Sony nex-ea50 moire and aliasing

[Chris Harding]

Hi Guys

Thanks Steve for the delivery "well wishes" ..I just got an email and the delivery is "with the driver" so if the world doesn't end, it will be delivered today sometime so I can allocate today as playtime but Saturday will be a real test.

Forums tend to get over technical..it's just our nature as "tech heads" and believe it or not it IS useful to get over technical but just realise that Noa isn't trying to say don't buy the camera. He is simply giving a scientific analysis of the end result. The bride/client will just never see that moire...we see it too only because Noa has pointing it out to us. Shucks, I get moire on my wedding videos from my Panny 3 chip cameras so it's not only big sensors that have the issue. I have NEVER had a client say to me "what is this on my video"

I will however give my overall impression later today after delivery and in fact, I have a Realty shoot on Wednesday so if I can get the Azden transmitter hung off the back by then I'll use the Sony..these are houses so plenty of moire opportunity!!

Chris

[Steven Digges]

Rob, I will be glad to share. Shoot me an e-mail address.

Steve

[Don Bloom]

Steven, I laughed at your description. It does bring back memories or is it nightmares.

Every LED light I own has a piece of Tough Spun on the diffusion lens otherwise IMHO it's just too harsh but I really like the 312. Even at it's size it has worked well for me both on and off the camera. Now I can also use my 8 power LED light as well since the Tough Spun is on it but honestly I prefer the 312 on camera except outdoors. That's when the 8 LED really "Shines". Lots of light.
As for the NEX50-well like I said, I haven't seen anything to discourage me so very soon mine will be on the way. Maybe by then everyone else will have some nice PPs that I can "borrow"!
O|O
\--/

[Chris Harding]

Hi Don

I am now a proud EA-50 owner..it arrived this morning and batteries are charging. Now, not to alarm you but the manual says regarding batteries that you can ONLY use the InfoLithium F770 or F790 so more than likely your PD batteries are not the "L" series ..My lights use generic F770's so I don't think that they have the chip inside that tells you how much battery time is left!! I haven't found any Generic Batteries either that claim they have the chip so you might have to bite the bullet and buy new batteries.

All looks good so far and I love the focus expan and also iris button on the grip..that's awesome. My only minor complaint so far is that when you lock the LCD (to stop it folding inwards) it also locks the tilt and I do like to be able to tilt my EVF ...maybe some type of little block or mod can be made so the LCD and combined EVF doesn't fold inwards on itself?? It's a pity Sony didn't add a little lock lever to the LCD so it can still tilt but doesn't turn on the spindle?

Chris

[Noa Put]

so more than likely your PD batteries are not the "L" series

My 7 year old original 970 sony battery (I used to have a sony vx2100) fits and works, only my lenmar batteries don't, they don't snap into place. It seems Sony engineering has been working hard to assure you can't use generic batteries :) The same applies with my sony cx730, generic batteries do work there but can cause the camera to stop recording just like that, only a quick warning on your screen and then the camera shuts down. Eventhough Sony batteries are expensive I"m only using originals now, just like Sony would have wanted :)

[Noa Put]

Just to keep this thread on track again, I've just done a quicky looking for moire patterns outside, the weather was turning so I had to be quick not to get caught in the rain but I think I have captured a few images that show the ea50 is a bit better then my canon 550d in reducing moire.

All shots where done handheld as I had no time to drag along my tripod.

In the first shot it looks a bit worse on the ea50 but the second shot the ea50 was better and the 3rd shot the ea50 was a bit better as well.

Often moire patterns in small bricks on buildings dissapear if you go closer, move position or zoom in, the first shot of that villa, when I moved a few meters to the left or right the moire patterns dissapeared so often it is a matter of changing your position. That doesn't doesn't count for all moire patterns you might encounter however, but in general I"d say the EA50 does better, not much but in some cases it displays a finer moire then the 550d.

Moire Aliasing 3 on Vimeo

[Chris Harding]

Hi Noa

It seems to be distance related ?? I shot bricks today and not a single bit of moire but the roof tiles on the house about 200m away did shimmer a bit. I notice that the white building due to the fact that you are closer, is not as bad.

Is there any relationship between distance and how the camera show moire?? I really wouldn't worry too much about it, especially for weddings..the bride and groom are not going to be outside a red brick barn half a kilometer away!

Chris

[Noa Put]

I was not closer to the building but what you see is the difference between the 14mm samyang lens and 18mm stock lens for the sony.

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Chris Harding

Is there any relationship between distance and how the camera show moire?? I really wouldn't worry too much about it, especially for weddings..the bride and groom are not going to be outside a red brick barn half a kilometer away!

I have had very nasty moire on my dslr inside a venue once where they had very small kind of tiles in the ceiling so it doesn't appear only on small bricks.

