stuff to film. Will try this.

[Steven Digges]

Tom,

Gain/ISO are exactly the same thing. Just two different numerical systems. It only has one effect on your image, and it is all ways bad – Noise. It needs to be kept at the lowest setting possible for optimal image quality.

Every aperture has a different visual effect on your image. It is not just for balancing exposure. I can’t teach aperture in a forum thread. It is a corner stone function of all video/photography. Every shooter should know it, live it, and use it. Same goes for shutter speed.

Knowing the effect each one of those settings has on the image is how you balance exposure and the “look” you want your image to have. So saying, always open the lens all the way before increasing gain is not always correct either. It is a recipe and you’re the chef. You have to understand all of the ingredients to make it taste the way you want it to. Believe it or not, the best answers are in photography books. The basic principles are very similar or even the exactly the same.

Steve

[Jody Arnott]

Thanks Steven, interesting post.

There are 4 things that changing the aperture can effect (that I know of):

- Depth of field
- Exposure (obviously)
- Some lenses are softer/sharper at different apertures
- Higher (closed) apertures can start to degrade the image

I'm curious, is there anything else that changing the aperture can effect?

[Chris Harding]

Hi Jody

A lot of lenses (especially the less expensive ones) will suffer at the wide end but for us wedding guys at dim and dingy reception venues have little choice but to use the lens wide open.

Image degradation is a function of the sensor rather than the aperture. So far I have done footage on the EA-50 at F16 with no image quality loss thanks to the big sensor ...most video cameras will need to use their ND filters so your JVC HM600 without ND's would exhibit far more degradation at F16 than the EA-50 because of the much smaller 1/3" chips!!

All lenses whether fixed or interchangeable have a supposedly "sweet spot" around F4 - F5.6 for video.

Chris

[Jody Arnott]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

Hi Jody

A lot of lenses (especially the less expensive ones) will suffer at the wide end but for us wedding guys at dim and dingy reception venues have little choice but to use the lens wide open.

Image degradation is a function of the sensor rather than the aperture. So far I have done footage on the EA-50 at F16 with no image quality loss thanks to the big sensor ...most video cameras will need to use their ND filters so your JVC HM600 without ND's would exhibit far more degradation at F16 than the EA-50 because of the much smaller 1/3" chips!!

All lenses whether fixed or interchangeable have a supposedly "sweet spot" around F4 - F5.6 for video.

Chris

Thanks Chris,

Yep, my HM600 starts to suffer after F8. However I've used the EA50 at F22 without noticeable quality loss.

I just picked up my C100, so I'm interested to see how that performs.

[Chris Harding]

Exciting Days Jody!!

By now you will be pouring over the controls and manuals so once you have come up for air and had a bit of a play, let us know what you think??

Like Sony's FS100 and FS700 I still don't like the form factor of the C100 although it seems a little better than the FS cameras and at least has an ergonomic shape! I wonder why these guys make them so hard to use handheld or do they assume it will be tripod mount only ??

For interest will your 18-35 Sigma F1.8 mount directly onto the C100???

Keep us updated

Chris

[Jody Arnott]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

For interest will your 18-35 Sigma F1.8 mount directly onto the C100???

Keep us updated

Chris

Yep, my Sigma 18-35 and Tokina 11-15 fit directly onto the C100.

Will keep you posted :)

[Chris Harding]

Perfect Jody

Apart from being about the same size as Canon's DSLR's which is not my style it's seems an awesome camera. They don't have any progressive modes at all but seem to wrap the file in a interlaced package ..the only thing that seems strange is their PF mode which takes the place or other cameras progressive modes doesn't have a 50PF mode at all, only a 25PF mode ...you must let us know how that works out for you. I think if I had it I would rather just shoot in 50i and drop onto a 25P timeline.

That Super35 sensor should give you a good 2 stop advantage over the EA-50 ..I still like my EA-50's though!!! With all my Nikon lenses I would have to restock on ALL lenses if I bought a C100 or 300

Chris

[Steven Digges]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

Hi Jody

A lot of lenses (especially the less expensive ones) will suffer at the wide end but for us wedding guys at dim and dingy reception venues have little choice but to use the lens wide open.

