I have a question... Coming from using Panasonic's for years (DVX to HMC150's and AC160's), I'm now looking into upgrading my cams next year for my Wedding Videography company. Low light performance is of utmost importance since half the day is often in really low light. Also, servo zoom is HUGE for me. Beyond that I'd love a nice sharp image with a great LCD. I love the look of the DSLR stuff, but it doesn't lend to my style of shooting (with no "choreographed" shots, shooting as it happens on the run...so its all natural (yet hopefully beautiful and somewhat cinematic). So this APS-C lens seems to be (from what I've read) nice for DoF but not so crazy that I'm going to drive myself nuts all day. My current HMC150's have been a great workhorse and have allowed me to build up my company to a very successful level shooting 35 + weddings/year...but its time to upgrade soon. I was looking at EX1R then came the announced PMW200. And now this NEX-EA50. Ah, the choices. My budget will be about $6000-7000US per camera. I will be getting two. My question is (and I'm not sure how much this can really be answered until the cameras are actually released) how will the NEX-EA50 hold up in lowlight compared to say the PMW200 or EX1R's of the world? I know it has a bigger sensor but its lens is a f/3.5 to 6.3 so will that sort of make it not as good in low light Weddings as the other cams? Also its the same one as the VG20, right? After reading around a bit, I see mixed reviews on that cameras low light performance. I'd love some guidance here. I'm also nervous about the lack of ND filter as well (joining the club) but I've read that a vari ND filter can help me with that. It'll be a change of workflow for me throwing that on while on the run but hey, I'm up for the challenge I guess. Also while the HDMI is nice, I would love the HDSDI out for other jobs that require a stable output connection during the shoot. But that's another story altogether and I realize the EX50 doesn't have that so I'll keep that in mind before making my final purchases. So what is your thoughts on low light, sharpness, and LCD on the newly announced NEX-EA50 vs the EX1R/PMW-200's for Weddings? Again, I need a good, solid, sharp, cinematic looking cam with great low light performance and a servo zoom. Thanks!
Both the EA50 and the PMW-200 aren't in people's hands yet. In your world, I'd be leaning heavily towards the PMW200, or even PMW-EX1R (depends on which one is better in low light). The EA50 may turn out to be a sweet little camcorder, far too good for the money. My concern is that it's built to a budget and its genes come from a stills camera, and the achilles heel may be low-light. It may be 'all mouth and no trousers'. It may be absolutely fine. We don't know. And that means, if your buying window is fairly small, it's risky to bet the farm on it. EX1-R is still a beast of a camera and the 1/2" chip is still a big upgrade from your 1/3" - robust codec, great low-light capabilities, great highlight handling, all the stuff you need and a good manual lens to boot. PMW200 takes it one stage further with 4:2:2 50 mbit - but are you selling your pictures to European broadcasters? I've not needed 4:2:2 50 mbit yet, I've not missed it, and I've tested 422/10 bit to a Ninja and Pix220, and compared it to native recordings, and there's only a difference in very fast moving detail and marginal improvement in chromakey. Not worth upgrading to PMW200 for me. I think it's safe to categorically state that the pictures from the EX1 and PMW200 will be nicer than the EA50. The EA50 may earn you the rights to barge through big crowds at events and get the guy in front of you to move (in that "they're paying me to shoot this" mode) but the bottom line is that the EX1/200 brings home the bacon faster than the EA50, especially in the corporate world. I'm not going to mention the other likely candidates as they're not really R&G without spending a lot more money.
Thanks Matt. I think your first sentence said it all...wait and see. But that's interesting to hear you say that a big sensor cam's achilles heel "may" be low-light. Fascinating. I'm learning about lenses and sensors, etc. right now and its fascinating to hear all the opinions and see how these cameras perform. I have several months to wait so that's what I'll do. But thank you for your thoughts. I'd love HD-SDI outs and an on board ND, but one thing that has me leaning back toward the EA50 is that I could actually get 3 for the price of 2 PMW's. Hmmm. Guess I'll wait and see.
