So I thought enough complaining about what is not that good about the camera and go out and try to shoot some nice stuff with it and make the footage look as good as I could. I decided not to take any prime lens with me because I have not been able to shoot any decent outdoor footage with the stocklens yet as it has been raining constantly here the past weeks and my prayers have been answered, it was sunny today :)
Therefore I decided just to take the stock lens with me and see how it performs in sunny conditions, a next shoot I plan to do will be with my primes.

I had to apply some very high shutterspeeds because I haven't got a nd filter yet but because there is so little movement that doesn't notice, I was between 1/400 and 1/600 almost all the time.

I shot with the flattest factory preset and applied a lut curve in Edius to bring back contrast and color, I"m very satisfied with what I managed to get out of the camera. The camera has sufficient dynamic range, handles highlights well and is sharp enough. The bazooka loupe performed well and made focusing (using the 8x mangifying option) and setting the exposure a breeze.

It was a bit misty so shots zoomed in completely at the far horizon are not that sharp and lack a bit contrast and saturation. Just check out that zoom range at 01:03, first you see the windmills, the shot after that is zoomed out (windmills in the right upper corner) and the 3rd shot is even further zoomed out (you can see the water-tower as well that appears in the second shot on the left)

You can download the video at Vimeo to get a bit better impression of the sharpness etc. The original footage does look very sharp on a big screen, the vimeo compression takes away the sharpness a bit.

What I really like about the footage is that it does not scream "VIDEO" :) Looks quite "cinematic" to me, what do you guys think?

Sony nex ea50eh Deserted Coalmine on Vimeo

Hi Noa,
Lovely tonal ranges and fabulous subject matter! I just love derelict building and industrial sites and that is a real cracker. The camera and your shot scenes produce a very slick result-

You asked for feedback: Regarding filmic or video look, I watched carfully and the composition was so enticingly engaging in fact, that I can't say that I noticed ! (this has to be good!) From an artistic point of view however I felt I was left waiting for some camera movement shots- it did seem like a series of stills to me. Only my opinion of course and I wish I could visit!
By the way, what was the music? Do you use copyright free libraries? So much of it sounds characterless and the piece you chose captured the pathos and despair of dereliction very well. Thanks for sharing.
Rod

Noa,

Thank you again for sharing your great work. I absolutely loved it. The first time I watched it I did not critique it because I enjoyed it. I believe you intended that piece to almost look like a series of stills as the style for that short piece. The camera and you both did great work. I will watch it several more times for camera evaluation alone.

As a small business owner that often has to use freelance talent to make up my crews I am going to say this. I primarily use guys I know, but sometimes you have to try someone new. It has been my experience that some young guys come out of school or often a certificate program for video and they think they know everything. They are technological wizards, that is all they talk about because the technology is their world. That is what we need, right? Not quite. There is sometimes a major piece missing. A small thing called photography. They know the tech inside and out but it blows me away that they can't compose a basic shot to save their life. Your short video is a study in photographic composition and of course exposure and everything else is there too. A good example of making things work for you that others may have found problematic was the weeds and bushes. You built them into your composition and made it work. Great stuff!!!

I am not picking on young guys. The same holds true for many video shooters these days. The art of photography gets lost in the technology. Just my not so humble opinion. Off the soap box now. Thank you for sharing.

Steve

Noa,
Very nice look. I like the way the camera handled the scenes but as you said no really movement in them but it is a great place to start.
Perhaps when you go out with your primes you might be able to find something that has some movement like a crowd of people walking down the street or some cars passing by on the road jst so we could get a true "picture" of what the camera can do in those situations.
Again I did like what you put out on this one, all the tehcnical aspects were right on. enjoyable piece.

OK, I do not know Noa, but I wish I could hire him for some of my shoots. I guessed the slide show style of the mine shoot was intentional. Yes. I went to Vimeo to watch it again. While there I checked out two of his wedding shorts and a corporate clip. If you want to see movement in his work take a look. It is there in camera and post. It is not a surprise that you are booked for your nine month wedding season Noa. Good work.

Steve

Thx guys for the nice words :)

I guessed the slide show style of the mine shoot was intentional.

Yes, I intentionally shot it like a "slideshow" so I and you could get a good look at the detail, color and dynamic range the camera would produce. The vimeo compression doesn't do the real resolution any good because the raw files look very good on a big screen. (it was shot at 1080p 50p) It's not like looking through a window kind of sharp but it has some kind of organic look to it which I find very pleasing and kinda "filmic" and makes the camera "feel" professional, it has a totally different look as opposed to what my Sony cx730 would produce, I like the look of those small handicams as well but for different purposes.