Image degradation is a function of the sensor rather than the aperture. So far I have done footage on the EA-50 at F16 with no image quality loss thanks to the big sensor ...most video cameras will need to use their ND filters so your JVC HM600 without ND's would exhibit far more degradation at F16 than the EA-50 because of the much smaller 1/3" chips!!

All lenses whether fixed or interchangeable have a supposedly "sweet spot" around F4 - F5.6 for video.

Chris

Chris,

No. " So far I have done footage on the EA-50 at F16 with no image quality loss thanks to the big sensor ...most video cameras will need to use their ND filters so your JVC HM600 without ND's would exhibit far more degradation at F16 than the EA-50 because of the much smaller 1/3" chips!!".

I respectfully strongly disagree. I keep saying this over and over again, there is no substitute for quality glass. It is a simple garbage in garbage out thing. I don't care what sensor it is, there are high quality three chip sensors and high or low quality APS-C sensors out there too. The lens you choose is your most important first line of defense against a poor image quality, period. Putting a cheap lens on any camera will result in a poor image regardless of the sensor type or size.

Jody, the four characteristics of aperture you listed above are correct in line item form. Except, Chris is correct that when, wide open most of them will be at their softest place. Every lens has it's own characteristics. It takes a photographer that knows his own gear to make them sing.


Steve

[Chris Harding]

Hi Steve

You like to rev up my emotions don't you!! Seriously I don't mind at all as it's purely good natured bantering.

Using the same glass, try taking a 1/3rd chip camera ..switch out all the ND filters and stop it down to F16 and then do the same with an ASPC sensor camera and look at the results! Regardless of the lens quality the small sensor camera's image will fall to pieces at F16 ...that's why they have ND filters... a 1/3rd or smaller chip will degrade very badly at tiny F-stops ..that's why most manufacturers will often build the lens with integral ND's (most camcorders, in fact) It's purely light physics but small chip cameras have systems in place so the lens is made to stay in the sweet spot. You might physically get a readout of F16 on a small chip camera but in fact it's really F5.6 with an ND 4 factor applied so it allows the same amount of light onto the sensor as F16 would allow.

As for your other comment, I can only agree 100% ...there is no substitute for good glass whatever the reason ..sadly us lesser mortals often don't have the budget to pop out and buy a $15K lens so we have to endure what we can afford.

Hope you are well otherwise!

Chris

[Noa Put]

You might physically get a readout of F16 on a small chip camera but in fact it's really F5.6 with an ND 4 factor applied so it allows the same amount of light onto the sensor as F16 would allow.

That's not right, if a small chip camera says the f-stop is f5.6 then it is f5.6, if you look inside the lens you will see the iris is wider open then when you are at f16 as the iris will be almost completely closed, the biggest differences between these 2 values is that around f5.6 you"ll get the sharpest possible image and at f16 you will get diffraction and a softer image. Now it might not show as much on a large sensor compared to a small sensor one but the amount of light that has to be squeezed through a tiny hole before it reaches the sensor compared to a much bigger opening does have an impact on the image and that has nothing to do with the nd filter.

I have seen in more posts that you seem to regard the nd filter as some kind of unnecessary evil that is only there to give us videographer a hard time so that it would be better to just don't use it at all :) but it is in fact a crucial element in controlling dof, natural motion and sharpness.

The ND filter allows us to choose the dof by using the appropriate f-stop if there is too much light coming in, it will allow us to control the shutter if we want to have a natural looking motion and it allows us to choose a f-stop that will gives us the sharpest image the lens can provide us.

[Tom Van den Berghe]

just one important thing I don't understand. When in full manual how do I compensate the gain when zooming in and out?

When zooming from wide to tele in auto the camcorder adds auto gain in the picture.
But how do you do this when filming in manual? When start zooming in and the picture gets darker... do you use the gain switch to get it brighter? how do you do this to have a "smooth" zoom like in auto mode?