Think about it - imagine a football field covered in buckets. It rains. If you choose big wide buckets to cover the football field, each bucket catches more rain than if we'd put out more - smaller - buckets. HD at 1920x1080, that's about 2 million buckets. If you put in a photo sensor at about 16 million buckets, imagine which buckets contain more juice in a fraction of a second? Yup, the HD array of buckets can tell more of a story than the photo buckets because they have to empty themselves and record their contents 24-60 times a second. But they fill faster. So, the lower the resolution, the better the low light performance. Their buckets fill faster. Lower resolution gets better low light performance, but lower resolution per given frame. I work in a world where photographers and videographers work side by side (IMHO as it should be) and I get better video than the 'tog' and he gets better stills than the 'videot'. And for 3 for 1? I've bought cheap before. Every time I bought 'cheap' it cost more. But if it's expensive, is it good? There's good value and there's cheap price. 2 PMWs may deliver more than 3 EA50s. Unless you can clone Philip Bloom and put each clone behind an EA50 - that would win. But is it more cost effective to have one locked off 200 and one PB clone with a 200 rather than 3x EA50s handled by muppets or film students? No offence to muppets or film students... It's just that if you're being paid to deliver results, there's a lot you can do with 1 GV and one roaming camera (especially if they can swap roles), but if all three cams are caught with pants down, it's an editing nightmare.
I like football. But no matter how many times I read your bucket analogy it just didn't click. I feel like a dumb student. I think I know what you are saying, but I got all wrapped up in whether the buckets were covering the field or not, and how hard its raining, etc. Lol! I'll re-read it again but I think your saying something with a big sensor that could shoot 16mp pics will be higher resolution, but may sacrifice low-light performance over something like the PMW's non-photo HD sensors. I live in the valley in LA...it never rains. Maybe that's why I'm lost. But one thing I do understand is your Philip Bloom analogy. I'm a pretty good camera op. Good editor too. But, I have hired 2nd shooters based more on how they handle themselves rather than their killer performance. It's paid off big time as couples we shoot LOVE us. But, my guys are often my safety net and I'm not always getting stellar performance from their creative "detail" coverage. l learn.
Erm, take your point on the bucket thing - not my best. It's all about the number of photons hitting a sensor. Little packets of light. It's the job of the sensor to collect the photons in little photon buckets on the sensor. Bigger buckets collect more photons (more rain drops if you will), but of course you can't fit as many buckets in a given space (a football field). The camera designers need to balance the desire for lots of little buckets (resolution) with the desire for the abilitiy to capture as much info as possible in each bucket (sensitivity). You may get more resolution with a 16 megapixel chip, but as you only need 2 megapixels for HD video, you may be better off collecting more rain in fewer, but bigger, buckets. The EA50, which goes for photo resolution, will have smaller buckets and thus each pixel (bucket) is small and collects less rain... and, oh dear - this isn't working very well. EA50 = not so good in low light (we're guessing), FS100/F3 = amazing in low light, EX1R = very 'not bad' in low light.
Well, the ea50 is based off the NEX5n sensor, so yeah, in low light, It won't compared with the fs100..it simply won't. But, the same sensor actually outperforms the 5D mk2 in low light, which already out performs most small chippers (not sure about ex1). So i would expect the EA50 to outperform or at least equal the ex1 in low light. here's another crappy analogy: imagine if you have a 30 square kilometres piece of land and you have to divide it by 2 people. Each person gets 15 km^2. That would be the EX1 (*land area derived from total sensor area of 1/2'') Now you have a 370 square kilometre piece of land and you have to divide it by 16 people. Now each gets 23 km^2. That would be the ea50. (*land area derived from total sensor area of APS-c) So, each 'person' in the ea50 camp will still get more 'land' even though its divided by more people. Makes sense? Or that's what i think anyway.
I'll give up on making an analogy so weak it's almost a fortnight. By the way, I may have been given a bum steer at the Sony briefing I attended (sheesh, won't be the first time): At 5:53, our Sony engineer states pretty categorically that the EA50 has a Low Pass Filter - which is contrary to my notes from the briefing. If it does have an OLPF, then the image will be free of many aliasing artefacts of the NEX5, and raises the bar a bit in terms of image quality. OLPF is Optical Low Pass Filtering, LPF is Low Pass Filtering (just not optical). My guess is that the Legal Department said 'don't claim an Optical Low Pass Filter' and yet the engineering department had included a 'Low Pass Filter' - maybe there's some mojo that the Optical bit does that we don't have, but at least something is removing the detail from a 16 megapixel image that - when scrunched down to HD - would twinkle like crazy if left unfiltered. So maybe All Bets Are Off until we film some brickwork and telephone cables.
Thanks for that analogy. It actually makes a bit of sense. Although one thing that I'm stuck on... 370 vs. 30 in total sensor area...makes me think its saying the APS-c sensor is somehow really 12 times the size??? (sorry, I'm learning) Anyway, it was a good crappy analogy so thank you. I know we are dealing with a camera that isn't out yet and still has some unanswered questions but I'm very interested to see which Sony video cam ends up with advantages in sharpness/detail/resolution, low light, shallow DoF, etc.