Normally I don't like shooting like this as it looks like a series of photo's, that's why I was glad a bird decided to cross my image once :) If there is movement in a frame, like people walking or cars moving then a still shot is ok but otherwise I always to prefer to do at least a slider shot. But because I had to drag my camera and tripod up that small mountain I decided to travel light and focus on nice framing, good exposure so the images would speak for itself. Also, I noticed that with those small bricks I did experience moire and panning made it worse so I moved position, or zoomed in a bit untill the moire dissapeared, like I said before, I was trying to make the camera look as good as I could and work around it's shortcomings.

The music is from a Dutch guy who offers his music for free for non profit productions and he has some great songs on there, just follow the link on the vimeo page, he's making his own website to most likely start selling his music but currently I saw him encouraging a user to just rip the music from youtube (which was what I did as there seems to be no other download option right now) and use it, as long as you are not making a profit from it it's ok for him. But I think it's best to contact him directly anyway before you use anything from him. I placed this movie on youtube as well and going to inform him about it.

Edit: with the stock lens at least the 2x digital zoom is worthless to me, I"ll try to post a image later on from it but I got some very pixelated footage when using it when the lens was zoomed in.

Noa, thankyou for that. As I said the shots were quite captivating and I am with Steven on his praise for the photographic structure for sure.
In 1967 I was still trying to master Hasselblad and Bronica medium format ( mainly BW), and composition and form is what changes something from a clinical record to an emotional interpretation. Cartier Bresson knew this and has never been matched . ( in my extremely selective opinion of course!).Then I went in parallel to industrial video- another story!.

The mine is a video opportunity that most of us would beg to have, so please, go back , stuff the camera performance,you have shown it is clearly capable- I would love to see more of your work. I will also follow up the music link.
(I like this forum!)

Cheers!
Rod

Hey Noa

Nice images indeed and very "mood capturing" You are a true artist.

I have just got back from down South so I will post some sample run 'n gun footage a little later..I think Don is interested in seeing people and movement as well.

Chris

Add me to the interested list.....

Steve

PS. As I make unfounded assumptions about people I am communicating with on forums (I am only active on two) I learned this week I was completely wrong about Chis and Noa. For some unknown reason, to me, I thought both of you guys were much younger than me (I am 53). I thought both of you were young guns out there on the edge of technology. Instead of that, I now know your both about my age or older. So...I now commend you both for being young and on the edge of technology. My hat is off to you too Don. I tip one to us experienced guys!!!

stuff the camera performance

haha :) When I bought my Sony cx730 I threw it into a paid assignment right away, that was because I had experience with the xr520 which are basically the same camera in terms of operation. So that Tiny Sony I trusted right away. The EA50 is another kind of wild animal and needs to be tamed before I ride it in public :) It''s the type of camera I need to know what it will do under which circumstances and how to do it right. Better to find out now then after a paid shoot.

What has been said about composing a shot I can relate to very much, I think in my case it has to do with my background, I got my very first photocamera at the age of 12 ( a Practica LTL) and have been photographing very extensively with it until I was 16. I come from a time where you had to think before you shoot since film was much more expensive and I bhought a filmroll of 24 each time or if my parents where generous I could shoot 36 photo's :) (not exactly sure about those numbers but I think I"m close, it wasn't much)

Then I had to make a choice of buying a more professional Canon camera (if I remember right it was the Canon ae1) or to buy me a motorcycle and I got the motorcycle :)
After that I got preoccupied with riding the bike with my friends, chasing girls and drinking beer and the photography part didn't get much attention anymore.

At the age of 16 I went to a art/architecture school which I didn't finish and at 17 I started working in the coalmines. Architecture in general has always interested me a lot and I love hanging around these deserted sites, preferably all by myself, it gives me some kind of peaceful feeling, the same feeling I got when I was standing alone on that 150 meter mountain with that great view.

I think my photography history and my interest in arts and architecture in general make me think more about not only what but how I shoot it, at weddings when shooting solo you often have no time to think how to shoot but just are happy to be able to capture the highlights. But when I have the time I like to look at how my shots are composed as it can make so much difference.

Steven,
Chris and I are so old that Mr. Sony came to us and asked us about making a moving picture camera. Before that, we were carving pictures into the rocks that Fred Flintstone gave us! Noa was too young to be trusted with a sharp rock so we had him look for great images to carve!

O|O
\--/

Now that's funny stuff, I don't care who you are! I hired a kid two months ago who would have been confounded for hours if you handed him the rock. He would still be trying to figure out where the batteries go!

Noa,

Thanks for sharing your story. I believe there is great value in our history for those of us old enough to have studied photography before electronics were prevalent. To master a camera, you had to master photography. My first real 35mm still camera was a Pentax K-1000. I loved it.

You can see some of my stills here:

Flickr: PHXPHOTOGRAPHER's Photostream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/phxphotog/)

One of the things I learned about auto racing is the best seat in the house is in the flag stand. It is pretty cool to be there when 42 950HP cars hit the gas at the same time.

