Pre-Purchase Questions at DVinfo.net

Rick Miller · January 10th, 2013, 05:00 PM

Glad to see this new forum, great content. I've been looking at many cameras over the past year to upgrade to, and this one seems to fit my needs. I will be making a large leap in my shooting technology - from a Sony FX-1. So, a couple questions:

1. I keep reading about no ND Filters, and how bad that is. Can someone please explain the reason this is such a bad thing? With my FX-1, it does have the ND Filters, and the camera automatically tells me when to use ND1 or ND2, and I do it! That is my knowledge of this. So if I don't have the ND Filters automatically on my new camera, which one's do you guys use? There are tons of choices on B&H, I guess I need one that is adjustable? With the adjustable kind, does the EA50 automatically tells you what setting to use on the filter, like the FX1?

2. There are so many shooting settings listed for this cam, like 24, 30, 60 fps, different HD resolutions, etc. Now, I simply put a tape in my FX1 and shoot in HD. I shoot corporate video mostly, just looking for initial settings I should use as I learn the cam.

3. As stated, I shoot on tape. So now need to purchase some cards to record on. Please let me know what works best with least amount of problems. I will spend extra to get best results on these. Also if the flash recorder is worth the money in your opinions.

Steven Digges · January 10th, 2013, 06:05 PM

Rick,

I am just going to touch on this and let other guys with more experience with this camera expand on it.

1. Not having ND filters does not mean you will not be able to shoot in sun light. It means you will have limited control of setting the exact shutter speed and aperture you may want to use for the controlled effect you may desire. In sunlight without ND filters you will be limited to small aperture and fast shutter speeds. Adjustable ND filters or not is personal preference. The camera will not tell you when you need them. You will need to understand the effects of shutter speed and aperture.

2. That is an area of great study and circumstance. They are all there for a reason but it is beyond me to put it in a paragraph. If your post system is already handling very large data files you could learn just a couple of the common ones and still shoot "HD".

3. I do not buy cheap cards. I think I just paid $25 apiece for Lexar 10x 32 gb cards. I also do not like the really high capacity cards. I would rather change cards more often than risk hours and hours of footage on a large card failure. The bigger the card, the more to loose. Card failures are rare. I think the Sony 128gb flash drive is way over priced. It's main benefit is simultaneous back up recording. Never a bad idea. You can also do that with the new mirroring cards.

I also do a lot of corporate video. I believe this camera is a good choice for that.

Steve

Don Bloom · January 10th, 2013, 06:43 PM

First the cards.Cards are not as costly as they used to be and overall less than tapes. How do I get that? Well, a Sandisk 32gig, class 10 card which has a 45mbps speed according to it's label, will hold 170 minutes or 2 hours and 50 minutes of content recorded at 24mbps costs $36.00 at B&H. That would be almost 3 tapes. Even at $2.00 each that's $6.00 for media. Now extrapolate that out for your planned year of work. I generally go thru about 200 tapes a year give or take few. Figure the savings of buying 4 32gig cards that can be re-used over and over vs. tapes that are used once. (at least I do. I never re-use a tape). Anyway as for the name brand of cards, I have heard nothing at all bad about the Sandisk. I can't speak for the other brands but I will be getting those.

As for the lack of ND filters, I too had a bit of concern about that but after going thru the manual and seeing the user assignable buttons, which can be preset to ISO, and the placement of the iris button, it will bring me back to the old days of film still photography when you needed to change settings to keep from getting blown out.
Chris Harding and Noa Put have the camera and have posted some great information about using the camera in both outside conditions and changing light conditions. They have taken away MY worries about not having ND filters.
I think the lack of NDs is an oversite but I understand why they didn't put them on. Keep in mind also that you can buy NDs and some are variable although none go to 0. The lowest I saw was a .5. In a perfect world....;-)

Chris Harding · January 10th, 2013, 06:59 PM

Hi Rick

I have shot in bright sun in Australia and the camera seems to handle bright light with no issues at all. By all means use either a standard or variable good quality ND filter if you are shooting on a white beach in the Bahamas or white snow up North but it does handle normal bright sun without an ND ..of course at F16 you won't get any shallow DOF effects!!

