VG2O Questions Answered- Footage coming.

[Paul Rickford]

Originally Posted by Jeff Hinson

So how does the lack of preset/effects menu in the VG20, affect your opinion of the overall camera?
Will this keep you from purchasing the VG20 over the VG10?

Thanks,
Jeff

Not at all, yes would be nice to have the creative menu, but on the plus side apart from improved picture quality the VG20 gives me manual Gain, touch spot meter and focus. I use and like the cine gamma setting on the NX70 and CX700 and of course 50/60p is very handy

Perhaps we should be more careful what we wish for in the future. The VG10 forum spent a long time bemoaning the fact that there was no point in buying the VG10 over the NEX-5 for so much more money and just the same picture quality and feature set
I think Sony picked up on this, now in there eyes you have to make a clear choice - Handycam or NEX

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Paul Rickford

Steve

It's not going to happen.

The NEXVG20 has clearly left the NEX family and moved over to the Video side.(firmware at least)

If it was available we would have found it by now in the manual

It's not in the manual I suspect. I was shocked at what I found by using the VG10 vs what I read in the manual.

On the other hand, as you say, Sony USA screws things-up.

Frankly not having Creative Styles makes no difference to me. And, the amount of adjustment is so slight I never used them. The VG20 is still far more adjustable than the VG10.

But, just like last year, I think I would go with the NEX-5n.

[John Jay]

Please confirm this:

In summary, there is no means of changing the sharpness, contrast and color saturation of the image.

[Jeff Hinson]

Originally Posted by Paul Rickford

Not at all, yes would be nice to have the creative menu, but on the plus side apart from improved picture quality the VG20 gives me manual Gain, touch spot meter and focus. I use and like the cine gamma setting on the NX70 and CX700 and of course 50/60p is very handy

______________________________________________________
I was hoping you would say that....I have one on order.
The presets are not a big issue. Everything can be changed in post anyway.

I think the 5N and VG20 will make a great combo.
Thanks,
Jeff
__________________

[Chris Barcellos]

Originally Posted by John Jay

Please confirm this:

In summary, there is no means of changing the sharpness, contrast and color saturation of the image.

Thus far, only method of affecting that is by selecting the Cinematone mode. It looks to me like Cinematone reduces contrast and saturation and sharpness, which is what I am looking for. Then you can adjust exposure level in manual mode. But there is no method of independently adjusting from what I can tell.

This is big issue to me, because I would like to set up camera with Cinemastyle shooting and add .luts in post.

I had an IM chat with Sony support last night. They didn't even have the manual yet. I was told to call a number today to talk with live support. I will report back when I have talked to them.

Again its these three advertized features right of the website that are bugging me as not being there:

Eight White Balance Modes
These help you get the shot by optimizing the camera for specific shooting situations. Select from Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Incandescent, Fluorescent, Flash, and Custom modes.
Only 4 settings..

Six Creative Style settings
Control how the camera processes your images with six finishing styles: Standard, Vivid, Portrait, Landscape, Sunset and B&W. You can even fine-tune contrast, saturation, and sharpness to your personal taste.

Dynamic Range Optimizer (DRO)

Dynamic Range Optimizer improves results with backlit subjects and recovers details hidden in shadows while maintaining highlight detail. Settings include Auto, Level with a choice of five operating levels and Off.

[Chris Barcellos]

Originally Posted by Steve Mullen

But, just like last year, I think I would go with the NEX-5n.

Well, I think if I was using this for event shooting, the mic itself seems pretty nice on board. The whole sound issue with DSLR is eliminated. IF you want to go off camera or XLR, you still have mount an adapter, but I think a simple and cheap unpowered one is all that is needed.

I have never shot the Sony still cameras for film. I have use 5D and T2i extensively. I shot it hand held yesterday at a golf course, and it seemed so much more comfortable. To shoot my DSLR as comfortably, I have to mount them on a should mount. With the in lens stabilizer, and a lot of care, hand held can be accomplished with more ease.

I assume lens would stabilize in the 5n too. But I have maintained since I got my 5d that the reason these DSLR and still cameras show so much skew and such, is that people shoot them hand held with no support. A camera like the Vg20 has as different rotational axis introduced in movement than the still cameras, and that gets eliminated when still cameras are mounted on support devices, while the video camera design shape might get away without it.

