Just nasty chromatic aberration or??? at DVinfo.net

Mark OConnell · December 14th, 2009, 05:45 PM

Recently got my camera back from repair at Sony. They replaced the prism block. On a shoot soon after I found some nasty fringing around some of my subjects (birds). I've never encountered this before with my camera. It's only in some shots. If it's just CA then I chalk it up to bad luck, if it's some kind of adjustment issue I of course want to send it back to Sony. The tech there looked at these images and swears it's CA, end of story. Maybe some of you have dealt with this. Comments?

Gavin Rawlings · December 14th, 2009, 05:53 PM

I have the same problem Mark.

At first I thought it was something to do with my detail settings but I found even when I turned detail off it was still there.

For the time being I have just excepted it as CA as well....

John Harbor · December 14th, 2009, 05:58 PM

If this has only happened since the Prism block change, I would say its directly related.
the problem to me looks like a convergence error, like in the old days of CRT displays....
It shows that the image is not striking the 3 ccd's in the same alignment.
I would be very sus on this just appearing after a prism change.
I think I would be looking at old footage to confirm it wasn't there before.

John Peterson · December 14th, 2009, 06:08 PM

Shows up around the edges of stage actors and dancers under stage lighting for me. Looks really bad. That's why I still use my VX2000. Very noticeable on SD DVD down conversions (my main delivery media) displayed on customers' CRT TVs. Wouldn't be a problem if customers wanted to pay extra for Blu-Ray versions, but they don't. Doesn't show up on those, nor on web versions.

Since it sounds like Sony could care less about the problem or may even make it worse I haven't brought it in. Hopefully this weekend, the Tiffen filter I bought may cure it (if I use the EX1 instead of the VX2000)

John

Adam Reuter · December 14th, 2009, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Peterson

Shows up around the edges of stage actors and dancers under stage lighting for me. Looks really bad. That's why I still use my VX2000. Very noticeable on SD DVD down conversions (my main delivery media) displayed on customers' CRT TVs. Wouldn't be a problem if customers wanted to pay extra for Blu-Ray versions, but they don't. Doesn't show up on those, nor on web versions.

Since it sounds like Sony could care less about the problem or may even make it worse I haven't brought it in. Hopefully this weekend, the Tiffen filter I bought may cure it (if I use the EX1 instead of the VX2000)

John

John...you just got your camera back from repair and it's still broken. Send the mofo back! That's unacceptable for Sony not to care. I would send it back as CA ruins the EX's otherwise beautiful picture.

Thierry Humeau · December 14th, 2009, 08:14 PM

Mark,

CA is a common phenomenon and looking at your pics, I am not sure there is something wrong with your camera. What I see on the "blue green ghosting 2.jpg" pic is almost a normal occurance. The chroma abberation artifacts show on the edge of the frame which by nature on these all-in-one lenses (16X zoom) is almost unavoidable. This could also be amplified if you were working with a combination of extreme settings such as fully zoomed in and iris all the way opened. The second pic ("pink at bottom 8.jpg) is weird. I don't know how much you were zoomed in but I am currious as why the all right side of the picture is out of focus? So, here are a few questions:

- Do you have any sort of filter of optical device in front of the lens?
- Were you filming with the zoom pushed in all the way in? Lenses tend to fall apart on their extreme settings
- Was your iris fully opened?
- Is the CA on all your shots or just only shows on a few shots?

Thierry.

John Peterson · December 14th, 2009, 08:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam Reuter

John...you just got your camera back from repair and it's still broken. Send the mofo back! That's unacceptable for Sony not to care. I would send it back as CA ruins the EX's otherwise beautiful picture.

I appreciate the support Adam, but I never took the camera in.

Since it sounds like Sony could care less about the problem or may even make it worse I haven't brought it in.

What I meant by that was based upon Mark's experience (The original poster) and some other comments regarding 'CA' and Sony's attitude about it being "normal" I decided not to bring it in.

But I do appreciate the comments anyway.

Thanks,

John

Mark OConnell · December 15th, 2009, 12:24 AM

Thierry- thanks for your thoughtful questions.

