Shooting weddings with small handicams

[Noa Put]

Yes, I thought it would be like that, but not everyone has the same expectations, what you and I find no issue another one finds unacceptable. You will always have people that export frames and blow them up 400% to start to look for imperfections. For wedding clients those high gain values are not an issue either, nor is it that I hold such a small handicam in front of them. From a normal viewing distance to a tv you hardly notice the grain.

[Jeff Harper]

Yes, but for anyone to claim XA10 footage unusable at 15db is suspect to me, since I cannot see any grain at 18db, and neither have others in the XA10 forum. Most anyone using these cheap cameras cannot reasonably expect much more than can be delivered by them. If there expectations are for much higher than you get with an XA10 in low light, then they are using the wrong camera for sure. At least until something better for the money comes out, which could happen at anytime.

I vaguely remember the test you refer to, it was outdoors at night and it was shot by someone pretty knowledgeable, I think, but I also remember the test did not make sense to me as to how it was conducted.

Anyway, moving right along.....

[Dan Tolbertson]

Noa-
Couple of more questions for you. are you able to limit the gain with this camera to a set value (like say 21db) since you stated this is how far you can push it and still get acceptable IQ. I believe you stated that you could simply leave low lux off and it would not exceed that value. So the question is can you leave it in that mode (low Lux off) capped at 21 db and then set the control knob for shutter speed and bring it down to 30 (im in america so it would be 25 for you)

I think that this is the same thing that Low Lux basically does so I am not sure if doing this would just reintroduce some grain right back in? anyways, I am really looking at pulling the trigger to pair up with my VG20 and Nex5N so I am just really curious on how far you can push it in low light.

[Noa Put]

With low lux on the gain is limited to 21db and shutter stays at 1/50, if you enable lowlux the camera will leave the shutter at 1/50 untill you go past 21db gain to 24db gain and then sets the shutter to 1/25.

I have set the exposure to manual and assigned the controll of it to the small knob on front of the camera, in the viewfinder there is a ruler with a "-" and "+" (in manual mode) which gives an indication where the gain is at, there's a small vertical line inside that when it's at the far right you know you are at 24db, so even if you have low lux on, you have some visual control if you for any reason don't want to have max gain when you are controlling exposure manually.

If you have assigned exposure to the small knob you can set the exposure, hold the small button inside that knob and select focus and then you can control focus while the camera holds the exposure you choose just before, only if you assign shutter it will put exposure back in auto mode.

Here's a frame from the camera done outside at night with only candle light from wishbaloons, the camera was at 24db, sure you can see grain but like I have said before, 6db gain on my xh-a1 looks worse.

https://plus.google.com/photos/10326...CPPk6Jboq5uNJA

[Noa Put]

Here's some other frames of the cx730 paired with a ex3, it was taken from a wedding from last weekend, I was shooting on front and a friend of mine wanted to test his new ex3 and he was shooting in the back. I managed to get some comparable point of views.

It showed the ex3 resolved more detail and it has a wider dynamic range which I expect to be normal from a 1/2" chipper but after applying some sharpening in post on my cx730 and if necessary crush the blacks on the ex3 a bit I can safely use the ex3 images together with the cx730 without noticing that much. If you want to know which camera it is per picture I added that info on the right top side beside the image, the ex3's exposure was also set a bit brighter. The frames from the cx730 have some added sharpening applied.

https://plus.google.com/photos/10326...LuDyKvt9oDkrwE

[Dan Tolbertson]

Thanks Noa

[Dan Tolbertson]

Well I sold one of my old PD150's and picked up a CX760V today. Impressed so far!

[Dan Tolbertson]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

on my 730 I can view all camera data only in playback modus, a silly limitation build in by Sony but I guess you can't have it all.

Still have not figured out how to see the data in playback mode yet? is there a trick to seeing what my exposure db was for a shot?

[Noa Put]

on the lcd screen press "menu", "setup", "data Code" and then "Camera data".

