Hi all, I've been lurking here for a few weeks and have finally signed up. I have been filming amateur (extremely!) cooking videos for a bit over 2 years. I started with a Canon HF200, then moved to a 60d with 17-55usm, but after 18 months of using that I've found I really wanted to get back to using a video camera. I purchased the AC90 2 weeks ago and have spent most of that time just going through settings and getting a good handle on where I want to be scene wise etc. So far I'm finding both some positives and negatives to this camcorder, I'll start with the positives and hopefully can get some help with the negatives.
Positives:
Positives:
- Fantastic OIS, really a breath of fresh air coming from a DSLR. Most of my time is spent using a tripod, but now I have options. Love it
- 3 manual rings, extremely intuitive. The focus ring could be a bit more snappy, but I understand why it's the way it is. I love the iris ring, haven't had a lot of time with the focus ring
- The buttons, they're great! The user buttons are very very handy also. Access to most important stuff is right there.
- Image motion. 50p and even 50i is nice coming from the DSLR (the 60d has 50 and 60p, but only in 720). Things are lovely and sharp too when shooting with the native frame rates
- Wide range of scene settings. It's really good to have specific options for black levels rather than just contrast. I really like all the gamma options, some can be a bit radical/destructive especially in the darker tones when shooting in low light, but there's really an option for most situations. Even though I've heard bad things I even like DRS, but only when necessary. It adds a tonne of noise in the shadows if used in low light situations, but it can be handy at times when shooting food. Especially when dealing with caramelised/darker tones that can easily look burnt or overcooked on a recording (even though they're not). This is an area that consumer cams can really struggle in.
- Quite good saturation levels, a little strong on reds in general, but that's easy to correct later
- This is going against a lot of opinions, but I actually like the way the A/B manual white balance system works. I do a lot of my filming outside and the ability to reset white balance quickly is very handy (the sun going behind clouds and back out again can be a killer, ever seen roast beef with a nasty blue wash, yuk!). I really wish the fine adjustment options weren't buried in the menu, but overall I actually find this system easier and faster to work with than the 60d system. Go figure
- The battery life is incredible!
- Audio options, handle in general is fantastic.
- Auto focus works reasonably well sometimes, however I often find it going for items in the background. Doesn't really happen with static food shots, but If I want to talk face on centre frame it will often keep searching for focus and ultimately favour whatever's behind me. This can be very frustrating, I was hoping this camera would spell the end of the days of putting a broom where I plan to stand, setting focus and then making sure I don't rock forward or backward while talking lol.
- The user manual touches on most things, and while I like to experiment and work things out for myself, there are a couple of areas I need some clarification in (I'm sure there will be more later). How does black balance fit into the over scheme of things? Is it possible to set black and white balance at once (sort of a 2 way colour corrector)? Also I guess the "White Balance NG" notification means it's failed to set? I'm in Australia so Barry Green's book wasn't bundled and is also still unavailable for separate purchase as far as I can tell, are there any updates on when it will be available for purchase internationally?
- The 25p seems to be a pulldown from 50i, it's really a terrible image. Poor sharpness, interlace artifacts, other unexplainable artifacts at times, exaggerated CA just to name a few. Stick to 50/60p/i.
- I seem to be having issues with getting accurate yellows and greens. Yellows are getting a slight but noticable lime tint to them. There are 2 ways to combat this that I've found, selecting Fluo matrix which I just don't really like overall, and increasing Chroma phase which unfortunately will also turn reds into pinks. Does anybody have any advice on this? (the yellow hue is easy to adjust in post but I'd love to solve it in the camera)
- In the 60d the profiles (scenes) were all different natively. From what I can tell the AC90 scenes are just 6 memory slots with different default settings. I haven't got around to doing it to test, but am I right in assuming if I set all 6 scenes the same they'd infact all be exactly the same?
