I hear what you're saying Ken. That is what I have usually done in the past. That doesn't work when you have lens ramping involved.

That's what was driving me crazy until I learned what it is and that the FX1000 has it.

When you zoom in, almost immediately the iris starts to close up. By the time you get to full zoom you are at f3.4 and cannot change it. You can close it down further, but you cannot open it further.

Hans in another thread helpfully pointed out that I "should have known about this" beforehand. But I didn't. Now I do.

The FX1000 suffers from f-drop and apparently with a 20x zoom it is just the way it has to be.

A 20x zoom lens doesn't necessarily have to have f-drop, Jeff. But the lenses that do have consistant F-stops thoughout the zoom range can get to be pretty darned expensive. Most professional broadcast lenses can zoom without changing the f-stop. The lens in the Z5/FX1000 is an amazing lens at it's price point.

Jeff, maybe I'm missing something, but I still don't see why leaving it on automatic and then locking it down wouldn't work (assuming you're staying at that same focal length). As long as there is sufficient lighting, the camera should be compensating for the reduction in lens speed as you zoom.

You are correct Greg, I meant that the f-drop was ineveitable in this price range of camera, but was trying to keep my post brief. In my world 20x zoom means fdrop. In the broadcast world I have been reading it is a whole 'nuther deal.

Video Lenses: How They All Work (http://members.tripod.com/~Camera_Dave/lens-theory-2.htm)

Ken, I'm sorry, I didn't explain myself well. I want to be able to open the iris to 1.8 at full zoom. The camera won't do that.

This is something that apparently many of the people on this forum understand, but I didn't, and honestly still don't, but I accept it is a limitation of 20x lens in my price range.

There is a lot to learn with this camera for someone like me who came into the business with no technical know-how and who had the luxury of learning to shoot with the idiot-proof VX2100.

Setting exposure was so easy, there was no F-Drop, and even I captured stunning images with it. This camera operates very similarly in many ways, but is requiring much more effort and study.

Ah, OK, now I've got it.

It shouldn't be too bad once you've adjusted to the reduction in your aperture. If your primary concern knowing this drop is inevitable now is the exposure, then I would just let the camera adjust for it and then lock everything down or adjust as necessary from that point.

Besides potentially changing the exposure throughout the zoom range because of f-drop, it also changes the dof slightly. Which might not be ideal for artistic purposes.

Outstanding feedback, thanks guys. I'm off to the races.

The FX1000 suffers from f-drop and apparently with a 20x zoom it is just the way it has to be. In case you are not familiar, when you zoom in on a subject, running the iris manually(in my case I do extreme closeups of faces in my work) the Iris has to compensate and it closes up automatically and underexposes the image. In other words you cannot get a usable image in full zoom when focusing on a face, or anything else, for that matter when running the iris in manual mode.

Lots of assumptions and misinterpretations in your post Jeff.
Firstly ramping is a manufacturing design intent to limit the size, weight, bulk and cost of the zoom. It's perfectly possible to have non ramping zooms, as the 10x f/1.4 fitted to my 1974 canon 1014E proves.

So to keep the spec looking good ("20x f/1.6 zoom using a 72 mm filter thread'') the maximum aperture is allowed to diminish the more you zoom to telephoto. If you had a constant f/1.6 max aperture the lens would be physically huge and as I say - very costly indeed.

You say, ''when you zoom in on a subject, running the iris manually the Iris has to compensate and it closes up automatically and underexposes the image''

This again is only true under very specific circumstances, and these are that you're forced to use max (f/1.6) aperture and that the shutter speed and gain settings are locked down. Then - yes - you'll get under exposure the more you zoom in. But if you were shooting at a locked f/5.6 (say) then the exposure would remain fine throughout your entire zoom range.

So your sentence that says, ''In other words you cannot get a usable image in full zoom when focusing on a face, or anything else, for that matter when running the iris in manual mode'' is silly nonsense, as I'm sure you'll agree.

BTW, the 'idiot proof' VX2100 most certainly has a ramping zoom. It loses a stop (f/1.6 to f/2.4) whereas the FX1000 loses two stops.

tom.

This thread's title refers to rolling shutter, etc. As far as I am concerned, forget rolling shutter. No biggie.

Instead, I'd like to share the joy I have found since I became familiar with the phenomenon of F-drop, AKA lens ramping.

Jeff, please keep threads on topic.

