EA50...problems problems

[Chris Harding]

Hi Matt

Just a couple of tiny points... If you look at the kitchen window with you zooming out with the camera (or yourself) trying to expose in indoor shot left and right with a bright window in the centre, you will never win with any camera. You notice that most of your good shoots are your outdoor ones and also as Noa says you are zooming out down a long dark passage so the lens would start at only F6.3 at the top end and might need a gain/shutter adjustment and at full wide (F3.5) your depth of field would have been drastically different .... If you are shooting manual just bear in mind that most camcorder zooms are no parafocal!!

Were your shots done in manual or full auto??

As Noa has already shown it's a darn good camera but it cannot think like a human brain so it does need some owner assistance when faced with no ideallic scenarios. If I find a bit of footage that really sucks it's usually my fault where I have expected the camera to do something that it cannot.

Why don't you do TWO tests??? One with your DSLR and one with the EA-50 and describe where you think footage fails on the Sony but is perfect on the DSLR??

Chris

[Matt Edwards]

Noa and Chris

Thanks for your comments.

Noa I've used a 550D and 7D. In all truth I always got better results from the 550d ironically.

I always used to shoot fully manual. I think where I'm getting confused is around the terminology of certain things on the EA50 vs the Canon. I would setup my white balance with each shot, then use a combination of F stop and shutter speed.

I'm confused by the iris controls and that of the gain, when I hear others talk about the settings on the EA50 specifically around gain, I'm totally at a loss. I'm going to go out Thursday and try again. This time with everything on manual and try and document each change as I'm going.

As Chris has said some oddities with the camera not withstanding, I believe a lot of my issues are totally user error and an inexperience. I guess what's a bit frustrating is that I felt with the 550D I was actually doing well and it's been a kick in the confidence...

[Chris Harding]

Hi Matt

Purely as a confidence booster, why don't you go out with the camera and leave it in full auto and just go and enjoy yourself... Full auto is remarkably good and then you can sit back and what the footage and make up your mind ... you just might be surprised and shooting auto is fairly accurate.

Getting the hang of having the right shutter and iris setting so your DOF is controlled is tricky ... You can always keep gain/iso in auto and let the camera decide how much gain is needed and keep aperture in manual if you want to?? If you are shooting manually I am assuming you have focus peaking and zebras tirned on too??

Chris

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Matt Edwards

Noa I've used a 550D and 7D. In all truth I always got better results from the 550d ironically.

I"m still trying to figure out what you don't like about the ea50, I do have a 550d as well and the ea50 outputs a better image in my case, also in terms of operation both are basically the same with the only difference that it can be more difficult to change certain things on the 550d. The only thing I hate with the ea50 is that I can't quickly scroll through the different iso values like I can with the 550d meaning I have to assign 3 fixed values to the switch on the side. I do hope Sony will give us this functionality with a firmware update.

[Matt Edwards]

HI Guys...

I've been playing around a bit more and seem to be getting better results. Part of it is that I had an outstanding update for FCPX and this seems to have improved the image quality by a massive margin...It kept messing up my scrub image resolution which the update seems to have fixed but I've decided to chuck some more ram int here to improve transcoding.

I've been lighting a large Cathedral today but managed to make a mini short on the EA50 when i got in. It's all in AUTO as I was rushing to sort out our family dinner but it turned out nicely.

Here you go: http://youtu.be/QMhlhGNi3pY

The star of the short is my 5 year old son, he's very shy so I was amazed he was prepared to talk into the camera...

[Noa Put]

I get the message it's a private video?

[Chris Harding]

Hi Matt

Video works for me fine with no problems... There you go! Nice footage and you will find it will only get better...read the manual and explore the features and especially the limitations and the EA-50 does a really great job...I found that auto is even really good!! These are the first camera I have had that do lightning fast WB changes in auto when you have both indoor and sunlight...I can film a room with lights on inside and swing over to the sun filled window and then back again and WB is perfect!! Very impressive!

Chris

[Matt Edwards]

Cheers Chris, Noa have you tried again?

I tihnk as confidence with the camera grows I'll be able to get more usable footage etc...As you say the manual needs to be read, re-read and then maybe tattooed to my arms..

[Noa Put]

Now I can see it, it does look ok to me.

[Chris Harding]

Hey Matt

Just keep using it..I have already clocked up 70 hours on one of my cameras and still find stuff I didn't know about or neglected to find out about that makes my life easy.

You will get some really crappy footage now and again and when you do, remember the scenario and the lighting at the time and either avoid that sort of shot or tackle it from a difference angle. You will continue learning and the camera will continue to delight you once you discover the do's and dont's ... Just don't let the odd bad shot put you off..we all get them !!

Chris