[Paul Newman]

Can I ask if the 60i is really interlaced or is it 60p in an i container, as with the VG10 which only shot 30p and the 60i was "fake" with each field carrying the same information.

thanks

Paul

[Chris Barcellos]

Paul, menu system shows 60i and 60p as well as 24p. In 60i there are 4 levels of bitrate available:

24, 17, 9, 5.

Vegas reports it as:

Video: 00:00:09.009, 29.970 fps interlaced, 1920x1080x12, AVC
Audio: 00:00:09.009, 48,000 Hz, Stereo, Dolby AC-3

Its report upper and lower fields.

Seems like regular interlaced video to me. Do you have a test specifically or another way of determining.

[Chris Barcellos]

I call the Sony support department today, at number given by online chat last night.

Sony Support guy was nice, but said their internal stuff said camera was not being released until the ninth. Obvious internal miscommunication. He apologized, and asked me to call back on Monday when they should have the manual and such on board. I tried to get him to give me an email so I could send the links I have generated, but he did not want that. He seemed to believe that he would be able to find the features. I left it at that.

[Paul Newman]

Hi Chris,

Well with the advent of flat screen monitoring it's becoming more difficult to detect fields, I have a JVC HD tube monitor for grading attached to my system, Edius allows me to select which field I can view during pause in an interlaced project, so it is easy to see positional differences between the 2 fields on a fast moving object, Premiere Pro also has this feature.

Paul :-)

[Chris Barcellos]

Paul:

I check out it Premiere Pro.... yeap, it appears to be true interlaced. When I select a frame and switch between field view in the source monitor on a panning scene, there was slight difference between the two frames. To me, that confirms true 60i.

[John Vincent]

Very interesting that B&H removed the VG20 product description - interesting in a bad way.

While I certainly wouldn't have expected the ability to alter the image as the FS100 can, I would expect the same presets from the VG10 and 5n to be available - esp as they were advertised at multiple places as being on the camera. The "sunset" preset in particular was of interest to me.

Chris - could you describe exactly what presets there are? Sounds like only two options - "Plain" and "Cinetone" (plus white balancing).

Is this correct?

[Chris Barcellos]

Hi John:

Yes, its seems that there are only two presets available, as you defined. These seem to be only way of varying contrast, sharpness and saturation. To be fair, I think the Cinematone mode does get me close to what I want to allow a decent amount of color correction in post, but I would probably like to flatten things a bit more if I had adjustments available.

There are a couple of ways to adjust exposure in the camera.

When you are in Manual mode, you press the Manual button on side of camera, and screen brings up selections of Exposure, Gain (for movie), IRIS, Shutter speed, AE shift, and white balance shift.

You do not have to have LCD open, as selection is made by pushing the manual button again.

When camera is set at manual mode:

1. It looks like to me that Exposure operates on Gain, IRIS, and Shutter speed, in that order as adjustments are made, based on predetermined levels Sony has assigned as the best pick. Adjustment is made turning a roller next to the manual button. Feels a lot like the focus roller on my old Canon HV20.

2, If Gain, IRIS, or Shuter Speed are individually selected, the camera shifts only the selected parameter.

3. White balance shift can also be selected, to finally tune white balance, as initially set. To set white balance initially, you go into Menu (LCD open) and select either Day light or Incadescent, auto, or set up a custom white balance. Once out of there, it looks like you adjust further with the roller and manual set button. Actually probably not that bad in all of those.

4, If the camera is in AutoExposure mode, as selected in Menu, then you can adjust exposure level still using AE shift. I think this is ideal to discourage Sony's tendancies to let their standard exposures wash out.

There are sliders in the Menu system to accomplish these things in the camera too, but the manual button is handy, it seems to me.

Just need some way to affect contrast, sharpness, and saturation and it would be nice to have somewhere to store preset settings.

[Steve Mullen]

Chris, forget shooting movies for a moment and switch to Photo mode.

Are you saying there are no Creative Styles for shooting photos?

You certainly should see FLASH listed as a WB option.

Do you see +/- beside each WB setting?

[Chris Barcellos]

Steve:

When I go to flash section under Camera/Mic when in Photo mode, I get three selections: flash, flash level, red eye reduction. When I try to select, it won't let me because I am supposed to have a flash attached.

Under image Quality, Size, only have Image Size, Raw/Jpeg.

Still only four options under white balance-- auto, daylight, incandescent, custom. I am guessing camera autosets WB with flash invoked.