Thanks in advance,

-gb-

Since the last 14 posts had been off topic your admonition of me makes me the poster boy for bad forum behaviour:) I'll stick to one thread too, since I was discussing this on two threads, not exactly kosher.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for their supportive feedback. Shoot went very well today, much better for having had this discussion this morning.

Shoot went very well today, much better for having had this discussion this morning.

Which can only lead us to the inevitable conclusion that you love your FX1000. :)

Well, with the lens ramping it is officially a love-hate relationship. If I thought the Panny (what is it, the 150?) would match and give me those extreme closeups with more exposure, I would buy one to use as a front cam.

As far as rolling shudder (the topic of this thread!) what I have seen is not bad so far, but then the lighting was really great yesterday.

Panasonic HMC150. F1.6 - 3.

Panasonic HMC150. F1.6 - 3.

I guess Jeff is sticking with the 1000. ;)

I guess Jeff is sticking with the 1000. ;)

Probably :-)

I'm sure my gyrations with these cams must be amusing to watch. Well at least I have a place to come and whine!

i lent my 1000 to a friend yesterday to film a wedding that I was also at and we both agree that the 1000 is too heavy for filming weddings.

For those days where alot of time is spent off of the tripod well there can be no doubt it would make one tired in the old arms pretty quickly.

He comes from the VX2000 world and I have suggested that a Merlin steady cam may be a good investment for him.

He was also saying he thought that the colours were not jumping out at him. I think this may be via the viewfinder as he's not really a LCD man (comes from that old way of doing it - just a dig at the viewfinder boys out there ha ha).

We will firewire out to computer today and report back.


Martin.

We'll be awaiting your report!

Just started to render a sample clip from last night. Also let me say I am aware that I have said the rolling shutter wasn't so bad with the camera. I should have waited to make a statement until I edited last night's footage into a short clip.

I've never been one to mind the flash from cameras as some of my friends do. Never bothered me. It's part of the action, so I say don't worry about it.

But the banding from the rolling shutter of the FX1000 from last night is pretty bad. I found myself editing around it. That's when I knew it was bad.

Otherwise, this camera takes some VERY nice images. I do love it for it's good qualties, which are almost too numerous to mention.

I've heard it said the customers won't notice. I think it depends on your style of editing.

For highlight clips the rolling shutter is troublesome because the flashes occur at the very moments you focus on during such an edit. And even if the customers don't notice, it bothers the hell out of me.

it bothers the hell out of me.[/QUOTE]


Wow! Thank god I don't do weddings anymore.

To be honest I am thinking the Panasonic if its a lighter camera may be better for weddings. Having to film all day knowing that those camera flashes are stuffing up the edit that will follow would do my head in.

Then again maybe not go for so much slow motion. Slow motion in my opinion is over done in weddings. I like to mix it up with some slow mo and some realtime mixing in the location sound.

mmmmm a big bugger though

I've heard it said the customers won't notice. I think it depends on your style of editing.For highlight clips the rolling shutter is troublesome because the flashes occur at the very moments you focus on during such an edit. And even if the customers don't notice, it bothers the hell out of me.

And don't forget that any one of us here could be one of your customers Jeff. When my daughter gets married (please -- somebody, please) I'll see all these 1/3 and 2/3 frame flashes. Weddings are all about the couple being in the paparazzi spotlight and it's what makes them look special in my view. Coming down the aisle, cutting the cake, dancing together, it's flashes galore and all day long.

Slowed down they look even worse, and you're quite correct in that your style of editing has to change so as not to emphasise this CMOS foible. This bothers me too, as I do love to assemble a montage sequence at about 40% speed.

So I go against the 'customers won't notice' talk. They'll have to accept it, but that's another matter.

tom.

Martin, I never looked at the Panasonic very hard because of the ACVHD format but I wish I had. But I cannot forget all of the batteries. It would cost me upwards of $800 in batteries alone to have switched out brands.

Then again maybe not go for so much slow motion. Slow motion in my opinion is over done in weddings. I like to mix it up with some slow mo and some realtime mixing in the location sound.



And I think that's the most prudent thing you can do. Let's face it, doing slow motion when a flash is going off with a CCD camera, the image doesn't look to great either as the exposure goes to hell.

But I agree, there is so much slo mo these days it's almost a cliche.

