I'm going to compare EA50U and EA50M

[Chris Harding]

Hey Michael

I don't use the manual gain switches at all. I just lock the limit to 21db and let the camera do the math and get the right exposure. If I need to correct I assign the EV value item to a button on the camera and then you can adjust the EV with the thumbwheel from -3 to + 3 which is much like adjusting ISO but you can do it on the fly ... if you use this the EV display on the LCD must be highlighted to adjust it... if it's not highlighted just press the button again then use the thumbwheel to adjust. Works like a dream!!

For me at weddings no profile crushes the blacks way too much!! I use PP3 which is modified with the colour level pushed up 4 points and it works nicely ..Then again I have guys in black suits standing with the bride in a white dress so I have contrast issues!!!

Chris

[Steven Digges]

Michael,

I have some advice you might not like. I will preface it by saying I don’t know you or your capabilities at all. And I am just some guy on the internet with an opinion. Calm down, go shoot, and enjoy your camera before you make yourself crazy looking for problems. You have had the camera for less than twenty four hours. Maybe you shot hours of different stuff but it doesn’t sound like it. It sounds like you shot a few clips looking for aliasing before you ever pushed the record button. Then you jumped into settings and backed detail off all the way? How can you possibly know the characteristics of the camera in twenty four hours and your trying to fix a good camera already.

You jumped into an internet discussion where some of us (read ME) were discussing aliasing and I think that is where your own focus went before you ever pushed the red button. If you read the text before my clip I said I put fifteen garments that were all potentially problematic in front of the camera and they were all fine except the one that blew up. So that is the one of three I showed to you guys for discussion. If you go looking for ghosts with a microscope you will find them. In my not so humble opinion you need to shoot more than a few clips with ANY camera before you go to extremes like taking detail to 0.

I looked at your clip and what I wondered the whole time was “why isn’t it sharp?”. It’s not sharp, did you miss manual focus, was AF searching, is it because you took detail out? I don’t know, but you do. Start with basics before you adjust things that may cause you other problems. Enjoy the camera and learn it on your own before you get to concerned about what guys like me on a forum are saying about it.

I truly hope I did not upset you. I am very blunt but I mean well.

Steve

[Chris Harding]

Hi Steve

I do appreciate the way you call a spade and spade and you are 100% too. I have shot countless weddings and Realty shoots on my cameras ..many hundreds of hours !! They are now just over 25 months old and I'm still delighted. The odd bit of aliasing and moire nobody will see and it produces a good image. I have never turned detail down at all ..I just shoot on PP3 with the colour level turned up to save me doing it in post and every clip is a delight.

Michael ? Do as Steve says and enjoy your camera! Don't start pixel peeping and looking for issues that only you can see !

Chris

[Michael Liebergot]

Steve and Chris thanks for the constructive criticism.
I did use focus assist peaking (yellow set to high). Next time I'll make sure I use spot focus or push focus to guarantee focus. Strange in that the peaking showed the image in focus. Next time I'll try a spot focus or AF Focus Assist. I don't run on auto ficus too often as it can hunt and change focus on the subject. But spot focus should work nicely, and as such I have it set to a button on my camera.

I did set the detail settings after reading posts here on fixing aliasing. And yes you are absolutely right in the fact that I have to not worry about the aliasing and enjoy the camera.

I was shooting with the camera the same way as I do with my NX5U, and should focus more on learning the EA50 more and develop shooting styles for this camera.

Also, yes I did only a few tests with the camera. But with that said the camera did show signs of aliasing even with no PP and default settings. But as suggested I am going to focus on shooting with the camera to suit my taste and not worry and pixel peep how the sensor works.
So you know I do have 10+ years shooting video. But only 1 day with the camera. So ill try to contain my criticism and share my experiences with the camera as I shoot more. I can't wait until I get my Metabones adapter from Sony so I can try out some of my EF lenses. And next week I should have my Fotodiox ND Throttle adapter to test our my manual EF lenses with ND on the filter.

With that being said I know there are things that I am going to love about this camera, with the main thing having the ability to get that DSLR look without the need to rig up. I can just pull my camera out and shoots if needed. Also, I love the monitor attachment. As I have had to wear glasses over the last year to focus, but when I adjust the diopter I don't have need for them. But do realize why many do shorten the tube.

All in all I do appreciate the advice and help while learning the camera strengths and weaknesses.

Chris like you I do shoot in low light a lot and like the EV advice. Now I just have to decide which button to replace it with, as I added spot focus and steady shot yo the assigned buttons.
And Steve no harm done, as I am also a shoot from the hip person. After all the only way one can get better is with help and feedback from his peers.

