Sony NX70 vs Sony 550V differences

[Rey Lowe]

And there's the real not-so-funny part! There is no exposure adjustment. :)

[Ron Evans]

On my CX700 I have ( on the dial control) focus, exposure, iris, shutter speed, AE shift, White balance shift. What does the NX70 have? I know you have some gain controls. Your option is to set gain limit and use iris control with gain in auto .

Ron Evans

[Rey Lowe]

Manual gain, gain limit, manual shutter, manual iris, Intelligent Auto.

Hands. Tied.

[Ron Evans]

I have had a look at the NX70 manual and see the issue. The ring only has a choice of focus, zoom and iris. The best you can do is set a gain limit, have gain on auto and control the iris with the ring and look at the zebra or histogram on the LCD. Still need to use spot focus and of course the lens ramps as you zoom so will go to F3.4 at the tele end making the gain increase if you are in low light. You can at least see what the values are when you shoot rather than waiting for the playback of data code.

Ron Evans

[Rey Lowe]

Fully lit gym tonight for a talent show. Tried what you said, but still got a gain of 3-9db on close zooms. Had the iris pulled as far as it would go - usually 3.1-3.4. AE shift at -1. LCD looked underexposed, so I'll be checking the footage tonight.

[Ron Evans]

You don't need AE shift on if you are manually working the iris. The lens ramps so will go to F3.4 whatever you do on full zoom. That's the nature of the lens. So at full zoom the gain has to be increased unless you have a whole lot of light !!! I would still have gain on auto and maybe limit at 12db if it goes to 9 for you now. I usually work it so that I have zebra on white objects on a stage otherwise most everything else is underexposed. You have a choice of overexposing white paint or not seeing the actors !!! I find with the Sony's if bright white objects do not have a little zebra the shot is underexposed and a little drab. Will lack punch and if viewed with waveform monitor in your NLE will show blacks too high and not full saturation. At least that has been what I have seen on my NX5U. The small Sony's have better black but still share the saturation issue. The cameras will record superwhite so although zebra at 100% are showing the camera is still recording detail as long as it isn't too high above 100%. Definately NO zebra on faces or skin or even yellow. A levels control in the NLE will bring withing range and preserve the detail.

Ron Evans

[Rey Lowe]

Thanks for the advice, everyone!

I ended up setting the NX70U to -1EV, auto gain, gain limit at 12db, shutter speed set at 1/60 and iris in manual (although it stayed on the low end on its own the whole time - 2.8-3.4) and the footage looks great! Even matched up to the CX500s perfectly.

I guess that the magic setting that was failing me was the gain. Even with dark performances, 12db worked out fine. In previous tapings, the gain pegged at 21db when a scene was even moderately lit. Which, in turn, has been causing me to have so much graininess in the footage.

Once again, the advice on this forum proved invaluable. :)

[Ron Evans]

For your information. If one of the parameters is in auto then the camera has control of the exposure. With your settings you were telling the camera that you were controlling the iris but it had the control of gain up to 12db but to set its parameters darker by 1 ev. The ev setting controlled how dark or light the image was.. By controlling the iris you had control over how much gain the camera used ( and depth of field ). The fine adjustments the camera was making was using gain in increments not available manually. I have found this is the best way to use these small Sony's as the auto exposure is really good and all one has to do is tell it how much darker or lighter you need the image.

Ron Evans

[Dave Blackhurst]

Glad you finally nailed it, it makes sense that adjusting the EV to the negative side helped - that probably fixed the natural tnedency of Sonys to overexpose (washing out the colors and contrast a bit), and also reduced the gain the camera needed to achieve the exposure it believed it was supposed to get. Hopefully will also make for "sharper" looking footage by improving the contrast overall.

I think you will find most people who shoot Sony cameras use similar tricks to get things to look the way we want them to, and you sort of have to figure out the tricks for each camera as they like to change up the adjustments (newer cams seem to be replacing "AE Shift" which we all knew and loved... with "EV" adjustments!).

[David Dwyer]

Since there is no ND filters on the NX70 how can you see if the shot is overexposed?

I don't like the idea of the camera speeding up the shutter to limit the light coming in.

[John Knight]

I used to think the same - try increasing the shutter speed... you will never notice the difference.

[David Dwyer]

I will be filming world rally cars who will be speeding past 60+mph/100kph+ so I'm guessing the cars will strobe past, not the look I was going for.

That with quick pans and very bright conditions I would prefer to due ND filters to control the light.

[Ron Evans]

I have a variable density ND that I screw on my CX700. Works very well. In any conditions that need it I just rotate until the picture starts to go a little dark then I know that iris is full open and gain full so just back off a little then all is great. This has worked well shooting in the snow as an example.

Ron Evans