V1 and Canon A1 side by side
 

So I have been able to get my hands on a V1 for a few days. I want to do some meaningful side by side shots with the A1 and post up some split clips, thought it might be useful for some. (maybe done already?)

Anyway I have dled the manual from the link, will get up to speed on where everything is tomorrow. In the meantime, was wondering if some V1 24p shooters could give me some standard settings they have used successfully out of the v1. I am most particularly interested in sharpness levels, gain control settings? A1 has -3 for example which is a good low light option - and colour settings, I am not looking for a way oversaturated image here, something fairly baseline that gives a fairly good understanding of the v1 startpoint that someone may use.

That owners manual link is down - couldnt see one on the minisite either, anyone have a link?

Some full tele shots at max aperture could be interesting. The bigger chips in the A1 come with a lens that's 3/4 of a stop slower, and I was wondering how that compared to the V1's smaller CMOS chips with its f/2.8 lens.

tom.

Speaking of which - is the A1 lens slower at tele because it's wider at the other end, or are those params quite independent from the design viewpoint? Just curious...

Noel, if you need any help with file hosting, just let me know via email.

Our V1 owner's manual link seems to be downloading fine: http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=82165

Come on V1 users, get those settings in! :)

The designers have decided to limit the maximum aperture to f/3.5 on the A1
so that it can be contained within a 62 mm filter thread, doesn't get too
big and heavy and comes in at the right price. They could have specified an
f/2.8 maximum aperture but my guess is that most people will say it has an
f/1.6 20x zoom. What's the Sony got? Why, an f/1.6 20x zoom.

See? The 3/4 of a stop loss has been disguised. BTW, it has nothing to do
with the fact that it has a wider wide-angle; the main problem the Canon
designers have had to face is that the lens is feeding much bigger 1"/3
chips. I reckon it's a fair trade.

And it's not just slower at full telephoto - it's slower at all focal lengths bar the widest angle of course.

tom.

OK this is going to be a "Canon A1 vs Sony V1" comparison not a "Canon A1 v Sony V1" comparison. The judgements I will leave to others. Of course on my own website Ill do as I see fit. But the side by sides I post here will be just that.

With the number of views it seems theres a fair bit of interest so I will endeavour to get shots up ASAP.

We are going from 4:3 to 16:9 March 26. Our big Ikegami diskcams are already true anamorphic 16:9 - so no problem there.

But our videojournalists - including me - are using DVX100's, so we have to find a replacement soon. Sony just delivered a V1 I've got at home for testing. Only spent 5 minutes with it, but it seemed pretty poor in lowlight. Our tech guys says that the Canon cam has too many small, loose parts for professional (and tearing) use. But we'll see for our selves when we get one in for a run in a weeks time.

I'd love to see comparisons of the two. Bookmarking this thread :)

Thomas, they seems to be right on that - I also think the many switches and sliders on the A1 should be much bigger, and there's a lot of room for it!

The Canon A1 filter thread is 72 mm, not 62.

So here are the side by side settings I will use for both cams. (found these doing my own searching - if something better for v1 let me know).

Please note I will keep shutter speeds and fstop the same on each cam.

Sony V1
GAIN 0 - (LOWEST SETTING)
Colour Level 0 (default)
Colour Phase 0 (default)
Sharpness 4
Skintone DTL OFF (default)
SKINTONE LEVEL 4 (default)
WB SHIFT 0 (default)
KNEE POINT MIDDLE
BLK COMPNSTN COMPRESS
CINEMATONE GAMMA TYPE2
CINEMATONE COLOUR ON


CANON A1
GAIN -3 (LOWEST SETTING)
GAMMA CINE2
KNEE MIDDLE
BLACK PRESS
MASTER PEDESTAL - 5 (COULDNT SEE THIS FUNCTION ON V1 - IF WRONG LET ME KNOW)
SETUP LEVEL 0 (default)
SHARPNESS MINUS 3
H DTL FREQ MIDDLE (default)
DTL HV BAL 0 (default)
CORING O (default)
NR1 0 (default)
NR2 0 (default)
COLOR MAT CINE2
COLOUR GAIN 28 (MIDPOINT - SAME AS V1 AS V1 IS FROM 0 TO 7 I CHOSE 4 WHICH OF COURSE IS SLIGHTLY ABOVE MIDPOINT BEING AT ABOUT 57% OF MAX)
COLOUR PHASE 0 (default)
RED GAIN 0 (default)
GREEN GAIN (default)
BLUE GAIN 0 (default)
RG MATRIX 0 (default)
RB MATRIX 0 (default)
GR MATRIX 0 (default)
GB MATRIX 0 (default)
BR MATRIX 0 (default)
BG MATRIX 0 (default)

SKIN DTL OFF
SKY DETAIL OFF

The reason the A1 has more listed (for those who havent seen either cam) is purely because it has more options to adjust image.

One point on both cams before I head out. The v1 is has a considerably smaller form factor than the A1. I wont comment on which I prefer, as I said I will leave my own opinions for my own website.

Noel, the color level on the V1 at +4 might look a bit cartoonish. You might want to set both cameras at their default color levels. +4 is not the midpoint in the color scale, but halfway to way too much color gain. Zero should be the midpoint. I add maybe +2 color if I want some extra saturation but want to keep it realistic. +4 would be useful if you want to really saturate something like a sunset or colors in a landscape. I think it would make people look weird. Also, cinematone gamma kills about two f-stops of light sensitivity so it would make the V1 look horrible in low light. I guess my vote would be for both cameras to be near default settings with maybe a slight reduction in sharpness. If the cameras, on the same monitor, have different green/magenta and whitebalance, you could adjust them to be as close as possible so coloration won't scare people.

OK so under Prog. Scan do I shoot 24 or 24 A? Manual doesnt tell me what the differences are.

Dead right, Tom Roper, 72 mm on the A1. Brain slip.

24A didn't really make it into the manual. I think it changes the timecode somehow and causes a reset every second or GOP or something like that. Maybe it resets the timecode every pulldown frame? I think Vegas will handle either, but I don't know about other NLEs. I'm planning to shoot 30p, so I'm not looking into 24p very much, sorry.