Example Footage

[Marcus Durham]

Are there any examples of footage online that not only demonstrate the abilities of the camera without being compressed to death, but also demonstrate how severe (or not) any aliasing problem may be?

I know Sony have demo footage but naturally they will have shot it to the best abilities of the camera.

It's a unit that interests me as a B camera to get certain shots to intercut with my EX1 footage. Wide angles, arty shots etc. The ability to have lenses for just one or two shots in a production appeals to me.

[Henry Williams]

I've shot a few tests with it that I've uploaded at 1080p to youtube. Exported using compressor at the highest possible quality settings. Lots of variation in shooting conditions so hopefully might be of some use. Links below. Footage has had a mild stock grade "warm" applied in colour but otherwise raw...

Kit lens day artificial and natural light and nighttime exteriors. A few of the daytime shots are tripod mounted, the rest handheld. An obvious example of aliasing in one of the wide fairground night shots but honestly much better than I expected. First day with the camera so running on aperture priority mode during the day shots. The night shots are run on manual:

YouTube - Sony NEX-VG10 test

16mm pancake day and artificially lit nighttime church interior running on manual settings. Apologies for the wobble. This lens does seem to either need a tripod or a slightly more skilled operator!:

YouTube - SONY NEX-VG10 E-MOUNT 16mm PANCAKE LENS TEST

Kit lens fireworks display running on manual settings. Nighttime, all tripod mounted, with the gain set to 24db.

YouTube - Blackheath Fireworks 2010 Sony NEX-VG10 test

The vimeo users forum is very active as well with lots of work on display that's much better quality than mine.

Henry

[Marcus Durham]

Thanks. Interesting stuff. I did also see some other footage on Youtube and noticed people have a tendency to blow out the footage with this camera. Is it right it has no zebras? Hard to understand when cameras costing a third less now have this feature.

I guess the problem with Youtube is the image compression makes it hard to really judge the footage. Any nice uncompressed stills from the video anywhere?

[Robert Young]

It certainly is hard to judge from web compressed, rescaled footage- but the VG 10, like many other Sony Handycams (SR-12, XR520, CX550) does tend to overexpose by around 1/3 stop in bright light. Some shooters leave Exposure Comp set for -1/3 for outdoor shooting.
There are no zebras on this model. Sony has faded in and out re providing zebras on the different Handicam models.
BTW, here is a huge collection of VG footage. Some are outstanding:
Sony NEX-VG10 Interchangeable Lens Camcorder - User Group (video samples, web/internet links, discussion)

[Henry Williams]

Agree absolutely with Robert that the vimeo page is a great resource. A lot of helpful stuff re: the practicalities of living with the camera on the discussion pages as well.

Marcus, I'm afraid I've already archived those tests so they're on USB drives now but will happily grab you a couple of stills from the next shoot I do with the camera.

[Marcus Durham]

Thanks. The Vimeo stuff looks good. Would be interested in stills certainly.

Have just been off looking at the specs. Now some sites mention 1080i only and others mention 1080p. Does it do one or both? I guess its inconceivable that its 1080i only as its 2010 and interlaced material should really be as redundant as the CRT's it was designed to be displayed on.

[Henry Williams]

it shoots 1080p but puts it in an interlaced wrapper. Your NLE should see through the ruse and recognise it as Progressive although, with FCP at least, you do have to remind it not to deinterlace in the sequence settings. If you're in Pal land the VG10 shoots a lovely 25p, otherwise 30p.

[Henry Williams]

Forgot to add. Marcus, I'm based in SE London. If you ever get up to the big smoke from Surrey I'd be more than happy to spend an hour or two talking about the cam and letting you have a hands on with mine if that would help? If you bring a class 10 SDHC card we could record onto that so you could take the footage back home and check the post workflow as well.

Henry

[Marcus Durham]

Originally Posted by Henry Williams

it shoots 1080p but puts it in an interlaced wrapper. Your NLE should see through the ruse and recognise it as Progressive although, with FCP at least, you do have to remind it not to deinterlace in the sequence settings. If you're in Pal land the VG10 shoots a lovely 25p, otherwise 30p.

My Canon Legria does this. Bloody annoying as it seems to introduce slight artefacts on movement. The cameras raw footage is fine but after the Prores conversion in FCP you get very faint interlacing lines on fast moving objects. Not major, you can only spot them when the image is paused and even then they are very very faint. I think it's related to how the transcode process treats interlaced and progressive images differently.

It's bizarre that both Canon and Sony see fit to put progressive images into an interlaced wrapper though.

[Henry Williams]

I think it's their way of differentiating between pro and prosumer/consumer cams. And yes, it is very annoying. Frankly I was always surprised that Sony had chosen to use interlaced so far up their range. They only seem to be willing to grant us unfettered access to progressive footage if we're into their XDCAM product, which is a marked difference from most other manufacturers. That said, I'm transcoding to prores 422 when I bring the footage into FCP and whilst I've just spotted the occasional moments of jello, aliasing and moire I've yet to notice any interlacing lines on movement (I think I've shot 10 or 12 hours of footage now).

[Brendan Pyatt]

Hi,

I'm using a VG10 and using FCP7.0.3 and with Log and Transfer I end up with the clips having a field dominance of upper ie not progressive.

please can you explain a little more on how this is progressive?

thanks.

[Marcus Durham]

My understanding (and I'm not a VG10 user) is as follows.

The camera captures a progressive image but for some reason best known to Sony (and in my Canon example above) it encodes the image into an interlaced frame. A good comparison is when you encode a 25p edit into a 50i frame for viewing on a DVD.

This does introduce a few complications but you should be able to happily change the edit sequence to 25p and you'll be fine. No de interlacing should be needed.

As I say, my Canon does this. It's annoying but not a deal breaker. You can safely alter the timeline to progressive and you'll be fine.

[Henry Williams]

Exactly. Alter logging and transferring the footage to prores 422 change the sequence settings to custom 16x9 1080 and set the field dominance to none. From that point on you're dealing with straightforward progressive footage and have got round the redundant interlaced wrapper.

I've heard talk of being able to record directly through the HDMI out. Has anyone tried this yet or have I got my wires crossed?

[Robert Young]

Originally Posted by Henry Williams

I've heard talk of being able to record directly through the HDMI out. Has anyone tried this yet or have I got my wires crossed?

I am told that you can record "live" via the HDMI, but both the LCD and VF are blacked out. The only way you can see what you are shooting is via external monitor.

[Bill Koehler]

Originally Posted by Robert Young

I am told that you can record "live" via the HDMI, but both the LCD and VF are blacked out.

It's documented in the NEX-VG10 Owners Manual that when you plugin into the HDMI output both the LCD and VF go blank.