You've got to put this in context Ken. We wedding filmmakers may well think there's too much slo-mo about, but look at it from the bride's POV. She's never in her life been filmed so well and made to look so good. She's most probably never seen proper fluid slo-mo of her self dancing, kissing, twirling, and she's certainly not seen such footage cut to the music that she loves.

tom.

Tom, that's true when you put it that way. But then you're forced to make the decision to go with a CCD-equipped cam that's not nearly as good in low light. You then risk a more grainy product which also detracts from the professionalism.

As I've said before, you pick your poison.

Hello,

I'm very new here, but I pored over everything I could find in these forums and on the 'net regarding problems with rolling shutter and the benefits of CMOS vs CCD (goes both ways, I know), and ultimately ended up buying the Z5 because in every other way, it was the camera of my dreams. I don't really have a plan, or a professional reason for having such a fancy camera (I've still barely scratched the surface of its capabilities--and mine), but I love to shoot, and I needed an upgrade from my collection of beat-up Sony DV and Hi8 camcorders.

I love the camera. It really can see in the dark! This camera has given me a lot to grow into, and the price for the XLR inputs and audio controls, not to mention the other pro features, is well worth it.

However, I have had a couple rolling shutter issues that were somewhat annoying, if not downright disturbing. One was a full-zoom close-up of some lovely yellow birds twittering away on a branch. Another of the same birds flew through the shot, and I could tell, even at normal speed, that there was something wrong. Maybe a non-videographer would not have noticed. This is beside the point. In slow-motion, I could see that the upper and lower edges of the fast-flying bird were truncated by the rolling shutter effect.

I was shooting in manual focus, auto-exposure, HDV 60i, by the way.

The other, more recent and more disturbing incident was during a lightning storm. We've been having these things roll over almost every day, and they afford lots of opportunities for some great image acquisition! I live as far out-of-the-way as you can get (relatively speaking) and my property is an old hydraulic mine and forest. My first HD 'project' is to document this place, its history, and its recovery (both mining and logging have devastated the land. At first when I saw the hydraulicked hills, I was aghast, but they are totally surreal, and in the right light, with the right sky, quite beautiful.

Needless to say, after shooting (on tape) for a good while, during a dry lightning storm, I finally got one that I saw on both the real sky and the LCD simultaneously. I was shooting in manual focus/exposure mode in HDV 60i. This particular single bolt with some forks that I did not notice until I got the footage onto the computer looked pretty OK the first time I saw it at normal speed, but then, knowing what I was looking for, I could see the banding effect. Bummer. When I tried to capture a still of the event, there was not a single frame to use, as the banding obliterates the image.

Now, I thought to myself, perhaps a higher shutter speed would do the trick. Arbitrarily, I tried 350. Well, after viewing what could have been an amazing moving image (the old mine glowing against tall green trees and forest in the late afternoon sun, with blue/black roiling clouds looming overhead, and a particularly close, large, and multi-pronged lightning attack just to the right of center frame), the banding was SO BAD that I could not even pretend it was OK.

I guess the next attempt will be at 24p? Or perhaps I should just reduce the shutter speed to 15? Experiments will ensue.

Long and short of it: I would definitely pay for this camera again. I love the low-light performance, and everything else looks really good. There is no ONE camera for every occasion, and if I get serious, or run into lots of extra money, I would buy a Z1 to use for the lightning. I don't otherwise shoot parties or weddings, or emergency vehicles, but square birds do not turn me on either. It is so infrequent, and the other attributes of the camera make up for it in this precarious balancing act....

Gene Cornelius

Long and short of it: I would definitely pay for this camera again. I love the low-light performance, and everything else looks really good. There is no ONE camera for every occasion, and if I get serious, or run into lots of extra money, I would buy a Z1 to use for the lightning. I don't otherwise shoot parties or weddings, or emergency vehicles, but square birds do not turn me on either. It is so infrequent, and the other attributes of the camera make up for it in this precarious balancing act....

Gene Cornelius

Gene, you hit the nail on the head! There is no one camera that can do everything 'better' than every other. But you've found a camera that works better for you than others in the vast majority of situations, and that's the best any of us can hope for.

