Stan -

Keep in mind that the stills are by nature interpolated - IIRC the max sensor resolution equates to about 5M pixel...

That said, they ain't bad, If you have something in mind I'll shoot some samples and send 'em your way. I've got a couple things I was going to upload, but they apparently exceed the file attachment limits here - not file size, but H and or W, if I read it right... the files are around 2.5M for the widescreen format, 3.5m for the full 10Mp size. I have a couple shots taken in high wind conditions of a short palm tree and lots of detail, fence, rocks, grass, etc in the frame, and a couple shots of a faded Jack in the Box antenna ball - the background is properly out of focus, and considering how much things were whipping about in the wind, the shots are good.


I found that with some post smoothing I could get some pretty good looking results. Initially I was disappointed with some of the noise/patterning I saw in the pictures, but that was zooming in pretty tight. After experimenting some, I'd be comfortable shooting this as a still camera - it does improve upon earlier cameras (7 series, 4 and 6 M Pixel), and I've had acceptable results from those.

I had high hopes for the dual mode in this camera, and I'm only a little disappointed. Is it equivalent to a 10.2Mp cam with a good lens, NO, equivalent to a decent 5Mp point and shoot, at least, and maybe a bit more.

BUT, keep in mind you can shoot 7Mp stills as many as you want (there can be some delays between shots, still trying to figure that out, I'm guessing there is some buffering going on) simultaneously with shooting video - THAT's the really cool feature in my book, and the place where this cam breaks new ground - I am almost wishing it could trigger flash while shooting video too, but that opens it's own can of worms.

FWIW, I know that one of Ron's shots was a tad out of focus, and that can happen with any cam... AF can get lost, it's not indicative of overall quality.

Stan, here's a shot that appears razor sharp on my 60" Pioneer plasma. I can even zoom a couple of notches and the picture still won't break down. To be honest, since I didn't really care about the photo capture, I can't even tell you this was shot at the highest resolution since I used the widescreen format for my plasma.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8RXJQW4F

Hi Ken -
Thanks for that still, looks like the 7.2Mp resolution offhand.

I do see the patterning and artifacting that I was describing with my SR11, but it's at pretty high zooms.

I have a good quality 10Mp still cam, and you can zoom in with stills from that camera and everything is smooth, unlike the SR11, BUT, the SR is not bad considering it's a video camera.

The thing I find a bit odd is how incredibly smooth the highest res video is in comparison, but I'm going to just speculate that the algorithm used is optimized for big screen TV type display, which might well be a bit different from a "print photo" algorithm. I know that high res still pictures don't always fare so well when displayed on a big TV... so perhaps that's what is up with the way the picture is processed.

I fiddled in post with some filters to reduce digital noise, and got some very usable results, so I think the cam is "there" as far as a practical "everyday" dual use cam with good resolution.

NO question at all, the stills LOOK good when you stand back and view them on a proper display (your picture looks great on my 24" monitor, as do the test shots I've taken, that's bigger than an 8x10...), so I guess as a practical matter, any noise/pattern/artifacting is acceptable as long as you're not trying agressive zoom/crop type things in post. I've got to do some actual prints and see how they come out, but I expect that you'd be good up to at least 8x10, probably quite a bit larger with some careful post processing.

I think for those few of us who are actually crazy enough to want to use the cam for stills TOO, this cam is revolutionary. Not perfect, but when coupled with the video quality, definitely makes this camera a winner.

Yeah Dave, I for one don't zoom in at extreme measures to these things, so there's really zero visible noise or patterning. On my 60" Pioneer, the detail is actually better than the full motion, highest quality video. In fact, I've never seen any HD video, in any format, with this kind of detail and smoothness that shows in the picture on my plasma.

The thought that kept popping in my head was 'if the video looked like this, this would be the next format advance in HD'...it's that good on the plasma.

Thanks for the feedback guys, and thanks for uploading your shot, Ken!

I agree with Dave's assessment of the still. Displayed on a big monitor/TV, the picture looks very nice -- the stop sign, and the building in the back are both very sharp. The trees branches on the left are a little washed out, but it's not too bad.

Zooming in, you can really see some problems that would be exposed when blowing up a shot to anything over 8x10. I'd love to see an 8x10 print of this shot to see if it would work at that size (I'll probably try a test print), but I have no doubt that it would look nice at 5x7. 8x10 with a little bit of post work should be fine, and even shots with my D50 need a little post for perfect results.

