ag ac 130/160 how does it handle highlights?

[NOA]

This year I will be investing into a new camera and coming from a Canon xh-a1 the ag ac130 seems to be the right candidate, just because it offers a lot at it's current pricepoint which is the same as I paid 4 years ago for my Canon.

There is one thing that worries me a bit and that is how it handles highlightes in high contrast scenes (basically scenes with people standing in bright sunlight and shade) which is I suppose a challenge for any camera of this type. I have been watching so many user video's in 720 and 1080p on sharing sites like Vimeo and one thing that I saw a lot, especially in wedding videos, was that if you'd have a group of people standing in the bright sunlight and they seemed to be all exposed right, if there is one person wearing a white shirt, that shirt would blow out white completely loosing all detail in that area, whites even seem to glow in the sunlight. I have seen this occurring on af100 footage as well.

I know you can prevent blown out whites by watching your zebra's and if you want all details in a wedding dress in bright sunlight, you better not have any zebra stripes in there but I just wonder, is it just the operator not experienced enough to know how to expose in a balanced way, is it a setting in the camera that is in factory setting not set right and needs to be changed to get better lattitude so it deals better with these "hot spots"?

Thanks for any insight which will give me some more peace of mind when deciding to purchase :)

[Bruce196]

I don't think you can make judgements from pictures on Vimeo etc as the compression and distribution seems to affect ultimate picture quality. A well set up monitor is the way to go with some original files. If zebras are used properly then you can decide in post how you want to push things.

[NOA]

Tx Bruce for your response, so you mean that the camera does not suffer from excessive highlight clipping in whites when in bright sunlight? Just to give one example i saw in a review, at the end there is some soccer footage, too me that looks over exposed a bit but with the whites clipping and the rest "good" exposed that's what I mean: http://vimeo.com/30740952

[ChrisHarding]

Hi Noa

I'm not too sure how the Canon does autoiris but on the 130 it seems to lock down the shutter speed and have a wide angle iris from F1.6 or 1.9 up to F9... when the camera decides that you are REALLY over-exposed it will remind you to manually switch in an ND filter (it has 3) but even before that the scene is over-exposed....My last cameras were HMC80's and they had not only an auto shutter but also auto ND filters so you could move from sun to shade without being over-exposed. If the operator doesn't notice the ND sign flashing then it could quite easily appear that the whites are blown out but more often than not it's come up against a minimum iris setting and ND filters haven't been switched in.... I actually far prefer the way the HMC 80 did exposure ..if you are say, following sport and trying to use manual controls you cannot compensate fast enough with a shutter speed change when the iris hits limits!!

Chris

[NOA]

Hi Chris :)

I do operate my exposure manual all the time and nd filters are engaged based on the f-stop value, I"m actually not sure if my canon gives a ND warning because I always decide when it's time to switch to another ND. The shutter is also always locked at 1/50th. My question was more to see if the ag ac 130 or 160 did have issues handling hihlights well in high contrast scenes.

[Firefox39]

Noa,

I went from the A1 to the AC130. Regarding highlights, I like the way my A1 did it. The AC130 does a "ok" job from the factory and better job with the a good picture profile dialed in. I used it at dance recitals and have it tuned in to handle the highlights (white faces on a dark stage) pretty good. So once you play with the setting, you can get it to work pretty good. I also have a Canon XA10 and that does a better job with the highlights from the factory. However you do not have as much freedom to dial in your own presets. If using auto iris on the AC130, I always have mine custom preset at -1 if not -2 to handle the highlights better.

[NOA]

Thx firefox, good to here about an ex xh-a1 user :) Good to know it can be improved by dialing in the right preset, when the time comes I will dive into that.

Can I ask you, how wel does your ac130 compare to your ax10 when it comes to low light, are they equally clean at the same gainvalues? I ask because I use a Sony xr520 as second camera and that one can produce very clean footage at higher gain values, only the process behind cleaning up that grain results in crushed blacks with less information. It is however day and night difference between my xh-a1 which can look awefull with 12db.

[Firefox39]

Can I ask you, how wel does your ac130 compare to your ax10 when it comes to low light, are they equally clean at the same gainvalues? I ask because I use a Sony xr520 as second camera and that one can produce very clean footage at higher gain values, only the process behind cleaning up that grain results in crushed blacks with less information. It is however day and night difference between my xh-a1 which can look awefull with 12db.

Both the AC130 and XA10 at a lot better then the A1 in low light. I would give the XA10 the nud in low light over the AC130. It really is amazing that at 18db of gain it still looks pretty good. Better then the A1 at 12 db of gain. The video below is where I compared the AC130 and the XA10 in a low light ceremony.

<a href="https://vimeo.com/41305276" target="_blank">
https://vimeo.com/41305276
(https://vimeo.com/41305276)

[NOA]

Thx for the sample! these very small handicam can be quite remarkable, I have just got back from filming a dance recitel using a sony xr500, 520 and a canon xh-a1 and I always end up using the sonys as I can lock focus and have exposure controll during the shoot so I have controlled footage, since they outperform the canon by a mile in low light and retain colour much better its an easy choice in these circumstances. I also think it's pushing 18db gain and its a clean as a whistle.