I got the sensor areas from wikipedia. Yes, APSc is alot bigger than 1/2 even though the difference in crop factor (1.6 vs 5.4) may not seem like much.
Hey, I was wondering how important mbps is when filming a movie. I know that high end cameras that shoot feature films or whatever record at 880 mbps. I was planning on making a movie this summer (just as an amateur) and wanted a nice, affordable camera for my project. My thoughts were either to go with Sony's PMW 200 for its higher 50 mbps or the canon version XF 300/305 (with the smaller sensors) but the problem with these cameras is both their sensors are relatively small for movie production, meaning i wouldn't have a shallow depth of field. Which brought me to Sony's NXCAMs because I found the NEXEA50U which boasted a larger sensor, thus a shallower depth of field. but I read this review and you claim the image quality is even better on the NEXFS100UK. The problem with the NXCAMS is there slow Mbps rate, reaching a max of 28 Mbps. I guess my question is, how necessary is it to have a high Mbps rate for what I am trying to accomplish. Would it be better for me to go with the PMW 200 with the 1/2 inch sensor and the 50 Mbps ability or the NEXFS100UK with the super 35mm sensor but only 28 Mbps capability? Also what's the difference between the NEXFS100UK and the NEXFS700UK? Is it just the ability to go in slower motion? Last question, is there a piece of hardware I could attach to the NEXFS100UK to increase the Mbps so that i could get both shallow depth of field and super 35mm sensor? Also, do you think image quality is better on one over the other? Thank you so much!
Firstly - number one, the biggie: The Best Camera To Use Is The One You Like. Quit worrying, don't sweat the petty stuff. Making a movie? Use what you love. Making a BBC movie? Get their budget, take your DoP out to lunch with the editor, argue it out and use that. There are truly great movies made on cameras that wouldn't be allowed out without a nanny, a surgeon and other responsible adults. The point is - Mbps is not an ultimate measure of worth. My Canon 550/T2i recorders at over 45 Mbits per second - but the computer that's doing the conversion, and the format that its converting to, are all pants compared to what my FS100 is doing, converting its images to AVCHD at 24 Mbits per second, or my EX1R converting to 35 Mbits per second. Your workflow is going to play more of a part in your decision. If you are aiming towards broadcast, here in Europe there is an extra 5-7 generations to add to your own workflow, and this can really test (break) formats that are fine for the web and even the big screen. Not because your stuff isn't good enough, but because of the sheer hell that pictures go through in order to reach millions of TV sets around the world. If you need to be broadcast and your story isn't so brilliant that you could shoot on Super-8, do as much as you can in a 4:2:2 colour space and if you shoot with a Long-GOP codec, it must be 50 Mbits plus otherwise your pictures will get shredded - if the last bit lost you, do a 101 on broadcast delivery. Please don't let the Marketing Departments dictate your workflow or camera choice. If you're shooting run-of-the-day reality TV, you must shoot 4:2:2, 50 Mbit Long-GOP because otherwise your audience will be looking at home-made TV and wondering why they're paying to see this. If you're going to shoot an amazing docco in a location where there's only solar power and llamas for transport, you could probably film on an iPhone and be accepted. If you managed to capture the first interview with someone who can cure the common cold, on a London Bus, but with an iPhone... you're on for broadcast. But if it's not going to totally captivate your audience with content that knocks them between the eyes, then you have to be absolutely tight as a (insert analogy here), because only broadcast production values are going to sell your story. Any less, and it's YouTube fodder. With that said, go out and film your movie as best you can with the best you have (but don't sacrifice your movie's budget with ego driven desires). My dear friend Anil Rao made this movie. I know how it was made, and nobody was talking bitrate after they saw it. http://www.50kissesfilm.com/movies/neil-by-anil-rao/
1.5 stops slower then the FS 100 & 700. I own he ea 50 and it works without question. Does it generate video as good as the 100 or 700, no, but the difference is so slight that the benefits this camera has over the two, particularly in ENG and on location venues, makes getting the 50 a no brainer, especially in terms of the lossless digital zoom, tech that transforms primes and zooms into something all together different from the video only cameras that will never have this option due to the fact the systems are video only. (4K could possibly e be a hedge for 1080 DZ not withstanding but it's a real stretch to make that work as well as the 16mb sensor the 50 has). In the future, the form factor of the 50 will go to full frame systems as it works for run and gun plus the placement of the view finder is where it should be on systems of this type. Good info in this thread without question.
