Bob: I don't understand this 150IRE either. I think we must be comparing apples to pears. When you hit 108% on the EX1 it gives you warning telling you to back off?

Anyway I'm out now to do some more shots to test what Bill is saying, but I hear so many different stories here I am actually being the think these cameras might all be different????

Bob, indeed, how does it record 150%? I can only interepret the graph as a trajectory, in turn that is how narrow the STD REC709 range is? As for other curves being up to 110%, I myself do not understand how there can be detail if 100 IRE is white 255,255,255.

Bob, do you have any idea what the X value on the graph represents, going up to 600 before stop publishing?

Regarding hooking the camera up to an external 10-bit scope, via HD-SDI port, I was considering a good comparison would be do to this, then with the same camera setup, say, locked off tripood, record to SxS card in HQ mode, then play back and compare WFM display from live 10-bit to the 8-bit recorded file, the playing back out of the camera being 8-bit embedded in a 10-bit stream. My HD monitor has a WFM, so I might try this and compare, when I receive my EX1 in due course. This method was what I had in mind to ensure the 8-bit recorded settings are not misleading visually, because of the 10-bit 4:2:2 uncompressed monitoring direct from the HD-SDI port that I will be using, when practical to do so.

If I had to guess at an answer, and I AM just guessing, 110% is somewhat of an arbitrary cutoff based on the available bandwidth at 8-bit (bit depth)and allowing a bit(no pun intended) for headroom. With 32 bit floating point processing, the bandwidth really isn't greater, just greater resolution within the available bandwidth, certainly not what 10-bit (bit depth)would get you in terms of bandwidth. In conventional NTSC, IRE100 is not 255, it's 235. In fact, IRE108 is RGB255. And the RGB0-255 quanta are derived from the 256 (1.6 million discreet values) values that 8-bit allows. If one were to go to 10-bit, for example, significantly more quanta are possible...1024?

Then again, IRE 0-100 is a non-dimensional number. With greater mathematical precision and bit depth, one could fit a lot more quanta in the IRE scale. Much in the same way that the FCC keeps increasing the number of available frequencies even tho' the bandwidth of available frequencies remains unchanged. Then, a camera that can see IRE 0-150 simply needs to be remapped into 0-100 for present day NL editors, provided the quanta packets are smaller, anyway.

The fundamental problem, I think, is NOT the camera, but, the software we all have to process the recorded data.
But, honestly, I'm just whistling in the dark, here.

Here's an interesting read about Sony CMOS..
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/hd...titude_111106/

Bill, for a moment, I forgot about the 16-235 and 0-255 differences.

NTSC REC601 and HD REC709, what range applies to the latter?

Questions... I don't have answers.

I believe REC709 will allow RGB0-255.

Whistling or not, I think Bill is on to something here; makes a lot of sense. Consider all with my opinion that each profile needs its own Zebra number to be valid. That argument was put down but I spent today experimenting.

I locked the camera down on a scene that has a covered wagon, one side in half light, one side in shadow. Hills behind and a big blue sky. I set the Zebras at the #2=100 and shot every scene just when the zebras had all gone, with every possible combination of Matrix (Standard, HiSat, FL, Cinema) and gamma (Std 1,2 &3 and CINE 1, 2 3 & 4). I then took the best grabs and did the same with them adding in Black Master and Black Gamma.

The first thing I noticed is that while most scenes were similarly exposed, many are very dark, despite all being recorded at 100%. I then split the scenes up and without knowing the settings sorted them into the best ten, then five then the best top three. I know this is subjective to some extent, but defining best as closest to the color graduation of film, the winner was CINE4 at HiSat with a little positive black gamma to pull out the black detail.

I'd post some screen catches if I knew how. How do yer do that?

Michael, not used it myself. When you post a reply, see Manage Attachments, below? Or, top of the screen: Image Gallery >> Upload ?