"- Do you have any sort of filter of optical device in front of the lens?"

A Tiffen UV filter which is always on. That's it.

"- Were you filming with the zoom pushed in all the way in? Lenses tend to fall apart on their extreme settings"

Fully zoomed in. The majority of what I shoot is at full zoom.

"- Was your iris fully opened?"

It may well have been, it was getting late in the afternoon for some of these. (I tend to leave the iris on auto as I'm panning around the sky a lot and can't adjust it and follow the target at the same time.)

"- Is the CA on all your shots or just only shows on a few shots?"

It is only on a few, I'd guess 10% or so, six out of sixty or eighty on that shoot.

"but I am currious as why the all right side of the picture is out of focus?"

Something I've just tried to live with. At full zoom the right gets real soft sometimes, dependent, I suppose, on the aperture. Some shots it's terrible, others hardly noticeable.
I've assumed it's the price you pay for shooting at that end of the lens.

Here's the thing, the reason I've even brought this up- Since I've had this camera, roughly two years, I've shot, according to the numbers, nearly seven thousand clips with it, and I've never noticed this before. I've always been pretty much thrilled by the image I was able to get. So what's changed? A new prism block. Maybe it was just rotten luck that day and simple CA, or maybe the repair wasn't quite right. That's what I'm trying to sort out. Any help appreciated. I'll attach a couple of more grabs from the same shoot that show something else I hadn't seen before- the codec apparently melting down. Granted, if hundreds of geese in flight couldn't challenge a codec I don't know what could, but again, it's a first.

Warren Kawamoto · December 15th, 2009, 05:08 AM

The problem looks like CA. Center of your pictures are fine, but magenta/green ghosting gets progressively worse towards the edges and corners.... typical CA.

Leonard Levy · December 15th, 2009, 03:58 PM

There are 2 issues involved as far as I understand it. One is chromatic aberration and the other is (I always forget the correct name) is called prismatic fringing or prismatic aberration - something like that.

I'm out on a limb technically here so don't take my word as gospel. I have noticed bad chromatic aberration when zoomed in all the way on an EX-1. Tends to be red/blue and occurs on high contrast edges as you moved away from the center of the picture. I've only seen red though, not the blue in your pictures. I avoid long lens shots with that kind of image.

The other - prismatic whatever - happens on the prism block and that may tend more to magenta/green. Again on high contrast edges maybe worse with telephoto but I don't remember. If you shoot bare tree branches you can see the color fringe shift as you focus in front and behind the branches.

Both are typical of many cameras but the EX-1 is not the greatest for either. This is where paying for real HD lenses & better technology etc pays off. By choosing to shoot lots of long lens nature stuff you are stressing inexpensive technology. Don't know if you might have better results with other cameras .

Whether your camera is worse than others I can't tell just looking at random footage. Download a resolution chart and shoot that. It may reveal really bad unexpected problems.

In post you could replace grey sky with blue to minimize the damage.

Olof Ekbergh · December 15th, 2009, 07:33 PM

Here is a sample of red chromatic aberration.

This is shot with a new EX1R zoomed all the way in wide open, recorded with a NanoFlash at 100mbs long-gop. Yes the white point is off because the room is daylight from windows but there is an incandescent light above these tools.

This is as extreme an example I have ever seen. Most shots with this cam are really good, but this shows what a cheap lens does at the limits of its design.

Olof Ekbergh · December 15th, 2009, 07:46 PM

Here is a shot with the same camera and lens at f4 zoomed all the way in.

Much better. This is from SxS card 35mbs 30p like the other shot.

Both are jpgs quality 10 so there will be added compression seen blown all the way up.