[Steven Digges]

Here are a few night shots. Most of them are from the EA50M with a Canon 16-35mm F2.8 L lens.

Most of them are exposed at 2.8 1/15 and 21db There is one shot with the new 18-105 G lens at f4 and 27db I explain it all on the clip.

This clip is "as shot". They went through some codec processing for technical reasons but I did not modify them in post. When I did do post modifications I found the ones shot at 21db clean up pretty nicely. Just adding contrast kills a lot of the noise.

I have always considered 18db my gain limit for clean shots and 21 my limit for "had to do it to get it shots". Over 21 gets downright ugly.

The clips are from downtown Phoenix, AZ I just went for a walk one night after 11 PM so few people were on the street.

Password EA50M2

Private Video on Vimeo

Steve

[Steven Digges]

Hey Michael,

Only having three gain presets before you have to go to the menu is the single biggest gripe about design for most of us. On the good side of things I keep both the gain limiter on and the audio limiter turned on. I feed my cameras a lot of XLR audio in manual and it never clips on me.

The status button is also one of my favorites. it gives you a quick scroll through all of your settings. It is especially useful when setting up two cameras to match.

I use yellow medium for peaking and pretty much trust it. I like 4x magnification on focus expansion, eight is too much.

I sent my Metabones rebate form in two weeks ago. Their tracking system says it was approved and to wait 8-10 weeks for delivery. I will let you know when it comes to give you a real wait time. I have a lot of good Canon glass. It is awesome being able to use it on my three cameras. My current Metebones is a standard adapter too. One of these days I will add a speedbooster.

Steve

[Michael Liebergot]

Steve thanks for the info.
I have always tried to do the same in regards to capping gain on both video and audio.

Normally I set the 3 gain settings to be what I consider to be acceptable shooting conditions, and take the highest I'm willing to go and set it 1 stop blow that. Then I set video AGC to be what I would consider to be the max I would ever shoot at. This way I have 3 settings and if I really need more can turn to auto Gain/ISO and get one additional stop of exposure. So in essence I have 4 gain settings and never get an surprises of what the camera might try to boost to in auto.

The same goes for me in audio as I always try to set a limiter to keep levels in check. Sometimes I might take a direct feed from a board or sometimes I might send audio wirelessly from a source to my camera. This could be board audio, mic with plug on transmitter on it, or miced audio fed into a recorder and sent to my camera for backup/sync audio. I am anal about audio and always double my audio up. So most all of my audio gets fed into a recorder like the Zoom H5 and then sent to my camera for sync backup. This way I can always monitor my audio om the camera while recording and if anything goes wrong I know it. So I can adjust it if possible and not have any surprises.

As for focus I always shoot with zebras and peaking. I wonder if having the yellow peaking set to eb high is too high and I should set tat down to Medium.

In regards to magnification I don't use it a ton but might get into the habit of using it to double check and not rely totally on peaking.

BTW do you use Auto Focus or even Spot Focus at all, or are you a totally manual focus shooter.
With my eyes getting weaker at close distances (which is why I use reading glasses to shoot with now) I wonder if I should try suing Auto Focus more.

Oha nd I'm bummed to hear that it's taking so long for the Metabones adapter, as they say 8-10 weeks for delivery, but was hoping that it could be sooner.

BTW, I want to contact Sony about why the EA50M has EA50H on the base-plate. I'm curious to hear their response. Makes me wonder if this is just a re-purposed EA50H with a different lens and they call it a new model.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Michael

Peaking on high is much to much!! Never go more than medium ..on high it will peak on everything!!

I use manual focus only and rely on peaking where focus isn't critical like wide shots but like Steve I will always do a quick check at 4X expanded focus to make sure I get yellow peaks exactly where I need them .. I find that if you have peaking yellow on your subjects eyes you are 100% perfect (that's at F2.8) but even at F1.8 shots where I have the eyes yellow are sharp as a tack!!

I found, like most AF systems the camera struggled in low light a bit but in good light it's fast and accurate and touch focus is also good but still keep peaking on as a check!!

Nice images Steve ... I was doing a wedding last night where they had the dancing outside and at 21db there was no noise but I used a tiny splash of on cam light to light the couple as it was pretty dark. I felt that your image on the clip were mostly a tad on the over exposed side so was that you or the camera ..you probably could have lifted shutter and still got a good picture. It's hard to see if there is noise in the black areas on footage that's a bit over too. What is your end conclusion with the EA50M then regarding low light ... I don't think you did a 27db shot on the old camera did you??

