A1-FX1 Screen grab

Thank you Nickj, you are giving me interesting informations and also some confirmations. Fx1 work better expecially in low light conditions, more saturation and less noises. Sure, using lights for close up and macro A1 will don't have any problem but for shots without lights with low lights Fx1 will be better in any case.

Good testing and thank you for posting your impression here

ERIK

I have prepared a few short full res clips to show some of the issues I described, but I'm getting "The total filespace required to upload all the attached files is greater than your per post or global limit. Please reduce the number of attachments or the size of the attachments." each time I try and upload. These 2 sec clips are bewteen 3-7 meg each and I can't upload one.

Anyone care to advise what the best way to show this stuff is on this forum? I've tried to down res, but the artifacts and noise are suppresed or gone at low res.

Worst case I'll just do a few still captures (see attached), but this doesn't really show the video noise effect ...

Hi Nick

Did you get my last email I sent?

Well done on testing out the A1 for us all.

The Black Stretch does make the image more grainy in low light going from my indoor tests with the A1. I don't use it.

Cinemamode is nice but it drops the fstop when using it. Okay for bright outdoor conditons.

Yes both camera's in good light give a close image but the FX1 is sharper, wider and colour more vibrant. Kelly my partner can even pick it out when whatching the footage back on the TV. In low light the FX1 is better.

The smaller footprint is abit anoying, Im always trying to pull back further to get everything in and if you use a big wide angle lens it may distort the image abit I recond. The new Amphibico housing comes with the same wide angle as the Dive Buddy etc range so it should be fine as the A1 shoots near on the same width footprint as my TRV900/ PD100 camera that goes in my Navigator 900.

Nick I will set up a HTML load page and you can load up the clip to my server if you like using you web broswer. Then the links would be like www.hdvunderwater.com/nick.mpg etc

wags

Sure Wags. Let me know the FTP URL and I'll upload some clips when you have set up.

I agree that you can tell the difference between FX1 and A1 clips on a standard TV let alone an HDTV. This is especially the case in the 'less than optimal' shooting conditions etc.

Now the limitations are hightly apparent (at least to me) I need to work out how to max the performance of the little fellah - 'let there be light!'

(Fov) wise my A1 is the same as my TRV950 in the 'Dive buddy plus' housing using the .55x lens. So I have no access to the exposure, w/b etc.. also its straight through the lens with no filter. I can spice it up in editing but not much.

But the picture quality is an amazing jump forward. This is also downverted on the 'auto' setting (48k DVCAM) to my old crappy phillips T.V.

I will take the raw footage down to a friend who has a Sony 42" HD LCD and see what its like through that baby.

At the moment I'm happy.

Dive safe

DeanB

Outstanding report Nick!! What a lot of people have been waiting for.

Thanks for putting it out there

Hey Paul,

Got a bed and some diving..... if my next trip to RA goes astray I am thinking to head over there for a few weeks & play with the Bluefin HD - we could even have a vignette out competition - see who is the winner - what do you reckon ? Then you can join me on one of my expeditions north. Winner pay all.

Best

Peter ( i have an unpacked shute

Hey Nick

If you want to load up some video clips or pics, I made a Uploader Page where you can upload to my server and then use the URL www.hdvunderwater.com/uploads/filename.ext.

Anyone is welcome to use it but if it gets to much I will have to cut it back abit.

Peter, plan to go out and do alot of filming this season so there is always space on my Rib. Let us know what you are doing. I'm sure we could accommodate you and help you play with your toys.

Sounds like they may be going back to packing shutes soon anyhow.

Wags

Very cool Wags. I'll upload some of these clips when I'm back at my Mac in the next 24hrs.

I have uploaded the following Sony A1 video clips to Wags' uploads page at http://www.hdvunderwater.com/uploads/ they are all .MOV Quicktime files, all at 1920x1080 resolution. See basic description below for explanation of light conditions etc.

As these clips are only a couple of seconds long, I suggest you play them in Quicktime with "Loop Back and Forth" and then play in "Full Screen" This will allow you to play the clip for as long as you want and see the camera low light noise etc to the best effect.

A1Manta.mov: Manta_great_light_black_stretch_poor_contrast

A1Frogfish.mov: Frogfish_med_light_black_stretch_bad_noise

A1Cave1.mov: Cave1_enough_light_acceptable_grain

A1Cave2.mov: Cave2_low_light_unacceptable_noise

A1Overcast.mov: Overcast_18m_med_light_rather_grainy

A1Thresher.mov: Thresher_good_light_black_stretch_poor_contrast

Comments welcome.

Cheers, Nick

Hi Nick

See you loaded up some clips there.

I have Quicktime 7.03 on a PC and I cannot play them.

Cannot play them in Premiere Pro.

Cannot convert them in Procoder.

VLC player will not play them.

Just get a white window in player with sound

Wags

Gawd - I love technology....

I am playing these in Quicktime Pro 7.0.4. on a Mac. Maybe the HD resolution is an issue. Hmm. OK I'll try and down convert or work sometime out. Too much down conversion and the artifacts go - maybe that's the solution I'll shoot all this video in HDV and then just burn VCDs

Wags - maybe leave these up on the server if you have space anyhow in case others can read. Meanwhile back to the drawing board ....

Nick

Use H264 codec and set to 480i/p. It's better to have a minute of stuff in d/l codec vs 3 secs of clips at full res. Also looks like you had EIS on for the thresher shot.

OK Drew good advice - I'll get back to FCP shortly - this is such a time sink! <_<

Actually no Image Stabilizing on the Thresher - just breathing heavily as I finned double speed! What I did do was have the cam on autofocus, which was exactly the wrong setting at that time ....

Cool shark tho

Nick

Drew is right...

Go with

H.264 - 720/406 @ CBR of 2or3 mbps

OK I've uploaded a few longer clips in lower res; H.264 - 720x406 @ CBR of 1000 kbps - these are still quite large (several meg) so I steered away from 2k or 3kbps

A1Cave1_lo.mov

A1Cave2_lo.mov

A1Manta_lo.mov

A1Frogfish_lo.mov

Conditions/effects as earlier described

Thing is, at these lo res encodes the grainy artifacts are greatly smoothed and almost rendered out, so there is no easy way of demonstrating this other than going out and buying an A1, buying an HDTV, and trying it out yourself

Wags - you may want to take off the hi res files to save some space...

Nick

Those new ones worked.

I could see the blockeness. I feel black stretch makes the picture more grainy messing around with the A1 uptop. It realy stuffs up in the black areas.

Does not look to good though Nick.

Encode a large one of the Manta or forgfish if you can.

Hey and tell Shawn to stay out of ya shots

Im sitting here editing these Video Lives clips for the ABC and the more I look at the FX1 and A1 uptop clips the more I can see the difference.

OK added the frogfish in hi-res showing low light artifacts and black stretch issues:

A1Frogfish_hi.mov

Warning it is 17 meg.

Enough already. Need to shoot some better stuff now to show what the A1 is capable of in good conditions

Got that one Nick

That frogfish is real bad.

Yep turn the black stretch off and try.

I could see it made things worse by my uptop tests with the A1.

Here is a clip I made with dark black areas in the shot.

Fish Clip

8megs

Before we condemn Black stretch (which my own tests have shown it's fine under certain conditions.

What were your settings on the frogfish? Cinegamma?