Marty Welk · December 16th, 2009, 12:57 AM

awww jeez
i saw that on another video where a person was using a $$$$ broadcast lens, and i thought it was JUST because of the "other" lens was added, and some BS from sony that cromatic (hmm cant say that word here) offsets of the colors would occur with "Other" lenses and that using sonys own lenses wouldnt have that problem.
duude that is like MANY pixels off, whats the point of "HD" if the lenses can "resolve" the whole thing, and/or the splitting up to the 3 chips cant be done properly?

am i Just as well off with CMOSes that are stuffed with lower resolutions, as opposed to full "effective" 1920 resolutions, if the lens and the whole package cant actually DO 1920 anyfreaking ways?

i am trying to decide between different cams and other than the $$$$ big daddy 28,000 and up cams this idea of "effective" resolution seems to suck.

i certannly wouldnt mind such an excelent picture to start HD with, but i dont want to have to Re-BUY again and again till the problems are fixed :-P

and on the other videos with this color SHIFT (#@%#&$) stuff, it stood out like a sore thumb, but only in high contrast areas. on the OPs its not bad because its off from the center, but on this other guys it was in many places.

reminds me of age old long ago SC carrier phase shifts from not setting stuff correctally. can you tweak more junk in the cam (for another week) and fix this stuff?

any tech that tells you this is "normal" is either NUTS or they are trying to cover up major flaws.

lower the contrasting images
dont zoom in the full lenght of the lens
soften up the picture
dont shoot in low light
PHHHHT those arent fixes thier workarounds , i hate workarounds, because life doesnt offer perfected studio lighting, and even perfect studio lighting they often use the harsh backlighting around talking heads to get crisp contrasty edging. am i stuck again with FLAT booring lighting so the picture doesnt fall apart :-(

David C. Williams · December 16th, 2009, 01:35 AM

Some physics lessons (perhaps english as well) will help you understand why it occurs even in multi-million dollar telescopes.

Marty Welk · December 16th, 2009, 01:46 AM

so does that answer my question? going $$$$ out for the high end HD wont do me any better than a hubbel telescope :-)

what is sony Doing where they claim the ability to correct FOR croma shifts with Thier own lenses, if they cant really fix this stuff? do they make corrections FOR the lens problems, or do they have corrections in the lens itself?

as far as physics is concerned, i thought about electromagnetic corrections, but then again my not being able to spell it might make it impossible :-)

i am not trying to collect light 8 light years away with massive gravity changes in the way, i HAVE heard that there are lenses and there are "Good" lenses, as it has been for ages with video. i dont expect a $20,000 lens on a $10,000 whole camera, but i would like a HD lens on an HD camera, and that is not asking to much.

December 14th, 2009, 05:45 PM	#1
Mark OConnell Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Seattle WA Posts: 420	Just nasty chromatic aberration or??? Recently got my camera back from repair at Sony. They replaced the prism block. On a shoot soon after I found some nasty fringing around some of my subjects (birds). I've never encountered this before with my camera. It's only in some shots. If it's just CA then I chalk it up to bad luck, if it's some kind of adjustment issue I of course want to send it back to Sony. The tech there looked at these images and swears it's CA, end of story. Maybe some of you have dealt with this. Comments? Attached Thumbnails __________________ http://www.markoconnell.org

December 14th, 2009, 08:14 PM	#6
Thierry Humeau Telecam Films Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Washington DC Posts: 723	Mark, CA is a common phenomenon and looking at your pics, I am not sure there is something wrong with your camera. What I see on the "blue green ghosting 2.jpg" pic is almost a normal occurance. The chroma abberation artifacts show on the edge of the frame which by nature on these all-in-one lenses (16X zoom) is almost unavoidable. This could also be amplified if you were working with a combination of extreme settings such as fully zoomed in and iris all the way opened. The second pic ("pink at bottom 8.jpg) is weird. I don't know how much you were zoomed in but I am currious as why the all right side of the picture is out of focus? So, here are a few questions: - Do you have any sort of filter of optical device in front of the lens? - Were you filming with the zoom pushed in all the way in? Lenses tend to fall apart on their extreme settings - Was your iris fully opened? - Is the CA on all your shots or just only shows on a few shots? Thierry. __________________ Thierry Humeau, DoP Télécam Films www.telecamfilms.com

