Raw Wedding Footage

[Chris Harding]

Hi Guys

I have put together 3 clips done in 1280x720 so you can see the EA-50 in action. Just bear in mind I shot this with the Sony as a "B" Cam and it full auto everything. I have also dropped in a clip comparing the Sony with my panny HMC82 that was the "A" camera ....The footage colourwise seems quite close using the PP3 preset unmodified. The biggest asset I found doing run 'n gun was total ease of use. Now, I also had no ND filters and everything was stock lens 18-200.

I feel maybe that the camera running at F16 sometimes might have degraded the image a bit???

Feel free to comment on the technical side ..(BTW: Only the reception clip has audio..I muted the others) EDIT: It looks like YT defaults to 360P so make sure you change quality to HD!!!

Chris

rawprep - YouTube

rawcompare - YouTube

rawindoors - YouTube

[James Manford]

Just watched the wedding vows.

To be honest, I liked the Panasonic more, it looked slightly sharper. Where as the EA50 looked more smooth asif it's been recorded in Portrait mode of some sort creating that airbrush effect.

I think the EA50 will only shine when prime lenses are attached. So any one considering buying this camera is simply paying for the form factor and the option of being able to change lenses by the looks of it.

[Chris Harding]

Hi James

That was my concern about shooting outdoors without an ND filter.. I think the footage does go a bit soft if the aperture is tiny...If you compare the same Panasonic and Sony during the nighttime speeches you can see that the Sony has a much better dynamic range and also looks sharper as the iris was a lot more open (F4 or F5.6 if I remember correctly)

The only way to really find out is to do it and see what the results are...The Panasonic was at F2.o plus it had it's automatic ND filters kicking in as well.

Chris

[Noa Put]

Thx a lot Chris for your time to put this online, guess it must not be easy doing all your weddings, editing and then prepare and upload something in between for us geeks to stare at :) The youtube compression is not really good to compare but from what I see the ea50 handles highlights better on the faces in those outdoor shots and the color on the indoor shots also seems very natural.

I did notice in the first video when you zoomed in on the dress (01:13) the autofocus shifted to the background so that is something to consider when having the focus in auto as the lens has a shallower dof inside when the iris is open and out of focus will show much quicker.

As with any camera the exposure on outdoor footage is key to get a good image, my preferred way of working is to always adjust exposure manually and I even do that on my small cx730's. Especially with these high contrasts scenes I found that underexposing a bit gives better results. The footage I made on that coalmine mountain did not have the same light intensity as a hot day in Australia but the sun was shining fully but lower to the horizon then in the summer, there where however some very bright surfaces and quite high contrasts. If I let the camera handle the exposure it would overexpose a bit which gives a "video" like look while when I underexposed a bit to better balance dark shadows and bright surfaces I got that look I am after.

I will try to go out the following days to shoot with my primes what won't be easy as it is getting a lot colder here and there is a snow forecast so that should be fun, see how long it takes before the camera freezes :)

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Noa

Just remember this was raw footage, randomly picked so most will not even be used. I was using the Sony on shoulder (hence the wobbly vows footage) as I was also shooting cutaways as well.

Have you any idea at what stage the image will start to lose resolution when the F stop gets to small???
Being a newcomer to big sensors I have no idea but with 1/3rd chip cameras the sweet spot is supposed to be F5.6 and no more than F8 ... In auto the camera was closing up a lot more than that ...I'll do a few trails at home in bright sun with different shutter speeds and apertures and see if there is a visual difference.

BTW: I picked up an almost new SEL50F18 lens for this for $200 yesterday (better than my Sony Centre down the road who wanted $399.00) so I also have to get to grips with that.

Yes, you are right, I need to pay a lot more attention to DOF now that with small chip cameras one could ignore as everything was always in focus.

Chris

[Steven Digges]

James,
It looks like portrait mode? Really??? Pretty strong slam coming from someone looking at raw unedited footage on you tube. Do you have any experience with this camera or evaluating it's footage? Sounds like you already have an axe to grind to me.

Steve

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Steve

What on earth is "portrait mode" anyway...I was simply shooting cutaways of the guests to supplement the main camera and I decided to "overshoot" the main camera so I could get some comparison footage. At the distance I was away from the couple (way behind the main camera I simply zoomed up so the framing would be approximately the same and just shot it on auto. The whole idea here is to find out what the camera can and cannot do and also see what to avoid in terms of moire and such as well. As it turns out it was indeed useful to find out that running high apertures will degrade the image somewhat.

I still need to budget for a second EA-50 so for now I'm mixing with the Panny and I also wanted to see what the PP3 profile would be like. It's quite close actually and pretty much "video like" rather than "cinematic" so it will match well. Once I can shoot with two Sony's I can fool around with PP's

Chris

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by James Manford

I think the EA50 will only shine when prime lenses are attached. So any one considering buying this camera is simply paying for the form factor and the option of being able to change lenses by the looks of it.