Based on doing just one wedding per weekend and 3 or 4 commercial shoots during the week I figured out that by switching from MiniDV to Card I was saving myself at least $1000 a year...that is based on the fact that I use the tapes just once (and use decent tapes) and also allows me to charge all my cards every six months. Go figure??? Get decent brand names not el-cheapos from eBay....the only poor performance I have had was from expensive SanDisk Xtreme 45 mbps cards that started breaking down and giving me the odd weird frames with damaged data after 4 months use so I stick with Transcend 16GB Class 6 and they have never let me down.

I shoot 90% of my footage in simple, good ole 1920x1080 50i and never have an issue!!

You should love the camera ...it really has all the features I needed!!

Chris

Don Bloom · January 10th, 2013, 10:13 PM

Chris, I actually meant to say Transend but had been looking at the Sandisk and they stuck in my head. I remember something you posted a while ago about the Sandisck cards.
I'm at the point that I'm already on the cruise mentally and can't even remember my name these days.
O|O
/--\

Chris Harding · January 10th, 2013, 10:18 PM

Only a few day left to go, good buddy and you can relax!

I was under the impression that Sandisk were way superior to Transcend but I have now had problems with the 45mbps Xtreem card and get artifacts in some footage ...the Transcends never gave me any issues so I'm back with them.

Chris

Rob Cantwell · January 11th, 2013, 03:21 PM

one thing that you need to be aware of with this new camera is that your computer needs to be up to the task of handling AVCHD files, i know some people making the transition from tape to cards found that their hardware wasn't up to it, so it's something else to consider.

I use a mix of Sony Memory Stick (dont know if they work in this cam), Transcend, Sandisk and AData mostly 16 and 32 Gb.

I've been looking at this camera myself but the issue of the ND filters is a bit off-putting, I have a NX5 that has 3 ND filters which i use, so i'm waiting to see if people find that this doesn't drag it down.

Rob

Chris Harding · January 11th, 2013, 05:20 PM

Hi Rob

The Sony Media will work of course as well as the new mirroring memory stick but that seems a little pricey.

For Sony AVCHD You really need an absolute minimum of an i7 2600 processor and at least 8GB ram otherwise renders will take ages and previews will just stutter!! I think a lot of consumer cam owners hit a brick wall when they discovered that their new computer upgrade was going to cost them more than their dinky new toy!!

Chris

Eric Olson · January 11th, 2013, 09:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Miller

2. There are so many shooting settings listed for this cam, like 24, 30, 60 fps, different HD resolutions, etc. Now, I simply put a tape in my FX1 and shoot in HD. I shoot corporate video mostly, just looking for initial settings I should use as I learn the cam.

NXCAM cameras like the EA50 have a video mode called HD FX (24mbps) 1920x1080/60i which is very similar to the HD mode on the FX1. I would suggest starting with this setting.

Don Bloom · January 11th, 2013, 09:18 PM

I agree with Eric. Since the FX1 was most likely shooting 60i. 24p is a very filmic look and 30 doesn't translate well imo to the eye. I would start with the FX setting like Eric saaid and take it from there. However you might find 21 or even 17 will do the job for you. For that, you gotta play with the camera.

I also agree with Chris. I just upgraded my machine to handle the AVCHD and I know of a bunch of people that haven't and are banging their heads against the wall. Make sure your machine can handle it.

Noa Put · January 12th, 2013, 03:38 AM

My 2 cents:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Miller

1. I keep reading about no ND Filters, and how bad that is.

For me it's an issue, I will be buying a nd filter soon but need to see what works best with all my lenzes, this camera will not tell you when to use a ND, this means you need to understand how a ND filter can affect your image and when to use it. Basically you only would use a nd filter outside when the camera cannot handle the incoming light, this means it has to almost completely close it's iris to compensate which can lead to diffraction (unsharp footage). The ND filter allows you to open op the iris more and keep the shutter at a fixed value like 1/50. If you don't have a ND filter the only option is to increase the shutter which becomes a problem if you have a lot of moving objects as their motion will become unnatural (some kind of saving private ryan kind of effect.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Miller

2. There are so many shooting settings listed for this cam, like 24, 30, 60 fps, different HD resolutions

What I can reccomend is to just shoot with different framerates and compare, if you are doing fast action sport then 60p for sure, otherwise you could use all 3, just use them and see what you like best or what translates best to dvd and/blueray for you

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rick Miller

3. As stated, I shoot on tape. So now need to purchase some cards to record on. Please let me know what works best with least amount of problems.

