Sample A1 Footage
 

Here's a short clip I shot using the DISJECTA custom preset. 2 things stand out for me-

1 The Canon lens distorts quite a lot at the wide settings (the cable car pillar at the beginning is actually vertical and yes my tripod was levelled)

2 The DISJECTA preset gives larger than life colours on a sunny day! I will probably tone down the saturation in future. It's a glorious image though.

Richard

http://www.jaegercat.com/~richard/SentosaCableCars.wmv

That "keystoning" distortion looks terrible.I will have to do some tests myself on that type of subject material. Other wise looks good.

It is download at 15 kb/s. Is it on your server's end?

Hi Andrew. I think the server is very slow sometimes. Sorry about that but it's all I have available.

Richard

There is quite a bit of keystone distortion at full wide on the XH A1. Don't know what to think. Has anyone used Canon's wide-adapter? I have never used lens adapters. Is the barrel/pincushion distortion worse?

Hi John. I have a CO 0.7X converter that I bought for my XL2, and modified it to fit on the A1. However, I haven't actually shot any footage with it yet on the A1, because the standard lens is already quite a bit wider than the XL2 lens and I don't feel the same need to fit the converter. When used with the XL2, this converter does show barrel distortion at the wide end, but I still found it very useable most of the time. Depends on whether there are vertical lines in the shot I suppose.

Richard

Andrew - I'm pulling it down @ 100+ kb per sec.

Thanks for the info! I love it wide and close.

John, I did some stillshots with and without the CO 0.7X WA Adapter. I was actually trying to check out the keystone distortion in my sample clip, but thought I'd include the WA for comparison purposes since you mentioned it.

I took 2 shots at full wide angle with and without the adapter fitted, and also at a not so wide angle obtained by turning the zoom ring 3 notches. Don't know what the exact setting was, but I made sure to not disturb it while I removed the adapter.

Here's a couple of comments from what I see in these pictures. Others are free to chime in.

First, the distortion in the basic lens is barrel distortion, and is not bad considering how wide it goes. the keystoning of the original sample clip could be due mainly to the composition of the shot as I was well below the cable car tower and peering up at an angle.

Second, by zooming in slightly, i.e. not using the full wide angle the lens is capable of, the barrel distortion reduces very quickly.

Finally, the WA Adapter, although it increases the barrel distortion and has obvious CA, does not drop as much resolution as you might expect from an SD lens. I consider the modification to make it fit on the XH-A1 to be time well spent and will be happy to keep on using it where necessary.

Richard

Richard
Thise were very revealing shots. Backing off the full wide does seem to make a significant difference in the distortion. I shoot product stuff (stills) and I am making the transition to video as part of what I will offer. So this kind of detail helps me. Thanks

Hi John. I should really have mentioned it before. Just in case it's not obvious to everybody, when I adjusted the zoom I moved the tripod to compensate, to get roughly the same framing. That's why the image size isn't changing much.

Richard

I moved the cable cars file to a different server. Hopefully the download time will be shorter.

http://www.jaegersing.com/SentosaCableCars.wmv