It certainly is good to know that I could take an SR11/12 to some casual outings and get the best of both worlds!

Stan -
Fiddle with a few digital noise reduction filters, you may be quite surprised with the results. I was hesitant at first, but I'm about 95% happy with the still results.

I'm going to guess 8x10 is not going to be a problem if you don't crop in too much - framing/composing is going to be important for still use.

Also much may depend on your photo printer - I picked up one of those little Epsons at a pre Christmas sale (rediculously low price), and it's doing some magic print wise that blows away anything else I've tried, at least for 4x6. I'd buy a large format version anytime, but I don't think they even make anything like that - for a sub $100 consumer print device, it's amazing - I want to run some shots from the SR11 through it and see how they come out, just haven't gotten round to it.

Oh, yeah, I think Ken's shot was through a window, which may account for some of the slightly washed out details - I know I saw some strangeness in one of Ron's pix, then I realized it was a REFLECTION in the window he was shooting from!

Dave, it was actually shot out of an open window and you're seeing a bit of the window frame on the right. But I'll tell you, looking at it on my 60" 1080p Pioneer, it's almost impossible to believe that an 8X10 print wouldn't look great. The detail on the screen is 'never-ending', so perhaps it is geared somehow for display on an HDTV. The overall look on the plasma of this still image is actually superior to the highest quality video of the same scene, so it's hard to believe a reasonable sized print wouldn't look great assuming it's not cropped all that much.

Dave,
I gave it a shot, and you're right, you can definitely improve the image with some noise reduction. I played with the photo only for a bit, but I got the tree on the left looking much sharper, but the trees above the school are beyond repair, IMO. Any noise reduction or sharpening I tried turned them into an impressionist painting :).

So, you're happy with the Epson 4x6 printer? I bought my mom one of those about 3 years ago, so she can print the photos I send her, and it broke down after about 4 months of printing :(. That turned me off from those little photo printers. I might have to revisit them!

Ken,
Your plasma is only showing about 30% of the image size (pixel-wise), so if the camera (or whatever you're using to display the image) is doing a good job of shrinking the picture down, it will naturally look sharper than it is. Similarly, a 4x6 will probably look great, but printing an 8x10 at 300dpi will need just about all of those 7M pixels, so every little imperfection will show...

I think I'm trying to set the expectations on this thing a little too high, though. Realistically, for what it is -- a video camera first -- it takes pretty damn good photos. It means that when I'm looking to take some stunning photos, I should bring my DSLR, but when I'm looking to capture a special moment in a photo, the SR12 will do a fine job (while taking stunning videos at the same time!).

Stan, could be since my plasma is the 60" 1080p Pioneer Kuro Elite, generally regarded as one of the best HDTVs ever made. It does have amazing scaling, so you could be right. But I thought the SR12 had a 1920X1080 still option...I need to check that. As I've said, I never use these cams for this purpose and the only reason I did was becasue someone had asked me a question relative to that capability.

But after seeing the results, at least for viewing on an HDTV (which I actually far prefer than a small print...of course it doesn't make for great sharing :)), I could see using it for this purpose too.

Yes Dave my shots were through a window it was -22C outside!!!!!! The shots of the doll and flowers were a little too close for the focusing at full tele I think but I am very pleased with the stills for video camera.

Ron Evans

The more I work with the camera, the better I like it overall, and I guess the most important comparison of stills would be against any other video cam out there... and in that respect this is "the best", at least for now!

Yeah Dave, if you had seen the stills I captured from my HF10 before I sold it, you'd realize how on the mark you are.

I don't know why my findings are different but in comparing the SR12 to the HF100 (I got both in a store that allows 5 days no restocking) the canon is a lot less noisy in low light when using cine mode at 60i. In these conditions, the 30i and 24p studder, and the motion is nowhere near as good. Maybe I am doing something wrong, but I don't think so. The SR12 does keep focus a little better. I will let you know more results I get them.

Regards,
Mario

Mario, I'm not sure what the Canon does in cinemode, but when I tried it I didn't care for the results (I only tried it outdoors, not under low light conditions). It really flattens out the contrast, even though IMO the HF10 contrast is too high at default. I also saw a loss of detail in cinemode, so it could be this loss of detail that's resulting in less noise in low light.

