A new Canon contender -- the SX20

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by John Abbey

the lensmate adpater is a bayonet mount that goes on end of the sx20 lens, and has 58mm threads on the other end..

OK -- so HOW does it connect to the SX20 lens if it does use the threads?

And, what about a lens hood?

When I put my 52mm ND on the Sony 52mm -- the Canon hood no longer fits.

PS: I'm still puzzled by how there can be two different 52mm sizes? One screws in and one doesn't.

[Laurence Kingston]

I just bought then returned a 52mm UV filter yesterday. The size was right, but it looks to me like the Powershot is grooved rather than threaded. I could twist it in a little but I couldn't tighten it. It just sort of sat there loosely.

I do like Cineform with my SX-1. I use this as an extra camera with a Sony HVR-Z7 being my main camera. I use Sony Vegas and it previews the Cineform very smoothly without dropping frames but gets maybe three or four frames per second in the native .mov format. Vegas plays video in a .mov container but not terribly efficiently so the situation is probably quite different for FCP users. The cRGB to sRGB conversion makes the SX-1 blend quite a bit better with my Z7 and seems to avoid the blown out looking highs that I get otherwise. Vegas also smart-renders the Cineform very quickly. Quality of Cineform encoding is really good even after many generations and thanks to the smart-rendering it only re-renders when it has to. Your mileage may vary, but for me, Cineform is quite useful with this camera.

[John Abbey]

as I have mentioned before, you have to buy the adapter for it that is grooved for the 52mm bayonet style mount on the end of the lens..this adapter has 58mm threads on the other end for your filter..works great.you can then attach your lens hood to the filter if you like..it is impossible to attach any filter directly to this camera lens.

[Laurence Kingston]

OK, I get it now. You use this adapter:

Lensmateonline - Canon PowerShot SX20/SX10 & SX1 IS

Just one more question. It looks like you might want to get one for each filter you use (say one for a UV filter and one for a polarizer) in order to be able to change it quickly. Is that what you do? Not too horrible at $15.95 each.

[John Abbey]

well you could do that but not needed. just grip the adapter and unscrew the filter, put on another one..or better yet, just leave the UV filter in place all the time and just screw another filter on top of that..note you may get vignetting at the full wide setting. And whats going to make this camera even better than it is, is the chdk firmware hack will be available soon (its in beta now) and you will be able to shoot raw and get access to the superfine jpg setting among other things..
http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/SX20

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by John Abbey

as I have mentioned before, you have to buy the adapter for it that is grooved for the 52mm bayonet style mount on the end of the lens..this adapter has 58mm threads on the other end for your filter..works great.you can then attach your lens hood to the filter if you like..it is impossible to attach any filter directly to this camera lens.

So the end of the lens is 52mm and it is grooved, but it's "groove" is not the same as a 52mm filter thread. Correct?

So, somehow, my 52mm Sony ND filter must have thread that fits in where the adaptor goes.

Now my problem is that I own an $80 52mm ND filter, but I suspect the 52mm adaptor can't accept a 52mm lens. Unless, the make one that doesn't alter size.

[John Abbey]

the end of the lens is 52mm, but its not threaded ! it is a weird bayonet mount..thats why you need that adapter and yes you have to use 58mm filters with it.

[Graham Hickling]

Quote: The whole CineForm premise is that there is an advantage to not editing native formats .... no intermediate is needed with any current pro editor.

I disagree. AVCHD decoded directly by current Adobe products (AME, Premiere) gives a poor result, with chroma artifacts that can be avoided with a Cineform workflow. See for example these images, which are framegrabs from 720p60 AVCHD from a HMC40, converted to avi using AME vs. HDLink (i.e. Cineform). Compare the edges of the red pack.

[John Abbey]

Hey Graham, I think you posted in the wrong place?

[Graham Hickling]

John, I was responding to post #15 - that's where the "quote" is from....

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Graham Hickling

Quote: The whole CineForm premise is that there is an advantage to not editing native formats .... no intermediate is needed with any current pro editor.

I disagree. AVCHD decoded directly by current Adobe products (AME, Premiere) gives a poor result, with chroma artifacts that can be avoided with a Cineform workflow. See for example these images, which are framegrabs from 720p60 AVCHD from a HMC40, converted to avi using AME vs. HDLink (i.e. Cineform). Compare the edges of the red pack.

There likely are poor AVCHD and H.264 decoders used by some NLEs -- and I should have thought of that. My bad.

There's been a lot of encoder comparisons, but I don't know about decoders. I would expect CineForm to be one of the best. My problem is that FCP uses ProRes and Avid uses DNxHD -- and both have their own real-time engine. As I remember, CineForm can't run under Apple's or Avid's real-time engine.

So that leaves Premiere because Adobe allows it's real-time engine -- which isn't real-time at all -- to be replaced by CineForm's engine. But, now Adobe has developed a GPU RT engine for Premiere. I wonder if they will allow it to be replaced. Maybe we will find-out at NAB.

PS: Panasonic's new 1080p60 consumer camcorder skips AVCHD for H.264.

[John Abbey]

Originally Posted by Graham Hickling

John, I was responding to post #15 - that's where the "quote" is from....

sorry my bad...

[Anmol Mishra]

The SX20 IS comes with a HDMI output. CHDK allows for a 10-bit RAW capture - so clearly the internal processing is 10-bit. There is a chance that the HDMI output is actually 10-bit 4:2:2 720P - a first in the camera world.
Would anyone care to check with a HDMI uncompressed 10-bit frame grab ?
I am just not sure how the color data can be checked to see if it does indeed have 10-bit colorspace.
Would be an interesting experiment anyway.
And if it is indeed 10-bit, we have a camera with the sensor size of the EX-1 for under 400 bucks..

[John Abbey]

well the bummer is the CHDK is still in beta for this camera, I am waiting patiently for it to come out and make this camera even better..