Hey there, another Rhode Islander here.
Have you or has anyone had these results indoors?

I have to say that everything I have shot so far has looked clean. The only time I noticed something similar was when I was shooting sunset across the bay in Bristol at full tele, and just chalked it up to heat waves.

Hope everything works out when you get it back.
I think I'm gonna go put mine to the test now, make sure it's all good.

paul re the clip at same spot - cheers for that be much appreciated (though to be honest just your opinion on it would be sufficient anyway given you'll have had a chance to see both the before and after)

Scott - Ive never had the issue rear its head when the object of interest is at short distance - 4, 5, 6 metres (even with zoom maxed out) at the other extreme I've shot footage of small objects at max zoom from a metre and a half indoors and results are fine

It only starts to get messy when when using 15x to 20x tele end of the lens and focusing on an object 30+ metres distance away

James - For myself its not really an issue in day to day shooting we tend to sit towards wide end of the lens (with 4 or 5x zoom being used at most)

If Paul hadn't raised the issue and got a 'does seem faulty' response from canon Id probably have continued to ignore it, but with Canons response to Paul then like yourself I'm more concerned as to whether the cameras are out of spec and something that could get progressively worse as time goes on etc.

I've shot same scene at night to try and rule out any thermals Theres been no traffic using the road outside for at least an hour and with sun long departed its cold enough around here now to need a heavy sweater while standing at the open window :)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WK4M1N6H

f3.4 1/25 shutter speed gain is +12dB, OIS is off and manual focus is on - doesnt exactly look pretty but shows the 'pulsing' effect

stevie

Same problem
 

I have used mine for three months have had it repaired once already due to backfocus problems. http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=87777
Now a grainy picutre as well. I use preset 17 natural look.

There seems to be poor quality of some ofthe XH-A1 - "Monday" versions - the Canon workers are hang over or something.
Now I am on a reportage trip and have to deliver grainy material from beautiful Norway - feels terrible.

Any quick solution?

When I get back I will try to get another sample of the A1 - a Thursday version or so I hope./Erik

Wow this seems to be happening to quite a few A1's.

James I have tested the same as Steve with no heat at dusk with the same results set up to my component 24" HD monitor. So I do not think it is the heat.

HI fellow Rhody Scott. Sounds like you have the same problem at max zoom.

Steve no problem posting a clip. I hope this is not a flaw with the A1 since I need 12x -20x often.

Erik do you have a clip showing the same problem?

Regarding "is it a heat convection wave or not" issue: I never had an opportunity to try the A1 at full telephoto and with focus at infinity, but I did with the V1, and am getting very bad results sometimes, like in the attachement I posted here:

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....10&postcount=5

I said "sometimes", because I can also get close-ups that are perfectly clean, with no crawling vertical edges, shimmering etc.

So, after all, I do think it's the heat. The current air temperature alone is not enough to determine the convection "should" be visible or not; the temp gradients, humidity and air pressure can also play a role, I guess.

Here's an example of what I get outside sometimes....

Camera about 1800 feet away from trees...cold lake between camera and trees, rocky beach (not warm by any means but sunlit so it could have trapped some heat).

The trees are shimmering like heat waves.

This clip is a cropped portion of the original.

Hi Piotr it is interesting that the Sony also has the same problem from looking at your pictures.

James I see the same problem with your clip. The trees dancing is the same in my clip. Wonder of these low end 24p and 30p cameras can't handle zoom over 12x with out the problem. Even though I have seen my problem at wide just not as easy to see.

Has anyone had this problem with the H1?

Paul, my "problem" is definitely the hot air convection. Been there again at different time of a day, shot exactly the same place - everything is clear and steady in full telephoto.

My A1 doesn't do this & I'm curious why anyone hasn't done this full zoom test somewhere indoors, to rule out or confirm this hot air theory.

Bill

This discussion had me worried. I just got my A1 on Monday so I did some testing today. This is what I have found.

test 1. Shot at full zoom (20x) at a home about 100 yrds away (60i f6.2). On the roof shingles I saw the moving image that has been described. In fact most of the lighter parts of the shot had some movement. i.e. bricks on the front of the house that were in shade

test 2. Shot at full zoom with flowers and foliage about 10 feet way. No image degradation at all in any part of the picture. White flowers to dark green leaves - tack sharp

test 3. Full zoom at a tree with two squirles about 125 feet away (focused on the tree. A home with trees somewhat out of focus on either side of the tree but at about 300 feet away. Again the tree was tack sharp with no image problems but the same movement/shimmering from test 1 was visible in the home and foliage in the background.

test 4. shot the same scenes but with my HV20 at 10x zoom. No noticible movement or shimmering noted.