December 15th, 2009, 12:24 AM	#8
Mark OConnell Major Player Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Seattle WA Posts: 420	Thierry- thanks for your thoughtful questions. "- Do you have any sort of filter of optical device in front of the lens?" A Tiffen UV filter which is always on. That's it. "- Were you filming with the zoom pushed in all the way in? Lenses tend to fall apart on their extreme settings" Fully zoomed in. The majority of what I shoot is at full zoom. "- Was your iris fully opened?" It may well have been, it was getting late in the afternoon for some of these. (I tend to leave the iris on auto as I'm panning around the sky a lot and can't adjust it and follow the target at the same time.) "- Is the CA on all your shots or just only shows on a few shots?" It is only on a few, I'd guess 10% or so, six out of sixty or eighty on that shoot. "but I am currious as why the all right side of the picture is out of focus?" Something I've just tried to live with. At full zoom the right gets real soft sometimes, dependent, I suppose, on the aperture. Some shots it's terrible, others hardly noticeable. I've assumed it's the price you pay for shooting at that end of the lens. Here's the thing, the reason I've even brought this up- Since I've had this camera, roughly two years, I've shot, according to the numbers, nearly seven thousand clips with it, and I've never noticed this before. I've always been pretty much thrilled by the image I was able to get. So what's changed? A new prism block. Maybe it was just rotten luck that day and simple CA, or maybe the repair wasn't quite right. That's what I'm trying to sort out. Any help appreciated. I'll attach a couple of more grabs from the same shoot that show something else I hadn't seen before- the codec apparently melting down. Granted, if hundreds of geese in flight couldn't challenge a codec I don't know what could, but again, it's a first. Attached Thumbnails __________________ http://www.markoconnell.org

December 15th, 2009, 07:33 PM	#11
Olof Ekbergh Sponsor: Westside AV Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Mount Washington Valley, NH, USA Posts: 1,365	Here is a sample of red chromatic aberration. This is shot with a new EX1R zoomed all the way in wide open, recorded with a NanoFlash at 100mbs long-gop. Yes the white point is off because the room is daylight from windows but there is an incandescent light above these tools. This is as extreme an example I have ever seen. Most shots with this cam are really good, but this shows what a cheap lens does at the limits of its design. Attached Thumbnails

December 15th, 2009, 07:46 PM	#12
Olof Ekbergh Sponsor: Westside AV Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Mount Washington Valley, NH, USA Posts: 1,365	Here is a shot with the same camera and lens at f4 zoomed all the way in. Much better. This is from SxS card 35mbs 30p like the other shot. Both are jpgs quality 10 so there will be added compression seen blown all the way up. Attached Thumbnails

December 14th, 2009, 05:53 PM	#2
Gavin Rawlings Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia Posts: 40	I have the same problem Mark. At first I thought it was something to do with my detail settings but I found even when I turned detail off it was still there. For the time being I have just excepted it as CA as well....

December 14th, 2009, 05:58 PM	#3
John Harbor Regular Crew Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 51	If this has only happened since the Prism block change, I would say its directly related. the problem to me looks like a convergence error, like in the old days of CRT displays.... It shows that the image is not striking the 3 ccd's in the same alignment. I would be very sus on this just appearing after a prism change. I think I would be looking at old footage to confirm it wasn't there before.

December 14th, 2009, 06:08 PM	#4
John Peterson Major Player Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Monroe, NY Posts: 703	Shows up around the edges of stage actors and dancers under stage lighting for me. Looks really bad. That's why I still use my VX2000. Very noticeable on SD DVD down conversions (my main delivery media) displayed on customers' CRT TVs. Wouldn't be a problem if customers wanted to pay extra for Blu-Ray versions, but they don't. Doesn't show up on those, nor on web versions. Since it sounds like Sony could care less about the problem or may even make it worse I haven't brought it in. Hopefully this weekend, the Tiffen filter I bought may cure it (if I use the EX1 instead of the VX2000) John

December 15th, 2009, 05:08 AM	#9
Warren Kawamoto Trustee Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,435	The problem looks like CA. Center of your pictures are fine, but magenta/green ghosting gets progressively worse towards the edges and corners.... typical CA.