Bob, Bill at all,

I knew my gut feelings were not deceiving me. Have just browsed through the very first recordings made with the EX1 on day one (right of-the-box); unfortunately don't remember what settings exactly I was using (it might be cine gamma, but almost most certainly not Hisat matrix). Anyway, the sky behind foliages is treated correctly; it beats me why anybody should think the ugliness I showed before was a normal thing!

As soon as we have more sun here, I'm going to try and re-create. If it's the Hisat matrix at fault, it probably is badly programmed or for special purposes only (like lowlight/ indoors - without highlights, anyway). If I can't reproduce the clean look below, at least I'll know the camera needs servicing, after all...Or does it have any factory reset switch / key combination?

Piotr, trust me- you are seeing mostly a normal photographic effect. It was made more obvious (and a bit ugly as you say) by incorrect exposure. The codec had some effect, but you would have seen it in 35mm too.

I know you are seeing different things now than with the earlier shots, but there are lots of factors, including the lighting, that have changed.

Take your light meter out there. Take an incident reading at the camera, then take some spot readings at the trees, the sky behind the branches and then at the unobstructed sky. I suppose you may want to take readings at the fence- look just go crazy and meter everything.

(Don't forget to calibrate the light meter and the camera together!)

Take a few bracketed exposures for a few subjects, writing down all your settings... not just the picture profile but the aperture, zoom and focus settings- and your meter readings too. Then go back in and evaluate the images with that information at hand.

If you have a DSLR or 35mm camera go out there with that and do the same thing. Heck, try it with another video camera too.

Let me know if you still think you have a problem when you are done with all that.

The camera does have a reset in the menus.
All the other recent Sony cameras have a hardware reset function, the EX1 is the only camera I've come across with a software reset. Just be careful as I don't know how much it resets. The reset in the Z1 does not reset the picture profiles. It does reset one thing though, if you buy a "PAL" variant it resets to 50Hz and the opposite if you bought a "NTSC" variant. The PPs each have their own reset in the Z1, haven't investigated the EX1s reser results as yet.

Yes you're right Bob, there is the Reset option in the menu - not being certain what it does, I won't do it as for now. I have reset all the PP's and will try to recreate the path that lead me from correct to bad results, that made me start this thread in the first place.

OK, so I reset my EX1, and shot the same scenes (sorry they are boring) with many different settings, but steering away from the Hisat matrix. The two grabs below are just the factory settings. The scopes in Vegas still reach above 100, but the artefacting is mostly gone - just the tree branches against the sky!

I guess two important conclusions (not scientific at all) may be drawn:

1. The Hisat matrix may be good for making dull scenere more punchy (like low light, indor scenes), but not where white cliping may occure

2. While other cameras (well, at least the V1, HC1, Canon A1) tend to spill the backlight into and over contrasty details (making the twiggies even thinner), on the EX1 we can see something quite opposite: the dark objects against highlighted backgroud tend to "overshadow" it, resulting in retaining the original colour of the backgroud which otherwise would already bee blown to white.

Please note that I didn't have to drastically reduce exposure, and the foreground objects are bright enough and NOT oversaturated, like they had to be with the Hisat matrix if I wanted to prevent the trees-against-sky artefacting.

PS. The more I work with the EX1, the more I hate the ND filter switch! Unfortunately, this is not going to be improved with a firmare update:(

From Adam Wilt's most extensive review of the EX1:

"I’ve found that the EX1’s knee does a fine job except when highlights are strongly colored. Saturated highlights show more hue shift and harsh clipping than I’d like. I’m exploring this further out of curiosity, but even if the knees were perfect I would still shoot with cine gammas, because I prefer the progressive compression to the look of a traditional knee."

"• Standard – the camera’s default color matrix.
• High SAT – boosts all colors by about 15%-20%.
• FL Light – boosts the red-cyan axis by 15%.
• Cinema – shrinks the red-cyan axis by 20%."

Looking at Image83, the whitest cloud above the end of the top of the roof is clipped and has lost detail. It's not visually objectionable because clouds can be all white (no pun intended) but if that was a patch of blue sky you'd be likely back to your original problem.