Temperature was approximately 78 degrees

These tests have led me to believe that atmospheric interference is the culprit coupled with the 20x zoom. With shorter distances between the camera and subject no problems were encountered. Yet in test three I did see the shimmering movement but only in the distant parts of the scene, not the nearer subject matter.

While heat from road surfaces, roofs or other heat collectors will definately produce distorted images when compressed in a telephoto image I don't believe this was the case here.

Microscopic dust, pollen, and other air particles in the air that can not normally be seen are visible when the mass of those particles are compressed in an image with an HD camera and 20X magnification. With sunlight being very specular it will be reflected at different angles and cause the "shimmering" effect. Because the HV20 only has a 10x zoom the air mass is not compressed as much.

Looking through my 55power telescope I see similar shimmering at angles parralel to the ground. When pointing up the are lessoned.

These are just my observations. This is not to suggest that your camera does not have a problem.

my 0.02€: I think what we are seeing here is the combined effects of thermal currents and, as the main culprit, the MPEG compression combined with 1440/1920 pixel stretch.

When there is movement in every pixel between every frame of video, MPEG compression can not handle it. It has to record in bigger chunks and you get grainy picture, basically the resolution drops to half. Camera is not at fault, it is the HDV system which is not good enough. This is made worse by the fact that the picture is recalculated from 1440*1080 to 1920*1080 for display further making the horizontal (edit from "vertical", see below) resolution worse (than the native resolution of a HD display).

We have to remember that HDV is not a "real" HDTV system, it is a system that gives a fairly good approximation of HDTV at amazingly cheap price. We can not expect the impossible. For the impossible just invest 10x the money...

Run a test by recording also native SD of the same situation. If that footage is good, within the limitations of less resolution, then in MPEG did it.

I'd tend to agree that the effect is exaggerated by MPEG compression.

Petri, your explanation make perfect sense

Hi Petri. Sorry I got lost on this part, how is the vertical resolution affected by the 1440 non-square pixels being stretched to 1920 on the display? I thought the vertical resolution (1080) was unchanged. Or do you mean horizontal resolution?

Richard

Hi Bill I did do a test inside hooked up to my monitor and not running the tape. Same problem. Test was 4 meters away and the whole picture was moving. Also if I put the lens cap on the information on the screen was moving. This proved it was not the heat. All while locked on a tripod. To see my setting go to page one.

As for HDV limitation I agree we can not expect too much but the Sony Z1 never had this problem so that made me suspect the camera. And I hope Canon will resolve so I can at least get similar restults to the Z1 on the A1 which I know is possible.

I appreciate all the help and will post with the second new A1 and the serviced A1 when they arrive.

If its an HDV compression or pixel shift related issue (exacerbated by being at that end of the lens) then it would be a constant - Piotrs stable results at his second shoot of same location at full tele suggest it isnt.

Likewise switching to DV from HDV has no impact on the effect on my units. Nor does reframing the shot to cut out all movement from the trees.

If it was a thermals related issue (that does seem to have been involved in Piotrs initial shoot) then Id at least expect a change in the intensity of the effect depending on time of day/night the footage is being taken - whereas the issue on mine (unlike Piotrs) remains the same regardless.

Steven, if it is like you describe, then you're facing some problems with the camera; I hope Canon will fix it for all of you affected. Yes, I can confirm - when I first saw the shots I posted the 2 grabs from, I almost panicked, because the air movement was not visible to my eyes at all while shooting. I tried to recreate this phenomenon in other surroundings, as well as the original one but at different time on the day after - it's perfectly still and clean (I'm talking about the V1E, of course).

However, since as I said the heat wave was not visible to human eyes (at least I didn't notice it; I wasn't looking for it either), I think the comment above on the HDV compression pronouncing this effect might be quite valid. Human eye (or rather the brain) "knows" what we see looking far ahead is 3D space; to the camera's imagers it's just several kilometers deep amount of air, all compressed into a 2D scene; the probablility nothing moves in it is very small!