December 15th, 2009, 03:58 PM	#10
Leonard Levy Trustee Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: USA Posts: 1,684	There are 2 issues involved as far as I understand it. One is chromatic aberration and the other is (I always forget the correct name) is called prismatic fringing or prismatic aberration - something like that. I'm out on a limb technically here so don't take my word as gospel. I have noticed bad chromatic aberration when zoomed in all the way on an EX-1. Tends to be red/blue and occurs on high contrast edges as you moved away from the center of the picture. I've only seen red though, not the blue in your pictures. I avoid long lens shots with that kind of image. The other - prismatic whatever - happens on the prism block and that may tend more to magenta/green. Again on high contrast edges maybe worse with telephoto but I don't remember. If you shoot bare tree branches you can see the color fringe shift as you focus in front and behind the branches. Both are typical of many cameras but the EX-1 is not the greatest for either. This is where paying for real HD lenses & better technology etc pays off. By choosing to shoot lots of long lens nature stuff you are stressing inexpensive technology. Don't know if you might have better results with other cameras . Whether your camera is worse than others I can't tell just looking at random footage. Download a resolution chart and shoot that. It may reveal really bad unexpected problems. In post you could replace grey sky with blue to minimize the damage.

December 16th, 2009, 12:57 AM	#13
Marty Welk Major Player Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: East Bay Cali Posts: 563	awww jeez i saw that on another video where a person was using a $$$$ broadcast lens, and i thought it was JUST because of the "other" lens was added, and some BS from sony that cromatic (hmm cant say that word here) offsets of the colors would occur with "Other" lenses and that using sonys own lenses wouldnt have that problem. duude that is like MANY pixels off, whats the point of "HD" if the lenses can "resolve" the whole thing, and/or the splitting up to the 3 chips cant be done properly? am i Just as well off with CMOSes that are stuffed with lower resolutions, as opposed to full "effective" 1920 resolutions, if the lens and the whole package cant actually DO 1920 anyfreaking ways? i am trying to decide between different cams and other than the $$$$ big daddy 28,000 and up cams this idea of "effective" resolution seems to suck. i certannly wouldnt mind such an excelent picture to start HD with, but i dont want to have to Re-BUY again and again till the problems are fixed :-P and on the other videos with this color SHIFT (#@%#&$) stuff, it stood out like a sore thumb, but only in high contrast areas. on the OPs its not bad because its off from the center, but on this other guys it was in many places. reminds me of age old long ago SC carrier phase shifts from not setting stuff correctally. can you tweak more junk in the cam (for another week) and fix this stuff? any tech that tells you this is "normal" is either NUTS or they are trying to cover up major flaws. lower the contrasting images dont zoom in the full lenght of the lens soften up the picture dont shoot in low light PHHHHT those arent fixes thier workarounds , i hate workarounds, because life doesnt offer perfected studio lighting, and even perfect studio lighting they often use the harsh backlighting around talking heads to get crisp contrasty edging. am i stuck again with FLAT booring lighting so the picture doesnt fall apart :-(

December 16th, 2009, 01:35 AM	#14
David C. Williams Major Player Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: melb.vic.au Posts: 447	Some physics lessons (perhaps english as well) will help you understand why it occurs even in multi-million dollar telescopes. __________________ www.davidwilliams.com.au

December 16th, 2009, 01:46 AM	#15
Marty Welk Major Player Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: East Bay Cali Posts: 563	so does that answer my question? going $$$$ out for the high end HD wont do me any better than a hubbel telescope :-) what is sony Doing where they claim the ability to correct FOR croma shifts with Thier own lenses, if they cant really fix this stuff? do they make corrections FOR the lens problems, or do they have corrections in the lens itself? as far as physics is concerned, i thought about electromagnetic corrections, but then again my not being able to spell it might make it impossible :-) i am not trying to collect light 8 light years away with massive gravity changes in the way, i HAVE heard that there are lenses and there are "Good" lenses, as it has been for ages with video. i dont expect a $20,000 lens on a $10,000 whole camera, but i would like a HD lens on an HD camera, and that is not asking to much.