I've still been looking at camcorders in stores (still haven't been able to see an HF10/100 yet), and to me the biggest problem these cameras have in low light is that they try as hard as they can to make a dark scene look like a bright scene, which isn't really what your eye sees. They don't modify their exposure strategy in dark settings, they just try to make the average scene 18% gray like they do in normal lighting. To do this, they have to boost the signal quite a bit, which amplifies noise along with the signal.

All of these cameras have similar pixel sizes (within 20-30% or so). Cameras differ in their processing, but you can't get around physics, so you either get an image with less noise but the low contrast detail has been removed, or an image with the noise passed through but where the noise is bigger than the low contrast detail anyway.

I haven't been able to see one yet, but what the Canon might be doing in Cine mode, is modifying the exposure so that a dark scene actually looks dark on the video, as it was to your eyes. The scene will look dark, as it was in reality, but there will also be less amplification of noise.

I have not tried Cine in day time yet. Will do so today and probably report back tuesday night (Finals are killing me). I will also review what I have shot. Dave you may be right. Ken you may also be right. There is still much to review. I wish I had more time to do so.

Until then...
Regards,
Mario

See here a video on vimeo using cinemode in low-light: http://vimeo.com/897818

And here's one with cinemode in daylight (60i):

http://vimeo.com/871449

Unfortunately, there is no clip of the same low light scene in normal mode to compare, but the low light scene shot in cine mode does indeed look as if was exposed in such a way that the camera did not try to brighten it up as they normally seem to do. The scene actually *looks* dark, as it probably did in real life. The darkness of the scene might not match everybody's tastes, but it probably did help keep the noise down by not gaining up as much.

I agree Dave. You can get this same effect by reducing the exposure on the SR12 or with some cameras where gain is accessible, reducing gain. I hate the 'hyped' look that some of these cameras give you by artifically upping contrast & brightness.

The effect is achieved using a progressive frame rate (and since the frame rate is lower you get better exposure). The cinemode makes sure the gain is not cranked up.

But with the side effect of stuttering motion. You can achieve this too with the color slow shutter of the Sony which also brightens the scene but at the cost of smooth motion.

Hey Luc, did you move from Washington to Phoenix? ;)

I must be in Bizzaro world because my finding seem to differ from what I have read and seen on other sites. I did some daytime trials. The photograph of either do not impress me, but that is not what I am using this for. The HF10 seems to IS a bit better to me, but its colors are all out of wack. It flattened greens and made my cherry hedge look like it had christmas lights instead of the little cherries, i.e. the reds where incredibly pronounced, unnaturally so.

The SR12 took more realistic video that looked like real life, the cannon not so much. A very flat look indeed in the green spectrum and the reds were HOT! I will try to turn the gain down on the sony and test it out if I have a chance.

Unfortunately I don't know if the price difference justifies the sony. I got the HF100 for $668 at a B&M store around here. I could not believe it. The Sony SR12 was $1150!!!! I know I can get it cheaper elsewhere but I have credit at this place and I have until January to pay it off, so I think I will go to this place to make my purchase. I want to check out the HV30 to see how it compares. Next trial, trying to render this crap and watch it on my AMD64 3300 with 3 gigs of memory and a X1600pro. Wish me luck! ;-(

Regards,
Mario

Yes, you can always achieve that using manual exposure or AE shift.

In bright lighting, the eye does compensate for different average illumination levels, but it also has a sense of absolute brightness at low levels of illumination and there is a point where a scene is dark enough that it actually *looks* dark to the eye. Most of the time, I like to capture that feeling in the image.

Auto exposure systems in still cameras have the same issue - they try to make every scene 18% gray - I usually have to compensate the exposure in dark settings if I want the photo to have the feeling of the original dark scene.

Mario -
No surprise for me on the "hot" reds with Canon - I saw it with my HV20, and I've seen it more than once with Canon cameras. SR11 seems to have one of the best and most natural color balances around, even better than the 7 series, which was pretty faithful on colors that usually seem to get "altered".

I almost always set AE shift a couple clicks to the minus side, although using the exposure function via the control wheel has been working well too. Zebras often show this to be needed for "best" exposure anyway. While this is somewhat limited manual control, you can get used to it and make it work well under most conditions.

