I've done 3 weddings with the Z7 and it's great. Flashes are no problem... I don't understand your comments?

[QUOTE=Robert Bec;895297]Robert, you're right, no one said that they were complaining. If anything, there isn't enough stock to sell, as opposed to there being low demand.

You have slowed the footage where lots of flashes have been going off you don't notice pixelation at all

Come on Robert - sharp images and satisfied customers rule my world - not analysing pixels under a microscope for "Chromatic Aborations" and all the rubbish some people seem to babble about on the forums...

Robert do you even own a Z7 or are you just going by what all the forums tell you? Cause i do own one and have used it for weddings with no problems.
Some of the issues people come up with seem to me to be excuses to not buy this camera rather than just admit they don't want to spend that much.

Bruce

at this point it is more of a want, than a need. I really enjoy shooting with paid
off gear and having no credit card debt. I have tried to get a demo to try and
I don't think I can get my hands on one quick enough. I may order one
tomorrow and shoot with it saturday night, if it sucks, I can send it back.

I just picked up my brand new Z7 and it is awesome (upgraded from an FX1)!

The rolling shutter...now...i have yet to do flash tests...but...straight line tests and 'wobble' tests...you really really have to push it around, and even then it really isn't noticable when you play it back....nothing like the videos from the HV20 people have posted. Sony's Exmor or whatever process does a really good job at removing slant and wobble...now just to test it on the flash...

but even so it is a really really nice camera, feels great, heaps of control nice sharp image, no focus problems...well auto focus is not great but hey this is a manual camera...and i probably need to do the flange thing...

really happy so far....so good...

That's the problem, as a wedding videographer you need a camera with a good auto focus... "Run & Gun" style, no time to sit and manual focus.

The focus isn't that bad...at full tele in pretty nasty low light it takes about 1 sec to focus on stuff that is close to background colour...z1 is about 0.5 to do the same, but in decent light it is pretty sweet.

I do weddings and generally use manual with auto assist for when i really need it. With manual I can do focus pulls and the like.

enjoy your new gear! post some clips soon.

rolling shutter
 

i am with you i was just to about to buy a z7 had my mind made up after looking around for the best camera in low light for wedding etc until the sale guys said the rolling shutter and i said what is that and said some frame are a little over exposed not the case Cmos chips are crap bring on RED!!

RED using CMOS chips as well. have fun spending 35K on RED for a wedding camera.

Yup. I saw a rolling shutter example for a RED One it seems more severe than the ones from the z7. Perhaps its due to the larger sensors. I would like to see what RED has done to fix this problem with the upcoming Scarlett and Epic Cameras.

I really doubt that "CMOS chips are crap" since Sony video, Red video, Canon DSLR's and Nikon DSLR's are all jumping on the CMOS bandwagon. I find that 99% of the horror stories about the V1, Z7, S270, EX1, EX3 are being spread by people who have probably never used one or even seen one. I have a V1 and aside from the limited low light capability of the V1, I have been really happy with it. No CMOS/rolling shutter horror stories to report. And I have shot a lot of footage that can't be shot according to all the rumor spreaders.

I agree your clients want notice; you get similar effect with the Z1 which has CCD
The Wedding Demo1 on my site was shot with V1u and ZU the bride coming down the aisle is shot with the V1U Cmoss. The Bride and Farther Dancing with the Lien Napkins are shot with the Z1u flashes are going off on both scenes not a big difference. I have own the Z7u good cam but if you can afford the extra chash go for the PMW-EX1. The Z7u focus wonders a bit in low light The wide angle for the Z7 performs a lot better I tested the prototype at NAB on my Z7U do not know if the Lens as been release yet. (Sony VCL308BWH) Shot the Studo Set Clip with the Z7

The rolling shutter is a none issue for me.

DVDAction

I have two Sony Z7's i shoot weddings not a problem at all

Why don't you hire the camera and find out first hand if it is an issue.

IT SEEMS THE ONLY PEOPLE THAT HAVE ISSUES ARE THE PEOPLE THAT DON'T OWN A Z7

WHY ISN'T THERE ANY COMPLAINTS FROM GUYS THAT ACTUALLY OWN THEM

C'mon Robert - we all try and justify the decisions we make through life. From wife to car, house to camera, we all make the choice on the pros and cons presented to us at the time.