I think the stock lens is also quite good as it covers a large focal length, has a powered zoom and autofocus. 3 combined feautures that are unique for a lens designed for large sensor camera's, especially considering it's pricepoint. Basically it's a DSLR in a semi-shouldermount package which has many advantages over using a dslr but also several disadvantages.
For me it's a quite complete camera, it has all functionality you would expect from a more professional camera, something dslr's are lacking but unfortunately it carries some weacknesses (like moire and aliasing) the first generation Canon dslr's where plagued with.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

Have you any idea at what stage the image will start to lose resolution when the F stop gets to small???

No I don't, I do think the large sensor allow much higher f-stops then what a 1/3 inch sensor camera can take before the image turns soft.

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

BTW: I picked up an almost new SEL50F18 lens for this for $200 yesterday

That's a great lens for closeups and for creative shots, autofocus, iris and stabilisation also function with this lens, no?

[Lee Berger]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

That's a great lens for closeups and for creative shots, autofocus, iris and stabilisation also function with this lens, no?

All three functions are available on that lens. It's a bargain.

[Steven Digges]

"Portrait Mode" is a setting found on Sony's low level consumer camcorders. It attempts to create a shallow DOF by making the camera shoot in apature priority at it's widest apature. I don't think that is what James was referring to in it's truest sense. We responded nicely to his previous posts. There lies the truth behind his slam on the kit lens.

Steve

[Steven Digges]

Chris,

You are baffling me by talking about lenses getting soft at small apertures? Please explain, maybe I don’t understand the relationship between lens and video sensors? I thought all of my traditional lens knowledge still applied:

1. There is no way to manufacture GOOD cheap glass. With glass, you still get what you pay for.
2. The smaller the aperture, the more depth of field, and generally the SHARPER the image. Exception to this would be zooms which are often sharpest in their middle range but that is manufacturing, not physics.
3. Big wide apertures. Shallowest DOF and usually softest spot on the lens. You are gathering light from the maximum amount of the glass surface. Needing the lens to be its best at the most difficult task.

Why would “chips” or “large sensors” vary from these basic rules? I do know that one difference between video and still lens manufacturing is that the low resolution of video images is taken into account to save manufacturing dollars. In other words, the lens only needs to be sharper than the ability of the highest resolution that camera can record. Could this be what you are referencing?

To me, a lens with an aperture range of F3.5 to F22 should look very sharp at F8 to F11.

When I first bought the “wide angle” lens for my old Canon XL1 I was disappointed but not surprised to see it fall apart at F2.8. The wide open aperture on a wide lens without detail in SD made it look terrible.

I believe it was a group of Ansel Adams followers that started a group called the F64 club. Those tiny apertures on their large format film cameras were how they got the landscape “look” of the day, Extreme depth of field. They could have the flowers in the immediate foreground be sharp and the distant mountain peaks in perfect focus too.

Please help me understand, I must be missing something.

Steve

[Noa Put]

On my Canon xh-a1 with a small 1/3rd inch sensor if you would film in a bright sunny day and did not use the ND's but closed the iris as much as you could the image would get noticeable softer, as if the image was unsharp, which is caused by diffraction. The camera performed best around f4 to f5.6.
The camera was capable to have f-stops between f1.6 and f9.5 but if you let it run in auto in bright sunlight without using the ND f-stop values appeared much higher then what the camera was phsically capable off which I think was an indication of what the camera thought the correct f-stop "should" be, in those cases you got noticeable unsharp images.

[James Manford]

Wow ... no need to take offense from my comment regarding the kit lens.

All I said was judging from the panasonic footage and the sony. The panasonic seemed a littler sharper in my eye.

When I said portrait, I was referring to a picture style in DSLRs that create pictures/videos with a slight blur, as to make the subject look like they have a blemish free face, rather than one that is sharp showing all the defects - does that make sense ? :P

Not slating the EA50 at all. As a matter of fact I think i'll be buying one next week.

[Rod Pike]

Originally Posted by Steven Digges

Chris,


2. The smaller the aperture, the more depth of field, and generally the SHARPER the image. Exception to this would be zooms which are often sharpest in their middle range but that is manufacturing, not physics.


Steve

Hi Steve,
Depth of field is maximised by a smaller aperture: However, sharpness is limited by physics strangely. Diffraction starts to encroach as apertures diminish. The technical term for the cause of this effect is called "airy discs". An understanding of this characteristic helps explain why this happens.

Have a look at any high quality resolution test on a still lens and you will always see optimum performance anywhere between f5.6 and f11. , never at f16-22. The Ansel Adams f64 was purely because of the size of the negative ratio to the focal length of the lens. The bigger the format, the shallower the DOF, hence a smaller aperture required.
This article explains resonably clearly, the relationship of aperture to resolution. I hope it helps. Resolution of camera lenses where are the limits – and why?

edit: I just realised that you may well have been talking about perceived sharpnes via depth of field-and yes you are right of course, smallest aperture = largest perceived DOF:. This is different of course to resolution on the film face. I may be wrong (usually am!) but I think Chris was referring to a softness (ie lower resolution) rather than a depth of field issue.
Cheers!
Rod