I was out today, shooting a variety of scenes in an attempt to determine what to take on a cruise & land trip my wife and I are taking to Alaska this summer. I would have liked to have just taken my Sony XR500 since it's small, light and compact in addition to having great picture quality. But when I got home and compared the variety of shots I had taken, the Z5 was simply 'too much better' in a variety of scenes for me to not take the Z5 for a once in a lifetime trip. The exposure latitude, color and overall picture quality will force me to take the 'big boy'. :)

The exposure latitude, color and overall picture quality will force me to take the 'big boy'. :)

Good for you Ken. I would have taken the woosy way out and grabbed the smaller one.
Should be an awesome trip and hopefully you'll post some clips for us.

I guess the next attempt will be at 24p? Or perhaps I should just reduce the shutter speed to 15? Experiments will ensue.

You needn't bother Gene (and welcome aboard, BTW). The rolling shutter is the way the CMOS chips are read - line by line - rather than as the CCD is read - by dumping its info all at once. So shooting at different shutter speeds and PS vs interlace won't make any difference I'm afraid.

But your best line is that you're delighted and would buy the camera again. My Z1 lives in a world of electronic flash, lightning forks, police vehicles so I too would buy it again.

tom.

You needn't bother Gene (and welcome aboard, BTW). The rolling shutter is the way the CMOS chips are read - line by line - rather than as the CCD is read - by dumping its info all at once.

Presumably, manufacturers could buffer the data from the CMOS and read it out frame by frame? I'm sure you could get out a sensors worth of data in less than a 1/50th of a second.

Obviously, it's more complex and costly to build it this way, so the manufacturers will only do this is it becomes a commercial necessity - and if everyone is just accepting of the current rolling shutter issues it probably won't become one.

My guess though is that the rolling shutter artifacts are by-product of the early days of shifting to a new technology - we have to live with it for now, but eventually the problem will be solved, manufacturers will engineer their way out of this issue and in a few years we'll have even cheap CMOS cameras with no rolling shutter issues.

Or a software/firmware stop-gap solution may be on the cards, like we've already seen elsewhere.

I just did a video of a photo shoot on a canon hf11, rolling shutter all over it in varying degrees but none of the parents who have viewed it have noticed until I pointed it out.

Lanchester EP Year 6 five amigo's Photo Shoot 14-6-2009 on Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com/5158428)

I also have a panasonic 301 P2 camera and it will be interesting to see how their firmware update improves the cmos on that camera.

I find the CMOS treatment of electronic flash (almost) acceptable when shown in real time and it's not Paparazzi over-done. It's when the footage is slowed in post that CMOS flashes become (in my view) unacceptable. I'm sure R & D are working on it right now.

tom.

I just did a video of a photo shoot on a canon hf11, rolling shutter all over it in varying degrees but none of the parents who have viewed it have noticed until I pointed it out.



I guess my question is why point it out to them if they didn't notice it in the first place?

I just did a video of a photo shoot on a canon hf11, rolling shutter all over it in varying degrees but none of the parents who have viewed it have noticed until I pointed it out.


If I were you I would have never pointed this to the parents. It's no point. Now it's psychological, when they view the video they will always notice it.

Stelios

Yes - but I think that at the moment most of us are trying things out and working out what is acceptable or not to us, and what is acceptable or not to our clients in what context.

Once we are confident in our choices, then we can forget it and move, and choose the most appropriate tools for a given purpose.

Ben, I would say if the client never noticed it, it's surely not a problem for them. Many people will begin to fixate on a 'problem' if you point it out to them...even if they never noticed it on their own.

I just don't see a point in making people unhappy if they were pleased to begin with.

What if you look at this from a completely different perspective.

With the CMOS family of cameras, Sony and Canon have developed a terrrific new technology to benefit event videographers. With this new technology, when a flash goes off only a small portion of the frame is overexposed, unlike older CCD technology that overexposed the whole frame which complely ruins the frame.

I just don't see a point in making people unhappy if they were pleased to begin with.

That's exactly how I feel Ken.
"Do not trouble the trouble, until the trouble troubles you"

Stelios

What if you look at this from a completely different perspective.

With the CMOS family of cameras, Sony and Canon have developed a terrrific new technology to benefit event videographers. With this new technology, when a flash goes off only a small portion of the frame is overexposed, unlike older CCD technology that overexposed the whole frame which complely ruins the frame.

Greg, I've said just that many times! This is part of the reason I've never understood the constant harping on CMOS' obscuring of partial frames. Why were people 'perfectly content' with total frames that were obliterated?

One thing I know for sure is that CMOS does offer benefits that CCD simply doesn't.

Why were people 'perfectly content' with total frames that were obliterated?