Chris

[Steven Digges]

Quick Response,

Michael, Both of my cameras say Model EA50U on the bottom. The original US designation was EA50UH and the H was often dropped but not the U. Does yours really say EA50H? I am curious about this model number thing to. At one time B&H sold tons of grey market stuff. They still offer some of it. But as far as I know they have always been reputable and declared it. I would love to know what Sony and B&H have to say?

AF does not work with Metabones adapters, at least not my Mark II. So all of my Canons are manual only. I do use AF when I can trust it. But this is how I do it most of the time to avoid the dreaded searching. I keep the camera and lens in manual focus and I "pull focus" with the push for auto button. I love that thing. It gets me on or close every time. Then I can change or adjust as necessary.

I don't use face detection. I have that preset changed to spot focus to avoid background focusing. I like to tell it where I want it to be. I also set the marker button to steady shot.

I am hoping the 8-10 weeks is not real world too. I'll let you know. The official documentation says we will get a Mark II. But I heard they are sending Mark III. Fingers crossed.

I was looking my camera over yesterday to see if I had any other set up tips for Michael and found something weird. With the new "G" lens the camera only offers standard steady shot mode, active mode is grayed out. I don't know why. Both work with the old kit lens, I put it on without changing anything to double check. Both lenses have optical stabilization. I wonder what the difference is?

Chris, Third shot in is 27db, I say it. its there for the comparison you wanted. Yes they are a little over. Almost every shot had bright light in the frame. Auto would have underexposed like crazy. There is noise in them, but when you add contrast to bring the blacks where they should be they clean up nice. In fact I left the part in when I hurry to catch the train and you can see and hear me over adjust and correct again to catch it. I raised shutter speed instead of stopping down because at 1/15 the train would have been a blur. I thought it would make you laugh. You can see that I do do almost everything in manual modes.

Steve

[Michael Liebergot]

Steve my bad on the nam eon bottom of the camera. Mine does say EA50U like yours does.

I did the same as you and have no use for face detection so I also turned that into spot focus.
And yes I have always loved the push auto function on Sony cameras. I never run my cameras in AF, so full time AF on EF lenses isn't a major thing. As long as I can use the push auto function on those lenses then that is more than sufficient for me.

I noticed the same thing BTW in regards to steady shot when I was setting it up in the settings. Don't know why active isn't selectable.

[Dmitri Zigany]

As far as I know the 18-200 is the only lens that supports active mode. I guess for shorter focal lengths Sony didn't feel it was necessary? I really miss the SELP18-200, sold it along with my EA50...

[Chris Harding]

Hi Steve

Thanks for that! I have had my cams over 2 years now and I have never shot below 1/50th ...I really must shoot a bit of footage at least at a 1/25th and see how it goes ... weddings are pretty slow moving events so I'm unlikely to get any blur! Even dancing is pretty slow but I'm not too sure if I could go another notch down as for us in PAL land that's only 1/12th ..would be OK on still shots but a bit scary on movement!!

Did you shoot any of the train moving at 1/15th??? I can't remember!!

My camera serial plates say NEX EA-50 only no suffix at all and they come direct from Sony Japan The dealer however calls them EA-50 H so I am sure the suffix is a region marker so the "M" model is still a USA distribution so they would still be a "U"

Chris

[Steven Digges]

Good news Michael,

My Metabones is here. It took just 16 days. It arived FedEx ground.

It is the Version II. The current retail version is IV. Thats OK, they get updated constantly. That is also the big gripe about them. You can not upgrade the firmware yourself. You have to send it to China and pay $50.00. But I am OK with this one. I checked the firmware and it is V 40, my other one is V 30 so we will be OK.

Also, I do sugest you go to their website for information on the two operating modes it has. It did not come with instruction so unless you read about how to change it out of green mode it will not work properly. Green mode is the default and it does not aply to our camera. There is a way to get it to default to advanced mode. I did it to my other one. Very important to us but it is not on Metabones website. I found it somewhere else. I will try to find it again or try to remeber the process.

Now I can run all of my good Canon 2.8 glass on the two EA50s and the Sony G on my VG30.

Steve

[Noa Put]

Does the new model now have a improved sensor and do you see a improvement in IQ and lowlight?

[Steven Digges]

Hi Noa,

Yes. It is different. I cant say for sure if it is truly a new sensor or if the factory tweaked the old one. I suspect the later. All of the settings for all of the presets are identical. The look is different, possiblely a little sharper and cleaner. Definatly pulls in more light. BUT, I have not seen an improvement in morie, still the same.

Steve