Which I think goes back to something I said many pages previously. Clipped specular highlights are generally visually acceptable because they're almost invariably white anyway. Your clipped cloud is another example of where only those who go looking notice. It's predictable and visually acceptable. Your previous problem with the sky is predictable but visually unacceptable.

I posted a link to an article on Luminous Lanscapes about histograms and what they mean and how to use them. The author made a very applicable point. A histogram inside a view of the scene is very useful, you need to look at the scene AND the histogram to guage what is going to be the result.

For certain, Hi Sat could bring you undone. If not, a logical question would follow. Why make it selectable. If it's always such a desirable thing why not just have it like that on every camera. Again a good point from the Luminous Landscapes article about a very similar scene to yours. We're trying to fit a scene with 11 stops dynamic range into a medium with 5 stops and it will not fit (well it wouldn't on his DSC or film camera). All the image adjustments these Cinealta cameras have gives us a better shot at squashing it in but it's a risky business. Some of the possible adjustments are as you've noted designed for different kinds of scenes or use under controlled lighting. Many of them are features from high end cameras and many users here and elsewhere have for years be asking why Sony make us pay large sums of money to get a camera with them. Well Sony have delivered but it is a case of buyer be aware.

Bob, Bill, Leonard at all,

Thank you very much for your input. I don't need to tell you how much relief the output of all that is to me; I was really very frustrated over the last two days!

I feel flattered by the fact that again, my observations coincide with (by far the most comprehensive so far) EX1 review from Adam Wilt; the statement that Bill has quoted:

"I’ve found that the EX1’s knee does a fine job except when highlights are strongly colored. Saturated highlights show more hue shift and harsh clipping than I’d like. I’m exploring this further out of curiosity, but even if the knees were perfect I would still shoot with cine gammas, because I prefer the progressive compression to the look of a traditional knee."

- has been practically illustrated in this thread, I hope. Note the terms "hue shift and harsh clipping"; add the Hisat matrix and you will get frost on bare trees! Or patches in the sky that almost look like ink stains.

Also, I couldn't put it better myself, Bob - your statement:

"Clipped specular highlights are generally visually acceptable because they're almost invariably white anyway. Your clipped cloud is another example of where only those who go looking notice. It's predictable and visually acceptable. Your previous problem with the sky is predictable but visually unacceptable."

- may well be considered the final conclussion of this thread.

PS. As a side note, Bob, the software EX1 reset takes EVERYTHING back to where it was when still in the box, including PP's. But also, of course, any button assignment, zebra settings, and the recording format (with the latter depending on the PAL or NTSC area one is in).

PS.PS. A note to Leonard Levy: thanks Leonard for consistently supporting my opinion on the effect unacceptability throughout the whole thread!

Piotr,
I guess you would of been relieved a lot sooner. Maybe you skipped over the Adam Walt's reference earlier on in this thread? :)

http://dvinfo.net/conf/showpost.php?...6&postcount=64

Well, of course this helped when you found out that backing off on the saturation was the fix.

It makes me wonder if Sony could offer a parameter to roll the saturation off on the top end where highlights start to get clipped.

Yes, I must have skipped that post of yours - thanks as well. Regarding your point on a parameter to tune the highs saturation - well, it's there, but only for STD curves. I'm going to play with it, of course. However, I'd like to use the cine gammas for outside shots anyway (look how flat my last grabs look with standard gamma), and those do not offer ANY knee region adjustment at all - a pity.

Piotr,
I have to say after looking at all these pictures......I like the design of your fence. Seriously.

Piotr. I got a nice red Halo from a part overexposed image I was testing. I don't know if this is any use.

I am now in such a good mood after making sure the camera is OK that I believe you, Benjamin :)

Mark, I don't think this is the same problem we've been discussed here; it looks to me more like the light spilling through the guys hair... But can't be sure.

I'm glad you guys got it fdigured out before I got a chance to test, now what will I do with my day.
One thing I did notice though is that even in the auto knee the knee sat control is operational so you might want to try the look again with the hi sat matrix but pulling down your knee saturation. that may give you the best of both worlds. Knees sat is always dangerous when overdone and it just may be that the combination with Hi sat matrix makes it worse.