Sony has new mirroring cards that record to 2 different chips on one card which seems to be the safest recording medium for this camera, not sure if the camera can record to the fmu and to a sd card simultaneously but if it could that would also be a safe option. I just bhought a 64gb sdxc sandisc card, they are quite cheap now, mine is a class 10 but only 30mbs which makes it even more cheaper and it's plenty fast for the camera.

What has been reccomended here about handling avchd on a pc is an important remark, I have a I7 950 with 12gb memory that can handle up to 4 streams of avchd in realtime in a multicam sequence in Edius 6.5, I did have a q6600 processor with 4gb of memory and it could just handle 1 stream in realtime so you need quite a bit more processing power if you are used to HDV, my old q6600 handled HDV with ease.

Peter Rush · January 12th, 2013, 07:00 AM

Noa what is your thinking regarding an ND filter - I'm leaning towards a good variable - either the Genus Eclipse fader @ $136 or the Lightcraft @ $98

I would imagine at these prices the glass is pretty good - better than say the Hama @ $20 but not as good as Tiffen @ $160 or the Heliopan that gets a great review from Philip Bloom but is $330!

Pete

Noa Put · January 12th, 2013, 08:03 AM

I don't have that much experience with nd filters, I have a 100 dollar filter here but it seems to impact the image quality on my samyang lenzes, I was thinking on getting such a rubber lenshood to attach a variable nd filter but I"m not sure if it will cause vignetting. This is the cheapest solution because a mattebox just increases the size and wheight and it'snot cheap either as you need to get extra rails as well. Then I rather get a filter that would fit my largest lens and get some step down ring to make it fit all other lenzes.

I also think those expensive filters are good value, if you go for a cheaper one and if it would have an effect on the image in any way that's a step back. I will have to read up on user reviews about those expensive filter but most probably will be getting one of these as there must be a reason why they are 3 times the price as regular filters, or maybe a cheaper one if I know for sure it's a good one :). The Fader ND Digi Pro-HD also comes to my mind when thinking of possible filters.

Rick Miller · January 12th, 2013, 05:06 PM

Thanks for all the great responses. Really learning a ton with this forum. I did spend some money last year building a new PC, and my new rig will be able to handle this cam. Now almost have the funds available to make the leap.

Steven Digges · January 13th, 2013, 01:19 AM

Rick,

Three words................go for it!!!

January 10th, 2013, 05:00 PM	#1
Rick Miller Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: stuart, florida Posts: 76	Pre-Purchase Questions Glad to see this new forum, great content. I've been looking at many cameras over the past year to upgrade to, and this one seems to fit my needs. I will be making a large leap in my shooting technology - from a Sony FX-1. So, a couple questions: 1. I keep reading about no ND Filters, and how bad that is. Can someone please explain the reason this is such a bad thing? With my FX-1, it does have the ND Filters, and the camera automatically tells me when to use ND1 or ND2, and I do it! That is my knowledge of this. So if I don't have the ND Filters automatically on my new camera, which one's do you guys use? There are tons of choices on B&H, I guess I need one that is adjustable? With the adjustable kind, does the EA50 automatically tells you what setting to use on the filter, like the FX1? 2. There are so many shooting settings listed for this cam, like 24, 30, 60 fps, different HD resolutions, etc. Now, I simply put a tape in my FX1 and shoot in HD. I shoot corporate video mostly, just looking for initial settings I should use as I learn the cam. 3. As stated, I shoot on tape. So now need to purchase some cards to record on. Please let me know what works best with least amount of problems. I will spend extra to get best results on these. Also if the flash recorder is worth the money in your opinions.

