Quick-skim of the manual
Just a few things that caught my eye/interested me/worried me:
p10. Shutter Angle control that is 'familiar to cinematographers'. What exactly does shutter angle control do to an image? (excuse my ignorance). p14. Factory adjusted lens control block, I guess that means the lens is motorized in auto-mode? (a topic I have raised before WRT to what happens when a follow-focus is attached). p23. If I read it correctly, you cannot charge batteries in the camera using the BC-U1 charger as the AC adapter (I guess if you wanted to charge two batteries at once). p23. Switch camera off before removing power/battery or risk damage to camera or SxS card (um, so if my battery dies mid-shot I risk data-loss / damage?) p29. No mention of Sandisk, to be expected I suppose. p32. 600 clip maximum per card? Did I read that right? I am sure someone is going to run into that limit using SP mode on 16 (and then 32 ) GB cards? p35. Fat32 file system and it looks like things might get screwy if you copy files using Windows and Mac (via Explorer/Finder). Basically you can't treat the cards like a mass storage device? So, the implication here is... If I want to use the camera before FCP is updated with native support, I must use the clip browser to read and export clips BUT that will only allow me 1080x1440 exports? p39. Aspect ratio markers - 13:9, 14:9 and 15:9 - um, WTF are they? wouldn't a 2.35/9/40 marker have been useful? p57. No time-lapse and Frame shots when using the Sp 1080p24 mode, um, dunno if that is a problem or not p62. Freeze mix alignment for continuity - cool! Haven't seen that function reviewed before. p109. Av and component connectors/cables look like the same on my HVR-A1U - *YaY* p124. Minimum operating temperture is just 0 degrees Celsius, um, so no using this camera on a winter's day, no skiing or snowboarding vids either (even though there's a skier on some of Sony's promotional literature!!!!!) |
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Shutter angle: like it says "familiar to cinematographers". Film cameras have rotating mechanical shutters and the basic shutter opening is 180 degrees. Smaller angles give shorter exposures and often openings other than 180 degrees are used to prevent flicker caused by HMIs etc. This is a professional camera.
Follow focus: obviously you set the lens to manual focus (slide the focus ring to engage the mechanical coupling). Battery charging not on camera: same as Z1 Switch off before changing battery: very sensible and usual. If he battery is dead I guess everything is off. 600 clips max: you'd have to be shooting 10 sec clips like we used to persuade home movie (film) people was the minimum desirable length. Aspect markers: they're common film ratios, although the first 1.44:1 is a sort of wider standard ratio (1.33:1), the others are 1.55:1 and 1.66:1 (which was a commonly cropping of standard ratio for wider screen). Well I guess they're not particularly useful. |
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Whilst HD broadcasts in the UK are quite recent, the BBC started SD widescreen broadcasting over 10 years ago when digital transmission first started up. The obvious problem was then how to reconcile simulcast 16:9 transmission in digital with 4:3 transmission in analogue. The answer was "shoot and protect 14:9", and is described in detail in the BBC book: http://www.informotion.co.uk/deliver...creen_book.pdf . In brief, virtually all material is now shot 16:9, broadcast as such on the digital networks, whilst the centre 14:9 is broadcast letterbox fashion on the analogue transmitters. For shooting, the instruction within the UK is generally for cameramen to use 14:9 markers, and for all essential action to be kept within them. Equally, nothing unusable (boom etc) should be seen in the 1:9 bars either side. It's a compromise, obviously, but one which has worked very, very well for the last decade. |
It's only common sense to turn the power off on anything before removing its power source. In this case, removing battery power while it's on could cause momentary power glitches as it's being removed.
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It also helps if you bump the camera between takes that are supposed to have identical framing. You can get the camera right back where it was and maintain shot continuity. -gb- |
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Hi folks, thanks for the feedback....
Piotr said: "So I think that Sony is being a little too conservative here..." Good to know. I'm hoping to use the camera in the Himalayas as soon as it arrives and it's going to be cooolldddd - brrr... Serena said: "you'd have to be shooting 10 sec clips like we used to persuade home movie (film) people was the minimum desirable length." I always find it interesting when technology manufacturers set apparently needless boundaries, based on assumptions about what someone will need today. I am sure there will be some folks in the medical/scientifc community + those experimenting with time-lapse that will run into this limit really quickly. and "Aspect markers: they're common film ratios" For a professional camera it would have been nice to have a 2.39:1 marker. David says: "I suspect that if the battery dies, it means that its voltage falls below a nominal level such that the camera shuts down. But the voltage is far from zero, and I'd expect to be fine for doing jobs such as finishing writing to card etc. Removing power/battery is very different - the voltage goes straight to zero." Yea, I was really just curious about what would happen if you were using the camera outside of its stated operating parameters (in my case it will be extreme cold) and the battery charge became depleted in a precipitous fashion. |
Paul, I would hope that the camera would behave like my Mac laptop when I drive it to the ground (power-wise). It gives me some redundant warnings and eventually goes to sleep keeping plenty of power to maintain data for many hours or even days. I would bet that the Sony engineers did something similar and after some warnings basically have the camera take matters to its own "hands" and stop recording, save, shut down.
Wouldn't it be nice to have someone from Sony to communicate with us here? (like the guys from Red are on the Reduser site) |
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720 @ 24p ?
Noted 24P @ 1080 but what about 720?
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Page 36. I guess you haven't got that far yet. P35,36 lists the shooting formats.
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Instead of a fraction of a second it gives you a shutter opening relative to the frame rate. So, a 180 degree shutter at 24 fps is equivalent to a 1/48 shutter. A 180 degree shutter at 30 fps is 1/60 shutter. A 360 degree shutter is completely open. A 0 degree shutter is completely closed. Most cine work is done at 175 degree shutter. Quote:
Still, its solid state. If you really do use 600 takes on a single SxS, then it'll report full. Empty the card and go back to work. Quote:
P2 is the same way. With P2 I just copy all the contents of the card to a directory, and then logging and transfer sees that exactly as if it was a P2 card and yanks it in for me. We also archived to DVD-4 from the 4GB cards we were using and FCP sees those DVD's as P2 cards too. It has to be tested- but I expect that the Sony software and eventually FCP will work the same way with SxS that P2 works. Quote:
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Panasonic advertises their P2 systems with footage from the Iditarod. The systems are very similar- so I expect you'll get similar practical performance. |
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