That's a nice price on the HF, but I'll bet you'll end up with the Sony <wink>.

Mario, if you're shooting at the highest resolution (which is much higher on the Sony), you should be getting both a sharper picture and better colors. We certainly are in agreement on the colors of the Canon...very weird at times.

Edit: OK, I see you were talking about the image stabilization. As a sidenote, it's kind of weird there seems to be no way to delete a post.

You might try deleting all of the contents during editing, maybe it will then delete the post. Seems I remember a system a long time ago that worked that way, but it's just a guess - YMMV

Actually, $1150.00 is also a really good price for an SR12 (assuming it's really an SR12 and not an SR11). I hope it's a reputable store.

Yes, Dave, it is reputable and I have my camera in hand. They don't do phone or internet sales, though.

I am really disappointed in my findings and may have determined that HD is not where I want it to be to justify the investment. I have used stills and point and shoot video up to now for convenience. With that in mind, is there an SD camcorder/s you guys can recommend. I know its off topic and I won't post anything about your suggestions, but I may be leaning towards returning everything and going SD. The fact that the canon has such bad colors really disappointed me because the price difference was large. I simply can justify $1000 for a product that is not producing what I consider incredible results. I could deal with low light noise, but bad colors, no way! Especially since I just can dump a file that is immediately playable on my computer. The idea was to post video on youtube to let everyone know how my vacation was going. Now that seems impossible on my 2.5 year old lap top.

If I cant get outstanding results I don't want to pay over $500 and certainly don't want to sacrifice easy viewing. Only the results I have got from the SR12 would be worth the hassel but not the cost.

If you choose not to give any suggestions because the off-topic nature of my request, please point me to a forum where I can make this inquiry. Again thanks! and I am not off the band wagon just yet, so I may be back full force.

Kind Regards,
Mario

Mario, I can understand your frustrations with the Canon, been there done that. The colors are just not reliable and can really look whacky at times.

It's too bad the Sony's price isn't more in your range.

I scored a deal on my SR11, and it would be in your price range - maybe take a look at that model instead, there's $200 difference for the same cam with smaller HDD... you get the quality you want at a better price, IF you can get one from your dealer.

I will check on the SR11 but it is still $300 or 50% more than the canon and I did not like its low light performance so much, though I have not tried reducing the gain. The day performance of the sony was only lacking in image stablization. It did seem to jump more than the canon. I cannot believe that canon will put out a unit with that kind of color. Its unfortunate that Ken reports that the HV20/30 has the same problem. I hope the 40D I am going to buy won't do the same, though that may be easier to correct in photoshop.

Now that I brought up the HV20/30, is that also a computer intensive video to download and perhaps watch on my computer? It really sucks that I can't work with this on my lap top. That is another reason why I am thinking of going with SD.

On another note, I wish the TG1 was out. Its small size and better price point may have been the fit for me. Is there another Sony that is around the price of the HF100 that works well enough? I know the retailer has the cx7 and the sr10 but I believe those are older AVCHD coms that have some of the artifacts you all spoke of.

Again, thanks for your help.

Well, I only paid about $150 more for my SR than you mentioned for your HF... but it was a very lucky deal, the camera is a fast seller, so is sort of hard to come by, you probably will be seeing higher quotes...

Pull back the exposure, that's what I use the control knob for - rein in the automatic functions a bit. Might do the trick. Because "low light" is such a big point of critique, I think they try hard to pull evey last bit out of info our, and something has to give.

Depending on your laptop specs, an HDV cam might be easier to work with - you could downconvert over firewire to SD and have the HD tape for later. AVCHD the only way to downconvert is capture via the composite (yelllow RCA) output...sort of clunky.

I also wasn't thrilled with the HV20 IS, among other things, and went with the HC7 and also have used the HC9 - might be worth a look if you go HDV.

I also have the CX7, and personally haven't had any artifact problems with it, I found it smoother than the 7 series HDV cams... but you're back with the AVCHD processing issue. Incredible (and underrated) little cam if you ask me.

SR 10 is curent generation, but not sure which sensor it uses offhand - it's the "baby bro" to the SR11/12, and I "think" it has EXMOR/Bionz... sometimes these "baby" versions (HC5 was a good example, seen them on eBay for $450!) don't sell as well, so maybe you can get a deal while everyone is snapping up the SR11/12?