January 10th, 2013, 06:05 PM	#2
Steven Digges Trustee Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 1,828	Re: Pre-Purchase Questions Rick, I am just going to touch on this and let other guys with more experience with this camera expand on it. 1. Not having ND filters does not mean you will not be able to shoot in sun light. It means you will have limited control of setting the exact shutter speed and aperture you may want to use for the controlled effect you may desire. In sunlight without ND filters you will be limited to small aperture and fast shutter speeds. Adjustable ND filters or not is personal preference. The camera will not tell you when you need them. You will need to understand the effects of shutter speed and aperture. 2. That is an area of great study and circumstance. They are all there for a reason but it is beyond me to put it in a paragraph. If your post system is already handling very large data files you could learn just a couple of the common ones and still shoot "HD". 3. I do not buy cheap cards. I think I just paid $25 apiece for Lexar 10x 32 gb cards. I also do not like the really high capacity cards. I would rather change cards more often than risk hours and hours of footage on a large card failure. The bigger the card, the more to loose. Card failures are rare. I think the Sony 128gb flash drive is way over priced. It's main benefit is simultaneous back up recording. Never a bad idea. You can also do that with the new mirroring cards. I also do a lot of corporate video. I believe this camera is a good choice for that. Steve __________________ www.CorporateShow.com Been at this so long I'm rounding my years of experience down...not up!

January 10th, 2013, 06:43 PM	#3
Don Bloom Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,609	Re: Pre-Purchase Questions First the cards.Cards are not as costly as they used to be and overall less than tapes. How do I get that? Well, a Sandisk 32gig, class 10 card which has a 45mbps speed according to it's label, will hold 170 minutes or 2 hours and 50 minutes of content recorded at 24mbps costs $36.00 at B&H. That would be almost 3 tapes. Even at $2.00 each that's $6.00 for media. Now extrapolate that out for your planned year of work. I generally go thru about 200 tapes a year give or take few. Figure the savings of buying 4 32gig cards that can be re-used over and over vs. tapes that are used once. (at least I do. I never re-use a tape). Anyway as for the name brand of cards, I have heard nothing at all bad about the Sandisk. I can't speak for the other brands but I will be getting those. As for the lack of ND filters, I too had a bit of concern about that but after going thru the manual and seeing the user assignable buttons, which can be preset to ISO, and the placement of the iris button, it will bring me back to the old days of film still photography when you needed to change settings to keep from getting blown out. Chris Harding and Noa Put have the camera and have posted some great information about using the camera in both outside conditions and changing light conditions. They have taken away MY worries about not having ND filters. I think the lack of NDs is an oversite but I understand why they didn't put them on. Keep in mind also that you can buy NDs and some are variable although none go to 0. The lowest I saw was a .5. In a perfect world....;-) __________________ What do I know? I'm just a video-O-grafer. Don

January 10th, 2013, 06:59 PM	#4
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Pre-Purchase Questions Hi Rick I have shot in bright sun in Australia and the camera seems to handle bright light with no issues at all. By all means use either a standard or variable good quality ND filter if you are shooting on a white beach in the Bahamas or white snow up North but it does handle normal bright sun without an ND ..of course at F16 you won't get any shallow DOF effects!! Based on doing just one wedding per weekend and 3 or 4 commercial shoots during the week I figured out that by switching from MiniDV to Card I was saving myself at least $1000 a year...that is based on the fact that I use the tapes just once (and use decent tapes) and also allows me to charge all my cards every six months. Go figure??? Get decent brand names not el-cheapos from eBay....the only poor performance I have had was from expensive SanDisk Xtreme 45 mbps cards that started breaking down and giving me the odd weird frames with damaged data after 4 months use so I stick with Transcend 16GB Class 6 and they have never let me down. I shoot 90% of my footage in simple, good ole 1920x1080 50i and never have an issue!! You should love the camera ...it really has all the features I needed!! Chris

January 10th, 2013, 10:13 PM	#5
Don Bloom Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,609	Re: Pre-Purchase Questions Chris, I actually meant to say Transend but had been looking at the Sandisk and they stuck in my head. I remember something you posted a while ago about the Sandisck cards. I'm at the point that I'm already on the cruise mentally and can't even remember my name these days. O\|O /--\ __________________ What do I know? I'm just a video-O-grafer. Don