My mistake, horizontal resolution is ripped apart a bit like you say.

Well the new A1 arrived today and I went through the following test.

1. Side by side with HV-20 hooked up component to one monitor and A1 on the other with both on tripods. Not running tape just going through presets and added two presets. Zoomed to full even though they are different then 1/2 zoom then full wide all looking out the window with window open on a cool clear day. A1 same problem.

2. Inside test side by side no tape running both zoomed in on US map where each state is diffenent color 3 meters distance. A1 same problem.

3. Running tape out side with just A1 on tripod zoomed at 10 meter, 5 meter, then 1 meter. A1 looked very nice at 1, 5, but at 10 started to see noise/grain/movement.

4. Running tape went to previous locations that I shot with my other A1 which Canon agreed there is a problem. Not as bad as the camera I sent back but not even close to the Z1 crips picture. Over 10 meters the picture is not up to my standards.

All test were manual setting with OIS off, gain off, IAF off.

I am sending the second camera back tomorrow and will replace with ?? in the next few days. Sorry I did not have better news I was excited it would be resolved with the new camera. This is not how I planned on spending this week with two jobs now pushed off two weeks so I can resolve. My clients are asking for 30P which is why I sold the Z1 and went A1. Now I need to decide in the next day which direction to go.

Paul, for your reference, here is a link to a clip I shot with my V1E (zooming all the way from wide to tele; apologies for the ugly content- some "socialist reality" remnants here in Poland):

http://rapidshare.com/files/30129684/full_tele.m2t

Paul, I'm trying to help you (and potentially others) to assess the quality of a 20x zoom in those "affordable" camcorders. The previous clip is progressive (25PsF; please play it back without deinterlacing, or severe twittering will be visible - nothing to do with th original problem discussed here), now a link to another scene, this time interlaced:

http://rapidshare.com/files/30147153/tele2.m2t

(again apologies for the hand-held quality).

Piotr thanks for the downloads but the RapidShare system says I have reached my limit and will not let me download.

Paul, I guess you have to wait a couple of minutes - it usually works fine. Sorry the first clip is quite big:).

I have downloaded both but my editing system (avid Liquid) will not play the video only the audio. I have tried in 60i, 25fps, 24fps, non-interlaced, interlaced with no luck.
Do you have other options on sending?

Paul, try VLC media player. It's been mentioned many times on the forums here.

www.videolan.org

Bill

Paul, you don't need NLE - just use any software mpeg player (WMP if your're on Windows, or VLC). VLC is better, as it allows to switch deinterlace on or off (so does Nero Showtime, for instance).

Thanks Bill and Piotr I will now view the files once when I finish with a client in a hour.

I called Canon Service center and the tech will call me back this afternoon with a report. I explained the situation and they were very understanding. Is Canon always this easy to deal with I am very impressed? They told me to hold onto the second camera and feel they can resolve the problem.

I also have my computer guru coming this afternoon. We have another avenue where we think the problem my be happening (my monitor/video card).

Stay tuned and I really appreciate all the help. Where would we be with out DVinfo.net!

Piotr the second video looks crips but hard to tell with all the movement at full zoom but looks like there is not the same problem. But again hard to tell with the movement.

I will wait the 45 min they suggest I have to wait to do the big download.

Piotr your first clip on my 24 HD monitor is great colors. Not as bad with noise/grain as my Canon but I still see a bit at the second half of the zoom.

I think Jim and Petri both have good points. At 20 times there is a problem with heat/movement. And as Petri said I am expecting too much from this level of camera. I am lead at this time to think the Z1 produced a better picture with the Century optics 1.6 tele at full zoom then the A1 and V1 do at full zoom with out the attached lens. That is with Z1 in 60i and the A1 at 30F.

It will be interesting to hear what Canon has to say this afternoon.

Paul, you're right my clips use to fast zooming, but I wanted to show all the stages between full wide and full tele, while keeping the file size as low as possible. Especially the shorter clip; you should probably slow it down near the end to see that there's no wave-like movement at all. As far as the longer one is concerned, I don't notice it anywhere, either. But perhaps I need better eye-glasses?