Playing with these settings has alerted me to one striking flaw with the EX though that I hope could be fixed in an upgrade. Maybe I am just mmissing it though.

Is there a way to show at one time what the PP color, white, knee and gamma settings are on a single screen. The status button doesn't include it and that's the one screen that you really would want to check constantly, especially as its really easy to hit the wrong button when saving stuff.
This sucks big time to me. the worst thing I've found on the camera.

Leonard,

Unfortunately, with any Cine gamma, the Knee submenu (including the point, slope AND saturation) is NOT functional (dimmed out). You can adjust all of these for any STD curve, though.

Your point about a single status screen with all currently engaged PP's settings is excellent - should go high onto the firmware update list! There are 5 pages to browse in Status, but only the name of the current PP is displayed on one of them.

As it's your idea, please put it in the relevant thread - who knows, hopefully Sony IS reading :)

Hey I think we all agree it was unacceptable- just disagreed on why.

Glad its sorting out for you.

By the way- what was it you found objectionable about the ND switch on the camera?

Well the guy (Me) is quite a way into the shade. Sunlight is hitting the wall behind so you have an area (Me) That is underexposed and an area behind that is over exposed. The fringing around the hair shouldnt happen because Im not near the sunlight. The sunlight is behind and the halo is not through the hair its around it. Also following the brickwork too. It cant be light spill because this was an area of shade but also the halo follows the brickwork in the overexposed part.

Alexander, the ND filter switch can adopt a position in between two stops, which results in what I posted here (see next posts also, explaining how and when it happened):

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showpost....&postcount=461

Wow, I haven't had that happen to me.

Is there a way to purposefully recreate it? If you know how to recreate it, can you use that knowledge to make it never happens by accident?

The "opening iris effect" during filter switching I have noticed on several frames, but (perhaps pure coincidence) in SP 24PsF ONLY. The filter not having snapped properly (and thus creating the upper right vignetting effect) happened to me just once; yes I managed to recreate it intentionally - but frankly, cannot see a way to guarantee avoiding another incident like this. What the switch lacks is a proper lever/knob on it, so that it could be grabbed by and actually turned firmly, precisely and quickly between its stops; with the current construction the switch is actually slid instead of turned by the lever, which cannot be precise (just like all the other slider switches - the camera/power off/media, for one).

I'm thinking of having a knob machined nicely, and glued into the slit in the switch to create a proper lever mechanism, like those on the V1 and most other cameras I ever used. What do you think?

Looking at the pictures of the new HDV camera (Z7), I can see quite a different solution is used; no lever or slider, but a turning knob. This cannot possibly control a traditional filter, which makes me wonder if Sony adopted an all new ND filter (software?) It also has 3 and not just 2 settings (plus the "off" position, of course). And is probably ddead silent in operation - I hate the click of tranditional ND switches, getting recorded by the microphone!

As a side note, I also wonder why the CineAlta division hasn't adopted another new solution coming with the prosumer Z7 - the XtraFine VF. The one on the EX1 comes from the previous generation of cameras, and - especially when compared to the splendid LCD - is pathetic.

Hardware-wise, I personally find the ND switch and the VF to be probably the weakest points of this otherwise wonderful machine.

Piotr,
Actually I was not refering to cine gamma which you are right about , but to the standard gammas - when auto knee is engaged you still have control over knee saturation which is exactly where your problem was occuring as I recall ( std gamma /auto knee?)

I hope Sony is listening but unfortunately i doubt it.

Well if its causing you that much trouble then it sounds like a good idea. With caveats.

I would suggest using the least amount of "extension" that makes it work for you. We can't know if too much torque might harm the camera in some way.

Also have you considered tapping a screw hole in there and then using a machined metal screw... like on matte boxes? The advantage is that you could remove it more easily when you sell the camera or the like.

Also- check with Sony support. I am sure they'll tell you that it will void the warranty, but if they are in a good mood they may limit that voiding to the ND switch mechanism.

