Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

For those who may be interested, I've posted some footage that I shot over the weekend with the Z90 Sony has loaned me. his is some test footage As you know, the Z90 is still under development by Sony and the final version won't be released until December 2017. The purpose of this video was to check the camera's performance, features, and settings to see what results I could get and where their limitations lay. Some of the footage is less than perfect as I continued to make changes to refine the settings as I went along. For example, some highlights are blown out that shouldn't be, colors are inconsistent, and some scenes are overly sharp. But I have posted it all anyway so that I can evaluate how it looks once it is posted online. Now that this initial testing has been completed and I have nearly finalized my Picture Profile settings, the next round of testing should result in footage that is more consistent and looks better overall.

Re: Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

Thanks, Doug
I think those are outstanding images
I can't help but believe this is going to be a really good camera.

Re: Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

Looks great. But most of it is down to you knowing how to set it up.

Re: Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

Isn't that true for all cameras?

Re: Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

Knowledge is a great thing.

Re: Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

So true. And when someone watches one of my training videos I can teach them in a matter of hours what it took me me days or weeks to figure out. Time is money.

Re: Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

I have your training for the Z150 & NX100 I would imagine the Z90 would fit in well with this trainer too.
It's the camera eye I have trouble with.

Re: Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

This looks great, even at only HD full screen on a 5K iMac. Was this shot in 4K?

Re: Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

Anything that is slow-mo in the video is HD, and I'd say only about 20% of the "normal" speed footage is 4K. It's easier for me to figure out the camera in HD and then switch to 4K later on.

Re: Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

I am excited to buy one as soon as the price drops...which should happen a few days before they ship the first units...like when I preordered my Z150 at full price and the price dropped before they shipped them to the first customer :-P

Paul

Re: Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

Did you already try 4K with the HDR/HLG curves?! Since Sony claims this camera does "HDR/HLG" this must be at least 10bit since all HDR/HLG defining whitepapers and standards require 10- or 12bit for HDR!
Even Sony claims HDR as a standard with removement of the 8bit limitation.
Is 4K HDR/HLG really 10bit on the Z90?! I don't see any specs about that, only find 2K 10bit.
Could you check the files?!

Re: Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

I am on the road for the next 10 days, but I will take a look when I can and see what info I can decipher from the files. But I'm 99% sure that the files are only ever 10-bit in HD.

Re: Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

Doug, just one question. The X70 lens requires lots of twist to focus. Did Sony address this issue on the Z90? I hope!!! It is very slow to manually focus on both of my X70s.

Re: Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

From what I'm seeing on the specs, the camera comes with 8-bit everything and if you want 10-bit 4:2:2 HD, you pay another $500 for the CBKZ-SLMP option, bringing the total cost to $3,300. What's kind of odd is they say the bit rate maxes out at just 50Mbps for the HD files. UHD is 8-bit 4:2:0 60 or 100Mbps.

I'll get one if it turns out to be the best quality high speed camera in this form factor. Would like to have a longer zoom.

Doug, what's your opinion of image stabilization on this one? I found the AX100 was mediocre in that regard.

Re: Test footage from the PXWZ90
 

Nope. Comes with 10 bit 4:2:2 HD XAVC-L
If you work in a broadcast environment that still dependent on MPEG2 HD 4:2:2 that's a paid option.

Nothing odd about that. It's much better than the 35Mbps variable or 50Mbps constant that XDCAM MPEG2 was. There's much more to a quality encode that bit rate. In fact a lower bit rate IBP encode can look much better than a higher bit rate all I Frame encode in some cases.