I don't think people ever were, Ken. What I like about the way CCDs handle electronic flash is the way you get a 'starburst' effect from each little flashgun as you swing round to film the paparazzi blitzing the cake cutting, for instance.

When I've shot with CMOS, each flash as bleached out a (constantly different) proportion of its resultant frame.

tom.

Hi. I went throw all topic and got a little bit scared. But understanding the possible issue is a good cause to get ready to avoid it.
I have a question. I am going to shoot a fire performer in a dark environment with my Z5 and there are going to be a lot of flames out there, some will be short and some long lasting. Of course fire flames are not the same as flash strikes but is it possible that I may face the rolling shutter issue afterwards? Any experience that involved fire flame shooting will be deeply appreciated.

should be no problem, flames will not create rolling shutter.

The steadier you can keep a CMOS chipped camera the better, and this has to do with the rolling shutter (RS) rather than the image stabilisation. See

YouTube - HV30 stabilisation problems part 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yViBbkFHWfo)

This next EX1 RS demo doesn't show how bad RS is in practice. Why? Because the footage in this clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1pFa...eature=related

is only correctly exposed when the electronic flashes fire - all the rest of the time the dance is under-exposed.

When I've used an EX1 in such conditions I've correctly exposed the scene, only to have electronic flashes burn the partial frames out to complete nuclear-explosion white - and it looks a lot worse than shown here.

tom.

Thank you, will see results in few days from now.
Tom, second link is broken.

Alex, try this link - it works for me

YouTube - Sony PMW-EX1 Rolling Shutter Demo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1pFadXOboA&feature=related)

This next EX1 RS demo doesn't show how bad RS is in practice. Why? Because the footage in this clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1pFa...eature=related

is only correctly exposed when the electronic flashes fire - all the rest of the time the dance is under-exposed.

When I've used an EX1 in such conditions I've correctly exposed the scene, only to have electronic flashes burn the partial frames out to complete nuclear-explosion white - and it looks a lot worse than shown here.

tom.

Thank you Tom. This is a great example.

A couple comments are in order - the first clip illustrates problems with an HV30 consumer grade camera - and it's a KNOWN problem with some HV series cameras - google "jello" and Canon... the "test methodology" only shows one thing - that particular Canon had issues. When I had an HV20, I never saw anything that bad, but I can see how it could happen. The most glaring flaw in the "test" is that the HC3 he compares to is a CMOS camera as well... duh, it's NOT the sensor that's the problem.

AS for the second clip, it looks like it's probably STROBE LIGHTS, not flashes (yes the problems are similar). I shot some footage under similar conditions with a smaller cam with CMOS, and yes it looked "bad"... was I surprised... NO, the lighting conditions were atrocious. Partial frame flash exposures aren't great, but there are a lot of plusses with CMOS IMO, and like anything else, it's a tradeoff.

Don't expect to go into environments with strobes or lots of flashes and not see the "problem", but don't condemn the cameras or the technology because those conditions are challenging and create difficult issues...

I just finished what was probably my 30th wedding shot with my FX1000s. One thing I'll say for CCD chips is that flashes look like flashes. They look the way they are supposed to look, a flash of bright light. With CMOS chips sometimes flashes can give the appearance of defective video...the half frame coverage looks weird, and there is no other way to describe it.

Most of the time it is not a big deal, but on occasion, particularly when the bride is coming down the aisle, the half frame coverage is so pronounced and odd that it is disturbing.

I've never understood videographers that hated the way flashes look on a CCD camera, because you are videotaping the action, and flashes are part of that. I much prefer all of the flash to half of it.

I agree Jeff, the way CCDs handle electronic flash comes out looking like how I'd fake a flash. I've done this at times because sometimes I've had a shot of the couple cutting the cake (for instance) where no-body's taken any pictures, and it kinds looks 'bare' and the couple look a bit feeble just standing there, posing. Easy enough to add some SLR clicks to the audio track, too.

So I add flash frames easily on the timeline and it suddenly puts the couple in the paparazzi spotlight, makes them look more like stars on the red carpet. Thing is I'd never in my wildest dreams add a ½ over-exposed frame here, a ¼ over-exposed frame there - it just isn't on.

Dave's right - CMOS is here to stay and the technology brings with it advantages as well as disadvantages. Sony's clip browser sounds as if it'll even up thses badly exposed CMOS flash frames, so as always, the technology improves all the time.

tom.