Just for comparison and to show you what a pretty day it is today I post this sky shot that the camera says is exposed correctly but Vegas says it way over? Go figure?

Yeah that is over exposed a bit, look at the house.

Of course this is one of those circumstances when overexposure is aesthetic.

As far as the camera saying its OK, are you using the histogram or the spot meter?

Histograms can be very misleading in these circumstances. The spot meter wouldn't say a thing unless you zoomed in on the overexposed portions.

So I guess we are all learning that photographic technique has to be more refined when using this camera.

That and if you are gonna mess with PP's you better be a DIT in training.

Oh, and yeah- nice day. I hate you kindly from the Washington DC area. :)

This just in from Alaska....

YOU SUCK!

:-)

One of the reasons I was so keen to get an EX1 was for the Histogram, but I have given up on it already. Here I was trying what Bill said when he objected to my 95% post and used the Zebra #2, the 100% one. I zoomed in on the snow that was the hot spot and stopped down until there were no zebras. I took another take by eye which was much better and which filled the Vegas Histogram nicely. I do believe in the hot light like I have to deal with (that camera was under a black tarp today just so I could see it) the EX1 over-exposes at 100%. I usually use Zebra 1 at 95% which is effectively 85%-105% which I find much better. Incidentally there was no tweaking with that image - just straight Cine4 with HiSat.

Vegas histogram
 

Where's the histogram in Vegas ?
Paul.

It's under view called Video Scopes.

Now now... winners never quit.

The problem is that you don't understand either what Vegas's scopes or the camera's histogram are truly measuring- or how they relate to each other.

Sucks if the histogram is showing 115 IRE at the right edge and Vegas's scopes clip at 105IRE despite being labeld for 120 IRE.

(I don't use Vegas- I'm just making up numbers for discussion.)

Put differently we don't have confidence in our tools.

The only way to understand and gain confidence is to test test test.

To test effectively you need test subjects whose nature you understand very well. That's what these guys provide

Then you need some independent test tools. The simplest is a light meter. I think you need BOTH an incident meter and a spot meter. A good HARDWARE waveform/vectorscope combo is also a good idea. These two tools are MUCH more reliable than their software counterparts in the NLE or even in the camera.

Use consistent artificial lights. Ideally film lights. (Tungsten Fresnels are what I like to do my baseline testing with.) You also have to test in your studio. You can't control most environments- and you need control if you want to understand.

Now you can do some measured photography and record a bunch of information.

Analze all that and now you have the ability to understand what the various meters are saying, how they compare to each other- and what their various limitations are.

It takes time to do this right- and it takes even longer to learn what tests you should be doing and what they mean to your productions.

Hi Michael, did you mean 90% to 100% (or if including Zebra B 90% to 105%)? My understanding was that zebra displays 5% above and below the selected target warning.

Also, any thoughts on if 100% zebra is supposed to equate to the far right of the EX histogram or if 108% is supposed to match the "255" reading. Apologies, no background with IRE, so trying to relate these tools to my realm.

Randy: A bit like asking the blind to lead the blind. I'm still fairly confused myself! As far as the Zebras go, Z2 is fixed at 100% out of a possible maximum of 108%. Z1 has a latitude of 10% so you are right that a setting of 85 means 80-90 but I don't understand how a cut-off point which is what a zebra is, can have a spread, unless they are referring to possible errors in the metering.

Someone with IRE knowledge need explain to many of us how the 10 stop luminance spread is related to the 108% and to the IRE scale. As I have said before when my camera shows a 100% exposure and the histogram is nicely filled, put that into Vegas and the spread is like -20 to 115 with cliping both ends. I have only shot three times so I still need lots of practice and the light has been very harsh here recently and seldom have I been able to see the LCD. Up and running by Easter I'm thinking.

I did a bit of testing by swithching Zebra A to 107, and comparing to the histogram for when the far right begins to register. Assuming that zebra would not kick in until 102%, that is occuruing before anything is showing at the far right of the Histogram. So it looks to me like 108% is what I am used to considering a 255 reading.