Now you can't change the fact that the moire is there, it does however not seem to be so noticeable in most cases as on my dslr and that is a good thing, now I do worry about it and always try to avoid it when possible, I think if you are delivering to a client, whether it's someone getting married or someone needing a company video, you should always go for the best image you can get, otherwise you wouldn't need to bother to deliver in HD but just get a older 4:3 SD camera and stretch the image to fit 16:9 because most won"t even notice it as well. :)

Like the first shot of that villa, if that would have been a paid assignment to get footage to sell the building that would be unacceptable for me and I"m sure for the client as well, in that case I would move, zoom in or do whatever necessary to get rid of those wavy lines.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Noa

The main object is to identify what the camera doesn't like and try ones best to avoid it, if that indeed had been a Realty shoot and the guy wanted a video to sell that actual property then certainly you wouldn't even think of leaving it like that.

As long as we know what to avoid then the problem can be avoided initially...!

Your hard work here is always appreciated.

I'm doing a Realty shoot in the morning for a 2 bedroom villa ... I'll see what causes any issues there and let you know if I find any bad cases of moire

Chris

[Steven Digges]

Noa & Chris,

As Chris said, thank you for all of the hard work and information you are sharing with this brand new Sony that has so little real world testing. I am enjoying your threads very much. Don mentioned sharing picture profiles. Would you guys be willing to start a thread on that? As wedding shooters I am assuming both of you guys must be masters of exposure (something near and dear to me). I am a fanatic about it. Working constantly in low light and battling black and white subjects at the same time is challenging to say the least. I would love to lean from guys half a world away on how you manage that. For what it’s worth I would be happy to post mine once I figure out a few but I am sure I would have more to learn than contribute. Thanks again for the information and tolerating my intrusions. I will try to be more informative once I have camera in hand, hopefully tomorrow!

Steve

Sorry to go OT but I specifically wanted to address you two guys.

[Noa Put]

Don mentioned sharing picture profiles. Would you guys be willing to start a thread on that?

That would be great but I"m afraid I won't be contributing to that thread as I am awefull in creating or testing out my own camera presets. My xh-a1 also had 1001 available user presets but I always found that colors where often off. That's why I prefer to use a flat preset and make a color profile in Edius, preset 3 on the ea50 seems to do that trick but I certainly would like to try other presets as well.

thank you for all of the hard work and information you are sharing with this brand new Sony that has so little real world testing

I"m currently dealing with my last editing backlog on weddings and plan to finish completely in about 3 week. Since I have no deadline on antyhing right now and since I"m closing down on a busy season I can finally make more time availabe for personal projects, but also to test the camera before I use it in the field, I think it's not more then normal to share that experience.

I always have appreciated real life, and honest, feedback from other users as well as they can be a valuable tool in purchasing decissions. It's only difficult to know who to trust, maybe you have a user that is brand biased and they never will admit any real issues or you might have users that don't have the experience to do a "test" in the right way. I remember a user claiming his outdoor nx5 footage was soft and showed footage from it, later it appeared he didn't know what the ND's where for meaning the image suffered from diffraction because he didn't use a nd to compensate for a bright and sunny day so it's easy to be fooled.

I also expect other people to question my results as I view it from my experience so far and I certainly am no authority in video matters, I just try real hard but don't always succeed :) but I like to share information, it awlays feels nice if you are able to help others.

[Chris Harding]

Hi Guys

I think profiles are also a matter of personal choice and your subject too...I guess my target would probably be to get skin tones looking natural and not to get the grass greener and brighter. If you were doing a promo for a golf club then you would need the grass to look as good as possible.

Maybe start on PP's by commenting on the presets and see what you feel each would be suited for??

A new thread would be the order of the day so we don't hijack Noa's thread here.

I have 3 Realty shoots today and tomorrow so I can "play" probably on Thursday and Friday??

Steve should also have his camera in a day or so too !

Chris

[Don Bloom]

It kind of appears that either PP3 or PP4 is going to be the starting place. Man I can't wait to get mine. I have to sit on my hands to keep from ordering before the end of the month. :-(

[Noa Put]

I"m out shooting this weekend at a mining facility that has been closed down for about 20 years, you can't go underground anymore but they kept most buildings in their original state and it's open to public, there's also a man build 150 meter high mountain from all the stone that came from below the ground, you can go to the top of that mountain and have a great view (the cole mining activity was between 700 and 900 meter deep), it will be a weird feeling because my grandfather, my father and I have worked there, I used to be a coleminer in the eigthies...

This time I will take all my primes with me and try real hard to make a nice film :) No complaining about moire, aliasing, noise or whatever, just try to get the best from the camera and try to work around any problems I might encounter. I only hope it will stop raining because it almost has been raining constantly here the past weeks, the forecast is colder weather so that usually means dry wheather to. Will post if finished.