RenderLight
User
Mar 21, 2008, 10:41 PM
Post #1 of 4
(441 views)
Shortcut
|
|
My Z7U first impressions
|
Can't Post
|
|
Ok, so here is my impression of the Z7U so far. This will seem to be a negative review overall, but this camera does have some amazing potential. Read and you will understand...
1. I expected the camera to feel heavy ( and it did ) due to the ability to change lenses. This is the same idea behind a convertable car. The chassis has to be made strong to handle the twists without a roof. This camera body had to be strong to take the lens change. The EX1 feels light in comparison when I played with it a few weeks ago.
2. There are some great ideas built into the camera. Example...The ability for the zoom to come to a slow/smooth stop instead of a a sudden stop when you release the zoom button is awesome. It makes for a much more professional look.
3. The Exmor CMOS chip is better at capturing color then the typical CCD. The light level that the chip picks up acceptable levels of color is much wider then lets say the Canon A1. The Canon has great color but in a much more narrow range of light level. So if you are opening/closing the iris or shutter speed, changing the amount of light entering the camera, the Sony seems to show stronger color when it's not right at the optimum exposure.
4. The LCD screen is much more clear then the norm. It does make it easier to view. The view finder is extremely clear compared to the norm as well. That was a surprise!
5. The low light ability is an interesting mix of results. It is no doubt better in low light then past cameras like the Z1 or the Canon A1, but I think Sony is playing games with me on this one. Hooking it up to a monitor really tells the true story. The Z7 at 0db gain resembles the Canon A1 at 3db gain. There is clear noise in the image especially in dark areas of the image. But the noise is also noticable in brightly lit areas if you look close. If you are comparing the Canon A1 at -3db gain with the Sony at -6db gain you will see the Canon to be cleaner with less noise. The image out of the Canon A1 is noticably more detailed and clear. It is quite clear that the chips are running at different resolutions here. The Canon A1 at -3db is cleaner then any setting or image I could generate with the Z7U. My opinion is that Sony has decided that the noise reduction on the new Exmor chip is good enough to pump up the gain within the design. So what is 0db for everyone else (even though there is no standard) the Sony Z7U has pumped it up to +3db or even +6db gain to get a brighter image to appear on websites and in test reports. But for detail and resoultion, the Canon A1 is easily more clear, forget comparing it to the Canon HV-20. It's almost a joke comparing image clarity between the Hv-20 and Z7U. The HV-20 made the image of the Z7U look...well...soft, almost out of focus, I kept thinking I needed to adjust something, I even rubbed my eyes a few times thinking I was not seeing well. The Canon was so clear it was shocking. The A1 was not as clear as the HV-20 (maybe 10-15 %, whatever that means to you) and the Z7U was not as clear as the A1 (maybe by 10-15% less detailed). So picture that in you mind if you can since I have no frame grabs to show.
6. The manual audio placement and design is nothing short of a complete blunder. Not only is it in the middle where it is hard to reach, it is behind a door that is magnetic. So when you bring it down to adjust the volume, first it hides the manual controls below it, but then when you bring it back up it "magnetically" slams shut causing a bang on the mic. That is just plain stupid! Some person/group should be fired for that one.
7. As noted, I have come across the manual lens issue stated by Marshall. I in-fact was the one to discover this issue and find it to be in the top 2 most costly mistakes a camera manufacturer could make. Especially since the camera was meant to be a manual lens camera making it more apt to be switched from servo too manual all the time. A complete miss on Sony's part. It does appear they will fix it at their cost though so if that is the case I am sure they will eventually get past it and all will be good with the lens....other then the slow zoom. Can you believe Sony has not made the zoom speed capable of being set at a given speed? I mean all you have is you ability to NOT press the button too far if you want it to go slow. It's like I'm dealing with a camera from about 15 years ago when variable zoom was not possible yet. The handle zoom can be set to a speed but it is FAR to fast and FAR to slow to be useful. Again, a complete failure in design.
8. The audio limiter seemed like a really good idea, and in some extreme cases it would be. But unless you want your audio to be bumping up and down like someone is playing with the volume level I would suggest you just set it at a manual level that works and leave it till post.