Hey Grandpa Don

Not so much of the old stuff please! I can still sprint up stairs (well maybe a brisk walk) and at saturday's wedding there were more of them than I ever imagined so I'd rather forget.

Yeah Steve I had a K1000 too..nice cameras ...technology was rampant then and the manual lens even had a little needle which, as long as it was in the middle, took care of exposure.

We might as well all wish Don a great vacation on the end of this week as he boards the cruise ship moving steadily up the gangway with his walker firmly in front of him.

Chris

Great Vacation to ya Don!!! And I bet I know why you are waiting until you get back to make the purchase. You might miss some relaxation and fun times if you were to be distracted with a new camera and the real paper manual. For the last week it was hard for me to get things done because the EA50 is sitting here calling out to me. I have hardly had time to touch the thing and it's killing me. That comes from a guy who said he needed a jolt of enthusiasm after all these years. I found it! I hope you have a great time and come back rejuvenated!!!

Steve

Hey Grandpa Don

Not so much of the old stuff please! I can still sprint up stairs (well maybe a brisk walk) and at saturday's wedding there were more of them than I ever imagined so I'd rather forget.

Yeah Steve I had a K1000 too..nice cameras ...technology was rampant then and the manual lens even had a little needle which, as long as it was in the middle, took care of exposure.

We might as well all wish Don a great vacation on the end of this week as he boards the cruise ship moving steadily up the gangway with his walker firmly in front of him.

Chris

Heh, Chris...that's a powered walker! Yeah thinking back to the "good old days" is something I really try not to do but every once in a while...I can remember my first still cameras and almost all the lenes but I can't remember my first video camera although I DO remmeber it was a 2 piece (camera and deck) and it weighed about a thousand pounds AND it was BETA of course.

Steven thanks for the Bon Voage, it's something we do every year and it's about the only time we get the all the kids and grandkids together in the same place at the same time since 1 of my kids lives out of state. Plus we love taking cruises. My wife has already told me what we're doing in 2015 for our 45th anniversary. A European cruise.
anyway, I've got a few more days to be a smart a** around here and then I'll be out for 10 days so bear with it gang, I'm almost there!

Ohyeah Chris, I can sprint up the stairs but I'm way out of breath when I do that sooooo...I don't! ;-)

Hi Don

I need one of those!! The venue on Saturday had a set of 3 groups of stairs to get down to the hotel, then another set to get down to the front terrace and a huge set down to the ceremony venue..My trolley of course doesn't handle stairs so it's a case of lugging equipment up and down.

I had a variety of cameras but the biggest recorder was my Sony UMatic, just about broke your shoulder!
I was rather happy when Panasonic brought out the "M" series cameras that were all in one with the big VHS cassette.

Even my HMC82's give me an aching back at the end of the night but the Sony is a lot lighter and a real gem to use shoulder mounted and Noa's idea of splitting the light battery works really well. I just have to get the Sony configuration right now as the image is not as great when the iris hits F16!! I will figure it out by next weekend ...I'm shooting two weddings back to back while you laze on the sundeck. Life ain't fair!!

Chris

You guys are almost ready to mount a Go Pro on the front rail of your walker. And if Don puts his Eight Power LED on there he will always get the shot because the crowd will part when they see him coming.

I am not quite there yet:

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3577/3543901412_996eab0179.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/phxphotog/3543901412/)
SteveShooting (http://www.flickr.com/photos/phxphotog/3543901412/) by PHXPHOTOGRAPHER (http://www.flickr.com/people/phxphotog/), on Flickr

Steve

Gentlemen,

Now that we have completely and totally hijacked Noa's thread with our jokes....is there a legitimate way to start a tread within EA50 for banter so we don't offend the true information guys? There is only a few of us contributing so the totally off topic section would not work. I am enjoying getting to know you guys but I don't want to upset anyone. Sorry Noa if I got carried away on your thread. A sense of humor and reality are important to me. Life and business are too important to take seriously.

Steve

technology was rampant then and the manual lens even had a little needle which, as long as it was in the middle, took care of exposure.

My practica LTL had that too! :)

Steve: I don't mind if a thread wanders off a bit, as long as it is being put on track now and then it's ok. :) I think it's hard to prevent on a forum, if you have a blog you can catogerise posts much better and just take out any non related discussion yourself.

Hi Noa,
well, I am not an ea50 owner (yet possibly), but it is clear that a few of us oldies come from the foundations of still photography. (I am the senior citizen here at a ridiculously young 67, so respect please!) Starting off with a Practica nova in 1959 and then a Practicamat, I progressed to my beloved Pentax S1A before going into medium format with Bronica and Hassleblad ( a dog eared one !) and a weston light meter.