Piotr you are correct I just looked at it again and maybe I can see 10% of what I am dealing with on both Canon A1 cameras.

I have talked with Canon once today and will call again now.

I am told by Canon after two checks that the camera is to spec. They will send the camera back to me so I have it on Thursday. I will run through test suggested by Canon.

On the video I had sent on a tape which was manual focus they said it was auto focus. I make mistakes but not for 15 minutes of 20 different clips where I checked before and during each clip. They did admit that there is noise and grain but said it is to spec. The clip with the boat off behind the salt marsh they said it was focus hunting. But it was on manual.

Where I stand now is I am sending the second camera back. I can always rebuy it if the problem is solved. Also I am thinking of purchasing a Sony V1 since with the rebate they are within $300 now. Then test the V1 side by side for two days at that point decide what to do.

I have put my Z1 footage on one 24" monitor and A1 on the other in similar clips and you can't compare. Now the HV-20 stands up to the Z1 footage in all the clips.

Enough for today time for a nice evening with my wife.

I`m curious about this problem being a prospective buyer of the A1. I have an H1 at work, and from what I`ve read its the same camera, just the lense is removable (and no jack pack). At full zoom I don`t have any issues, yet with slight movement you can see a "morphing" issue. 00:49 was at full zoom over the water on a 70 degree day. However at 1:00 you can see the tree branches 'morphing around....it was like that in the m2t as well. Any idea why I don`t see full zoom 'heat wave' like yours? And is the 'morphing' effect because of mpeg compression?

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=92992

I sometimes get the full-telephoto heat wave squirm effect also. I also get some weird focus pulse sometimes. (See previous thread http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=84919 )

But none are consistent or repeatable. I'm wondering if it's rf inteference or some other electronic thing. Happens in mf with ois off.

Chuck

Nathan,
The Iproblem I can’t resolve is the constant noise/grain. I get the problem at wide all the way through full zoom it is just more noticeable at full zoom. My computer says your file is corrupt (the Zipped big file) sorry I can't see what you are talking about at 49 sec. I did looke at the small file advertising the tape and that looked fine. I read in detail all of the H1 forum that I could and never heard of the problem. I have thought of going with a H1.

Chuck
The heat wave squirming effect is what I am calling noise/grain. Maybe I have the wrong term but I can’t get rid of it in any setting. Canon said this is not a problem and when the camera is doing this it is within spec. So when it gets back tomorrow I will do four full days of test shooting and see if I can resolve. Meantime the Sony V1 will be on order to fully compare.

Now I'm totally confused & most likely I'll stay that way :D

The H1 is nice, but honestly its not so much a shoulder friendly camera as I hoped it might be which is another reason I`m looking at the A1. The H1 is about 10 pounds loaded and very front heavy. Everyone says the chips and lense are the same on both (though the obvious detachability on the H1) so I`m curious to see how your tests come out. Also, i downloaded my file and it worked fine :\ Not sure whats going on with that.

Bill,
Sorry I am not trying to confuse you. Please let me know how you are confused and I will try and be clearer.

Nathan,
Yea I don't want to add weight to my camera since I am in tight spots on the water. The A1, Z1, V1 size works for me up mast while sailing, moving on the deck in rough weather and down below. There are times in chase boats and helicopters that I could handle a bigger camera but that is only about 25% of my shooting. Sorry I was in a hurry this morning and will try the download again. I had three programs running on my laptop so it might have been the computer.

Nathan,

Yup it was my computer this morning no problem downloading this time.

Nice RI early spring scenes and both ducks bobbing at the same time is fun.

I could no problem at 49 sec.

Paul, I haven't been following this thread so I just kind of skimmed through it. I agree with others that some of what you are interpreting as a camera problem is actually atmospheric conditions. When you are zoomed at full you are actually magnifying heat shimmer and haze that is naturally in the air.

What I would suggest you do is take a set of binoculars to the same scene with you and look through them and see if you are observing the same kind of shimmer.

I have encountered this phenomenon many times while shooting outdoors but have never considered it a camera problem.

Without seeing full rez footage and seeing all the settings on your camera for myself, it's difficult to figure out exactly what is wrong.

Do you know anyone else that has any kind of digital video camera? Even a handycam would be useful to take with you to compare.