Here's the thing - my just-under-4-minute montage section on last week's wedding contains 64 flashes. Don't get me wrong - I really like the way this puts the happy couple under the paparazzi-spotlight and in gentle slo-mo the flashes can be seen to build and die. I used a Z1 (CCD).

In the summer of this year I used an EX1 (CMOS). The slo-mo montage is really spoilt by the quarter and third frame over-exposures so typical of CMOS flash capture. OK, the couple won't know any different, but I certainly do. CCDs are just better under electronic flash at this stage in the game, and that's a sure thing.

tom.

I can see the bright bands caused by flashes and I don't really care for it. Since I am not a Wedding photog, it isn't a big issue with my shooting. But if the bright bands that appear for a frame bother you, why don't you try putting a white semi-transparent matte over that frame and then the bands probably wouldn't be objectionable to anyone. To be honest, I haven't really tried this but it seems like it would be a very easy solution. I think it would make it look like a flash captured with a CCD camera, with the whole frame practiaclly blown out and only a slight hint of the subjects being visable.

Not sure if you read my post through Greg. In less than 4 minutes of video there were 64 flashes. Most DSLRs put out two flashes for each exposure, and some fire long bursts to get the exposure correct. Correcting that little lot is not what I'm paid for.

Good point and I seem to be one of those being put off after using the PD170 & VXs for some years.

Are there any alternative cams that others have considered from the Panasonic/Canon/JVC stables?

Phil

Yup, I read it. On a lot of EX-1 wedding footage I have seen, not every flash produces the banding effect. I would think that you wouldn't have to fix all 64 flashes. As for the multiple flashes from the DSLR's, that is the camera's attempt at reducing red eye and typically, the pre-flashes are lower intensity. I am surprised that the pre-flashes caused any problem for the EX-1.

Phil - the alternatives you mention (JVC, Panasonic & Canon) all use CCDs in the Z5/7 price bracket, so don't suffer the CMOS failings. But to get this in perspective, it's really only electronic flash (and police car / ambulance lights etc) that cause this nasty partial frame over-exposure.

So you've got to ask yourself this - how much of my footage is flash frame filled? I suspect for most of us the answer's 'not much', in which case buying into the early years of CMOS isn't too difficult a decision.

tom.

Has no one produced a plug in to cure this in post prod?

It would be very difficult to do Gary. I took my last couple out into the night with the stills tog. I used 1/3rd sec shutter speed on the Z1 as he fired away at them with flash. I then added motion blur on the timeline and this (a surprise to me) produced a beautiful 'sine wave' of light - gently ramping up, staying bright on the couple and then slowly fading away.

Would've been unusable if only a third of the frame had been exposed, but then maybe CMOS does indeed light the whole frame at slow shutter speeds. Anyone?

It really looks as if this is an effect I've spent an age on in post production but it was literally one click of the Canopus filter combined with the very slow shutter speed (and rock-solid camera of course).

I'm just mighty glad I wasn't using CMOS chips at this time as their better low-light capability might have induced me to use a shorter shutter speed, and not created this effect. And not once did I get CCD smear from the outside lights, so CCDs still suit me and the type of work I do just fine. CMOS has been perfect for DSLRs because (up til now) they havent shot movies.

tom.

I played with the flash remover plugin for Vegas from BlueFX - it was "somewhat" sucessful at removing RS flash artifacts... introduced some odd glitches from what I saw in parts of the frame with fast motion, but it's worth a look.

I'd think that a plugin is possible - just has to be able to correct brightness/contrast over PARTIAL frames. The challenge is that the RS causes different portions of the frame to show the effect at different times depending on the phase relationship of the flash to the CMOS "cycle". You get everything from a partial frame to a full frame (on rare occaision), so you have all these "partial" overexposed frames to deal with.

Beautifully put Dave. And when the film rolls I see these frames in the same way as I can see a 'left-in-frame' from sloppy editing, or see a single frame of subliminal advertising.

I'm sure as CMOS matures the effect will be minimised, but right now it's akin to the vertical CCD smear so common on cameras such as the Sony PDX10. The XHA1 and Z1 have all but eliminated it.

tom.