It was on joining a photographic society that the President said to me, when I showed him the shiny Bronica, " a set of high quality paint brushes won't make you Rembrandt". So I started learning the craft- rule of thirds , Golden eye, let the camera capture the image, you capture the emotion etcetera.

I think that photography and the the study of the greats such as Cappa , Bresson and even Beaton give the budding videographer an insight into how to capture emotion or mood in an image , and we are the better for this grounding.

I lost count of how many still photos I took and discarded with great disappointment because they didn't have that magic. Occasionaly ( very rarely ) they did, and I leaned from them. I apply the same analytical view of my work now and still discard much, the learning continues!!!!!

Right, I'm off to tune up the wheelchair ( a great substitute for a steadicam !!) and off for a spin down the yellow brick road.
Cheers!
Rod

Hi Rod

My very first was actually a TOPCON ..it was a nice camera too!! Also an exposure meter and that was about all!!

Well, we are trying hard to convert you back to Sony too!! I know you love them so get rid of your other shoulder mount Sony and grab an EA-50 ...Your photography skills will be needed again if you do... the form factor is really and truely awesome ... first time I worked all night without an aching back!!

Chris

Hi Chris,
Yes I do love the shoulder mount and still have a Sony HXR MC2000. ( just about to sell it- can't stand touch screens!!) But I am finding that the Panasonic AC160A is just so versatile that I know of nothing that competes value for money-wise.

I only wish that it was a shoulder mount camera- that would do it fo me. Current shoulder mounts with similar specifications are just so expensive and for my work , ND filter switching works perfectly. Added to which most of my work is tripod mounted with the odd excursion with my steadicam Pilot rig, I am reasonably happy. But there are times when I yearn just to heave this camera onto my shoulder without loupes and rigs- ho hum-- In the words of Gillian welch, " you cannot have all things t' please ya!"
Cheers!
Rod.
PS. thanks for posting your trials, I must say that your panny turns in a very challenging performance against the Sony. ( But I am only viewing on a 23" screen.)

Thanks Rod

The HMC's even with their tiny 1/4" chips are amazing cameras..Looking at footage on a big screen they are truely amazing so I might also keep them... in bright light they excell!! I'm still very lothe to dump them but they do suffer very badly in low light so I might at this stage shoot with 3 cameras at weddings ..the Panny's at outdoor stuff, then the Sony on the stedicam cos it's WAY lighter and doesn't kill me!! But the Sony does work very well in low light especially with a prime lens. Compared with the HMC's at the wedding the Sony image is softer on outdoor scenes but that might just be the very slow lens?? I will shoot some stuff on Saturday with primes and see what happens. The footage matches nicely too.

Chris

Well Rod there are some other oldies here too, I turned 71 last week. My hobby has got more serious since I retired but I have always really shot theatre even back in 8mm film days with a film club.Organizing to shoot a musical of 2 hours with 16 Super8 cameras was quite the task. Occasional training shoots that I still do infrequently now but mainly dance and theatre. My interest in the EA50 was as an alternate to my NX5U ( which Panasonic carefully copied for the AC160 with newer sensors etc but still left out a few things and JVC with the new 600/650 models). Current cameras are NX5U, CX700, XR500 and SR11 all Sony's of course as well as a GoPRo Hero3 Black edition and a ContourHD that I use as headcams when I go out West skiing. As far as stills go for me it has always been for family memories and my Minolta SLR is still in its bag where it has been for 20 years !!! Current still camera is a SOny HX30 that shoots stills and full HD 60p video just like my video cameras and very nice too ( something else I take skiing ). Starting in film of course I also took all the training in rule of thirds etc of good composition. Some of the stuff on TV todays shows that camera person or director may not have had the same training!!!!

My current thoughts are to expand my small Sony's with a NX30 and then maybe get a VG30,which I am sure in Sony's usual approach is the basis of the EA50 !!!

Ron Evans

Hi Ron, and all
Seniority honours to you then! (Ski-ing eh? you put my morning walk to shame!)

It sounds as if we all reached 28 years old and stuck there, but just kept piling up the experience- no bad thing! And yes you are right, I too have seen the occasional truly aweful "pro" video work- particularly in my field of industrial and commercial work. I see the common mistake is more often to do with structure and engagement. Particularly in instructional videos- if you are expecting to train people with a video you have to ensure it is engaging enough to watch!

Apologies to you Noa for a complete digression from your thread, but you started it by displaying your composition prowess and highlighting how a background in photography enhances a vidographers skill set. And its been great to get to know some new colleagues too!
Cheers!
Rod

Me too. 67 and counting. :)

Hi Robert,
good to hear from you. A word of advice- stop counting NOW! I stopped when I realised the numbers were only going one way and I couldn't find the rewind button!

Cheers!
Rod

Great response. I resemble that remark. :)