If you then playback a clip you get gain, f-stop, whitebalance setting, shutter and ois setting.

I checked a few days ago on a clip shot during speeches and it was very dark, gain was at 24db but I noticed the shutter moving from 1/25 to 1/50 when waiters where passing in front of my camera so it seems the camera only goes to 1/25th shutter when it needs to meaning you could have 24db gain and 1/50 shutter. I only wish that info was there during recording...

[Dan Tolbertson]

Thanks Noa, That did the trick. Yes it would be really nice if you could see that while taking video. I will need to play with this more to understand how the camera thinks. Just looking at a couple of clips that I took in low light settings showed the camera was at 3.4 f stop and pushing the gain at 15-18 db? i wonder why the camera did not bring the f-stop down to 1.8 and lower the gain?

have you ever had any luck using the f-stop as your controlling factor as opposed to exposure (gain)
overall though I am pretty impressed with this little camera. It gives better results than my FX1000 in my opinion.

[Noa Put]

You need to assign the front wheel to exposure, if you assign it to iris that doesn't work, the camera will lock the iris at a fixed value (if you are in manual mode) but will still adjust gain and shutter automatically depending on the incoming light. Just try it by putting the iris in manual and then point from a dark to a bright area, you wil see the camera will still adjust the exposure automatically.

if you assign the front wheel to Exposure and then put it into manual, then when you set your exposure you can go from dark to light and the exposure doesn't change, untill you turn the wheel, in that case the camera will try to have the iris at a fixed f4.0 stop and gain 0, if you have to adjust the wheel/exposure for a bright light the shutter increases, if you have to adjust for a bright to a dark place then the shutter will drop to 1/50, then the iris drops to f1.8 and then it will start increasing the gain.

Not sure why you had f3.4 and a high iso, thats not the case when I set the wheel to exposure.

Edit: about the camera having better results then your fx1000, I have done some shoots with my cx730 where a fx1000 was used, I noticed that the cx730 had better low light performance meaning less noise and better color reproduction in very dark scenes but in bright light the fx1000 has better dynamic range, I can see more details in blacks for instance compared to my cx730. Also if you want the cx7xx to look good right exposure is key, a bit overexposed gives ugly hotspots on faces and oversaturated colors, underexposed for a bit is no problem and if you have exposure right it can look very good, I use the zebra's to help determining the right exposure. The fx1000 is a bit more forgiving in that area where with the cx you really need to pay attention and certainly not letting the camera decide.

[Dan Tolbertson]

So are you using 70 or 100 on the zebra? So I assume you just turn the exposure down until the hot spots disappear?

[Noa Put]

I have mine set at 100, in general I think the lcd screen allready gives quite accurate feedback about how the actual exposure will look like when editing, the zebra's are just a tool for funetuning. My sony xr520 doesn't have this and the screen can be a bit tricky to determine exposure, with that camera I often get a bit too over exposed images, it looks ok on the lcd but not when editing, in that respect I think they made good progress with the cx7xx series.

[Dan Tolbertson]

Thanks for all your input Noa. I will just have to keep using it every chance I get to build my trust in what it looks like in editing. It matches pretty good with my VG20 so I am pretty happy already.

[Noa Put]

Your welcome :) Also good to hear it matches your vg20, I was looking for one more camera with a bit more controll and if possible not too expensive and have been looking at so many camera's and don't know what to choose anymore, the VG20 was on my list as well and the new vg30 that will be out soon looks quite nice with that new lens.

Do you get camera data (like shutter, gain etc) while recording in the lcd screen with the VG20? I don't see so many buttons on that camera so i suppose it's also quite limited in controlling different functions.
I would like to use such a camera, beside it's kit lens, with a few of my samyang lenzes, do you know if that is possible to mount those type of lenzes? And if so, do you know what the cropfactor on that camera is? (my turn now to ask questions :D)