9. The CF card reader is slick. It looks nice, fits nice, etc. The only issues I had was the way it interacts with the camera. The viewfinder does not tell you when you will run out of memory. You have to pay attention to the LCD on the unit which is not exactly big and clear. The unit is also not exactly in sync with the camera. There appears to be some sort of buffer issue I cannot resolve yet. For example....If you hit the record button (if the CF unit is set to cache mode) you will actually get a recording that starts about 6 seconds prior to the time you hit record. Ok, that is cool since it may help you catch something you may have missed. But it is at the end I have a problem. If you count 1-15 while you are recording and after saying 15 you hit stop. What you will get is a clip that recorded about 3-6 seconds before you started counting... and then it ends at 14. Yes I said 14, not 15, 14. EVERY TIME! So for some reason we have a buffer issue. The camera/CF unit appears to be monitoring the scene and BUFFERS the scene waiting for you to hit the record button, but when you hit the STOP button it seems to send a signal to the unit cutting off the buffered memory. That is only a guess but it seems possible. Either way, get ready to WAIT before stopping the recording for about 1-2 seconds to ensure the card did not stop recording before it gets written to the card. Have fun keeping up with that! And by the way, I considered it to be a card speed issue, but the card was tested to be fast enough. It appears to be a buffer/record signal and how it is sending data out the 1394 port to the CF unit.
10. The image presets are nice since you can label them with real names. I am used to the Canon numbering system.
11. I don't like that you have to remove the CF card recorder to replace the battery. That will lead to issues over time. Sony should have made card reader on a swinging door type connection that allowed it to be opened giving access to the battery compartment then closing. Seems easy enough, but obviously not.
12. The last scene that you can usually view on tape is not able to be accessed if you are recording to the CF card. Only to tape. That was great to see  And when you do want to access it, it is only numbers/scene files unlike the EX1 having thumbnails come up on the LCD screen giving you direct access. I found it very cool to have the CF recorder, but then it just seemed to be partially working for me and partially integrated with the camera. Good and bad overall.
13. The rolling shutter isue has been talked about a lot. I did not have any time yet to see flashes even though i know exactly what it will look like. But I did notice one thing that I find troubling. If you place the camera on a tripod, and put the cameras optical image stabilizer on you will notice the typical reduction in shake. BUT.... If you just happen to tap the tripod and the image vibrates a bit, different then shaking at least for this camera, I would notice the image almost start to wobble. It appeared unstable as if the shaking was unusually strong. It seemed different then camera shake. With camera shake the image may vibrate or even blur a bit, but it never wobbles. So what I was finding is that with minor disturbances to the tripod that caused a vibration ( this could also be caused by the tripod vibrating from the floor moving/bouncing maybe) the image regardless of the image stabilizer being on would shake in this strange manner. This has to be directly related to the rolling shutter.
14. The auto focus did not seem as bad as some sad, but if you move the camera and it happens to be to fast, it can loose focus. I guess logic tells me if the camera was slow in finding focus and you move in some fast left/right movement the camera lens may have a hard time keeping up. This may be a firmware issue since Sony may be able to tell it to ignore the movement and wait for it to see a clear image before changing focus.
15. Back to the noise issue.... No doubt better in low light, but it is not clean. All I have to say is look at it on a 1920 x 1080 monitor. When you have noise moving around in the entire image (especially the darker areas of the image) even when the camera is set to -6db, you know some games are being played with gain setting here. But Sony did get it done in the end, since the image is brighter and cleaner at 12db over the Canon. But if you are critical, look at it on a monitor!
16. The LCD placement is ok for viewing, but not in practical use terms. The Canon's LCD slides into the camera under the handle, the EX slides under the handle keeping a thin profile....The Z7U...Well they think it's ok to make the LCD have to flip up over the top of the camera which in turn makes it very hard to sometimes impossible to mount anything on the shoe that is there, especially a light. I found myself having to very very carefully moving the power cable of the light so I would not scratch or damage the LCD. This design I thought was a joke on the Z1 and I have to say now that I use it on the Z7,,,,,yes it is a joke. Unless you like to reach out at arms length to adjust the light you have to keep it on the shoe as-is. Extending out beyond the camera with some sort of adapter looks rediculous. Never going to happen for me since it looks bad and it just makes the camera more front heavy then it already is. Who should be fired?
In closing...
The camera has some amazing features. It is built well, is good in low light if you don't mind the noise, and has the ability to change lenses if you decide you value that. Sony has some work to do to refine it I think. Hopefully they will for everyone's sake. It has a great concept behind it, it just needs a bit of tweaking and I think It may go from being a good idea to actually really truly working on all barrels.
Paul
(This post was edited by RenderLight on Mar 21, 2008, 10:46 PM)
|