Trying to coax a 2.5 yeap old laptop to process HD video of any type is probably pushing it unless you're patient. Thus, perhaps HV20/30 or HC7/9 and downconvert from the cam might be your best shot, then do HD editing when you get back. Best of both worlds as it were - SD for the road, HD for later!

Thanks Dave! Thats great. I think that may be the route for me. I can probably get a deal on the HC-9. Is HDV the only format that will allow me to down convert to SD so I can upload easily to youtube and watch on my computer screen, I did some reading and I think the AVCHD units do it also. The SR10 has the same 1/5 sensor the TG1 is going to have. I wonder what the smaller sensor does to affect picture quality. Cant be good. The HC9 has a 2.9 inch sensor and the CX7 a 3". However, s the CX7 not last years technology that is prone to artifacts? I don't know what the opinion on the SR10 is...

Mario, actually the color on the HV20 is better than that of the HF10. If the color on the HV20 was as bad, I probably would never have kept the HV20. I haven't played with the HV30, so I can't comment on its color.

Dave and Mario, the SR10 uses a 1/5" chip, but the clips I've seen from it are very impressive. In fact, in good light, I don't think it gives up much, if anything to the SR11/12. I haven't played with one myself, but the one area you might take a hit is low light considering the smaller chip.

If the new TX1 performs anything like the SR10, that might be an incredible achievement given its size.

I agree with the comments on low light automatic exposure on the Sony's. This is true for my HC96 DV, SR11 and the SR7. They all need to be pulled back several "clicks" on the manual control to give exposure more like the real picture. This for the SR11 means pulling back from wide open 18db of gain to potentially 12db of gain and the difference is grain being present in the image at 18db and very little grain at 12db and a much nicer image. For the SR7 and HC96 full open and 18db is an unusable picture. I don't know why they do this as it does nothing for the reputation of the camera at all. This doesn't happen in my PC10 DV but just starts to be this way for the TRV50 and TRV740. So over time of 8 years or so Sony has gradually introduced this characteristic. However on all these cameras its is easy to correct. Just don't use automatic when its dark!!!

Ron Evans

This is the best advice with *all* cameras. The only exception might be some cams that have a scene mode that handles dark scenes better automatically, like apparently some of the Canons.

I was also playing around in the store with the Panasonic SD9, which is sort of the "black sheep" on this forum because of low light performance (too much NR, basically), and found even with that camera, I can get much better results by using manual exposure in low light. It lets you readily control gain and shutter independently, and I found that I could force it into 1/24 shutter sooner than it normally likes to do, and then cut the gain down by 5-6dB or so to where the scene looks more like it did in real life. At the lower gain, the camera then applies less NR for a nicer image, in addition to being more realistic.

Automatic modes have gotten so good over the last 20 years that we tend to forget that there are still some times when manual works better.

I forgot to report that you all are right. Pulling down the gain really improves the image right on par, or maybe better than the HF10. I have also found out from sony that all of sonys AVCHD cameras WILL NOT down convert. However, the software CAN convert it!!!

I am going to do a little more research and report my findings. Dave, can you tell me where you got the SR11 or is that not allowed here?

Is the SR10 a new camera? I checked out the specs at B&H and Sony - it has a 1/5" sensor (as you mention), 15x optical zoom, no mic or headphone jack (similar to SD9 in that respect), no camera control dial and very little manual control, but it still weighs 1.2 pounds and costs $999. Despite the 15X optical zoom and relatively small $100 price difference, I'm having trouble seeing why anyone would want to buy this camera over an SR11. I'd be surprised if the 1/5" sensor is much better in low light than Panasonic's three 1/6" sensors, at least not without heavy noise reduction.

The SR11 should have much better performance for not much more money, and the SD9 is smaller, lighter, $350 cheaper, has better manual controls, and may well have similar low light performance due to the sensor sizes.

Dave, from what I've seen from comments, the prime reason for people buying the SR10 is price. But don't underestimate the video from this puppy. I've been very very impressed with the clips I've seen. I haven't see any low light clips though.

The SR10 came out at the same time as the SR11 & SR12. They all use the same Exmor & Bionz processing. The only differences are the chip sizes & HD sizes as well as the omission of some manual controls you mentioned.