Can you do critical focus for NX5U interviews with LCD alone?

[John Vasey]

If I am trying to travel very light and don't want to take an external LDC monitor to my indoor interview shoot, how effective is the peaking on the LCD?...will I know for sure that I have a face in focus so I won't be surprised when I get back to the editing room?

Thanks, John

[Adam Welz]

Hi John

you can set the peaking at 3 levels of sensitivity for different light/contrast levels and you have a choice of 3 colours (white, yellow, red) so I would say yes.

There is also an expanded focus utility that does not interrupt recording (unlike on earlier cams) which is easy to use (button near thumb record button) and zooms in to centre of frame and can be set in either B&W or colour.

The quality of the flip-out LCDs is what sets the Sony cameras like the NX5 and Z5 apart from similar cams by other manufacturers -- they really are good -- even if they are only 3.2 inches diagonally, I find they can be used for critical focus, unlike the Panasonic HMC-150, which has a larger but mushy screen.

Cheers

Adam

[Mark Von Lanken]

Hi John,

Since your shoot is indoors, that will help a lot. I don't know that I would trust the LCD outdoors. The LCD looked very washed out. If you did have to shoot outdoors, you could add an LCD hood or just use the viewfinder. Like Adam said, use the peaking along with the expanded focus. As long as you zoom in on your subject and then use peaking and expanded focus, you will obtain a sharp focus. Using those three steps will go a long way towards insuring sharp focus.

Peaking is great, but it does have it's downfall. If you do not zoom in to focus and just leave the shot wide, you will see peaking, but the picture may not be in focus. A great example of this is when I was experiencing back focus problems with the NX5U I had over the weekend. On the wide shot I had peaking showing up all over the place, but the shot was very out of focus.

Another idea for a little added insurance is to bring along an HDMI cable and composite cable. If the location has a TV, you could plug the camera into that as well. Even if it is not an HD TV, the shear screen size of a 20-32 inch TV will help assure you of focus.

[Adam Welz]

check out my little blog for LCD hood recommendation:

Adam Welz's NXCAM Blog

Cheers

Adam