First foray into 4K with a AX100 - tips?

[Craig McKenna]

Daft thing I've done - shoot indoors with the ND filter on setting 3! I was in a rush, and didn't realise why I needed to up the gain so much - figured it was just being poor in low light and underestimating the AX100.

If you're shooting 4K, don't shoot over +12db. As Noa says, always check focus. I shoot wide too, and always place my subjects in the middle of the peaking. I use yellow peaking and make sure I nail it in the middle. I'll sometimes choose to add a little more gain to have a little more depth of field too.

Brilliant camera!

[Ron Evans]

Originally Posted by Dave Blackhurst

To shoot the higher bitrates, the camera should bark (actually just give you and on screen warning) at you if you don't have a U3 card.... I think the latest firmware iterations might allow you to use a smaller SDHC card, but still needs to be U3. Somehow I think you can shoot the 50Mbps or whatever the "low" bitrate is on a U1 card.

For HD it will take an SDXC card but if UHD is selected mine will not work and asks for a u3 card. Formating in the camera is the suggested approach that I always follow. If you format in the PC the camera will format in camera anyway !!! It creates directories on the card for all the formats it is able to shoot before starting any. If they are not there ( a PC formatted card or new card) it will format and create them. At least that is my understanding.

Ron Evans

[Nigel Barker]

Originally Posted by Craig McKenna

I'll sometimes choose to add a little more gain to have a little more depth of field too.

I was scratching my head as to how increasing gain would increase DoF then realised that you actually meant that you would stop down to a smaller aperture to increase DoF then have to increase gain to ensure exposure was OK.

[Peter Rush]

Originally Posted by Craig McKenna

Daft thing I've done - shoot indoors with the ND filter on setting 3! I was in a rush, and didn't realise why I needed to up the gain so much - figured it was just being poor in low light and underestimating the AX100.

If you're shooting 4K, don't shoot over +12db. As Noa says, always check focus. I shoot wide too, and always place my subjects in the middle of the peaking. I use yellow peaking and make sure I nail it in the middle. I'll sometimes choose to add a little more gain to have a little more depth of field too.

Brilliant camera!

Lol I did that at my last wedding - it was a 3pm start with a church and then another venue - in my rush I forgot to remove my ND filter before filming inside at the reception venue - Thank god for the A7s - it's a little noisy but not too bad - phew!

Regarding 12db - I think this is a similar sensor to my Sony EA50 and that would go to 21db before the noise got too bad - is it worse for 4K? I'll have a play today

[Craig McKenna]

Originally Posted by Nigel Barker

I was scratching my head as to how increasing gain would increase DoF then realised that you actually meant that you would stop down to a smaller aperture to increase DoF then have to increase gain to ensure exposure was OK.

Haha probably rushing my sentences and confusing people! It would be great if increased noise increased DoF - that would solve all our night time problems!

Originally Posted by Peter Rush

Lol I did that at my last wedding - it was a 3pm start with a church and then another venue - in my rush I forgot to remove my ND filter before filming inside at the reception venue - Thank god for the A7s - it's a little noisy but not too bad - phew!

Regarding 12db - I think this is a similar sensor to my Sony EA50 and that would go to 21db before the noise got too bad - is it worse for 4K? I'll have a play today

Haha I'm fairly certain that Noa did a test. When he stops by, he may still have the frames. If not, I've seen one on YouTube possibly. Can't remember as it was that long ago since I did my research on it. I basically bought it because of Noa's findings of its reliability though, as well as the ability to do 4K.

I think noise is worse and I wouldn't shoot at 21db. The highest I shot was at 30db with the mistake I made, and it looked pretty shoddy. I had to run a de-noiser on the whole thing and it took a long time.

Good work on doing the same trick! Haha I'll never do it again!!! I hope not anyway...

[Noa Put]

I don't have that test anymore but can say that the ax100 is pretty noisy at high gains, it's the only camera I have where I need to apply neat video to from time to time during ceremonies at darker venues.

[Nigel Barker]

The AX100 has a 1" sensor whereas the EA50 has a Super35 APS-C sensor which is double the area. As a rule of thumb the larger the sensor & the larger the individual pixels then the better the low light perforrmance.

[Mark Davidson]

I’m in the same boat as the OP. The camera will be manned, but will be on a tripod during the ceremony, then handheld afterwards.

Rather than using Auto with AE Comp set at a half stop underexposed, I’m planning to turn on yellow peaking and using the Spot Meter Exposure/Focus.

Since we’ll be filming at 24fps, we’ll lock down the shutter at 1/48th, put the ISO on auto, and adjust the Aperture as desired while trying to keep the gain under 12db if possible.

Poke holes in those ideas.