January 10th, 2013, 10:18 PM	#6
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Pre-Purchase Questions Only a few day left to go, good buddy and you can relax! I was under the impression that Sandisk were way superior to Transcend but I have now had problems with the 45mbps Xtreem card and get artifacts in some footage ...the Transcends never gave me any issues so I'm back with them. Chris

January 11th, 2013, 03:21 PM	#7
Rob Cantwell Major Player Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: Tipperary, Ireland Posts: 624	Re: Pre-Purchase Questions one thing that you need to be aware of with this new camera is that your computer needs to be up to the task of handling AVCHD files, i know some people making the transition from tape to cards found that their hardware wasn't up to it, so it's something else to consider. I use a mix of Sony Memory Stick (dont know if they work in this cam), Transcend, Sandisk and AData mostly 16 and 32 Gb. I've been looking at this camera myself but the issue of the ND filters is a bit off-putting, I have a NX5 that has 3 ND filters which i use, so i'm waiting to see if people find that this doesn't drag it down. Rob __________________ http://www.robertcantwell.com

January 11th, 2013, 05:20 PM	#8
Chris Harding Inner Circle Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Perth, Western Australia Posts: 8,441	Re: Pre-Purchase Questions Hi Rob The Sony Media will work of course as well as the new mirroring memory stick but that seems a little pricey. For Sony AVCHD You really need an absolute minimum of an i7 2600 processor and at least 8GB ram otherwise renders will take ages and previews will just stutter!! I think a lot of consumer cam owners hit a brick wall when they discovered that their new computer upgrade was going to cost them more than their dinky new toy!! Chris

January 11th, 2013, 09:18 PM	#10
Don Bloom Inner Circle Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 6,609	Re: Pre-Purchase Questions I agree with Eric. Since the FX1 was most likely shooting 60i. 24p is a very filmic look and 30 doesn't translate well imo to the eye. I would start with the FX setting like Eric saaid and take it from there. However you might find 21 or even 17 will do the job for you. For that, you gotta play with the camera. I also agree with Chris. I just upgraded my machine to handle the AVCHD and I know of a bunch of people that haven't and are banging their heads against the wall. Make sure your machine can handle it. __________________ What do I know? I'm just a video-O-grafer. Don

January 12th, 2013, 07:00 AM	#12
Peter Rush Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: UK/Yorkshire Posts: 2,069	Re: Pre-Purchase Questions Noa what is your thinking regarding an ND filter - I'm leaning towards a good variable - either the Genus Eclipse fader @ $136 or the Lightcraft @ $98 I would imagine at these prices the glass is pretty good - better than say the Hama @ $20 but not as good as Tiffen @ $160 or the Heliopan that gets a great review from Philip Bloom but is $330! Pete

January 12th, 2013, 08:03 AM	#13
Noa Put Inner Circle Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Belgium Posts: 9,509	Re: Pre-Purchase Questions I don't have that much experience with nd filters, I have a 100 dollar filter here but it seems to impact the image quality on my samyang lenzes, I was thinking on getting such a rubber lenshood to attach a variable nd filter but I"m not sure if it will cause vignetting. This is the cheapest solution because a mattebox just increases the size and wheight and it'snot cheap either as you need to get extra rails as well. Then I rather get a filter that would fit my largest lens and get some step down ring to make it fit all other lenzes. I also think those expensive filters are good value, if you go for a cheaper one and if it would have an effect on the image in any way that's a step back. I will have to read up on user reviews about those expensive filter but most probably will be getting one of these as there must be a reason why they are 3 times the price as regular filters, or maybe a cheaper one if I know for sure it's a good one :). The Fader ND Digi Pro-HD also comes to my mind when thinking of possible filters.

January 12th, 2013, 05:06 PM	#14
Rick Miller Regular Crew Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: stuart, florida Posts: 76	Re: Pre-Purchase Questions Thanks for all the great responses. Really learning a ton with this forum. I did spend some money last year building a new PC, and my new rig will be able to handle this cam. Now almost have the funds available to make the leap.

January 13th, 2013, 01:19 AM	#15
Steven Digges Trustee Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Phoenix, AZ Posts: 1,828	Re: Pre-Purchase Questions Rick, Three words................go for it!!! __________________ www.CorporateShow.com Been at this so long I'm rounding my years of experience down...not up!