The reviews of the Z100 were quite good(for the money), and I found some footage by Movieman to watch on YouTube that looked decent, so I ordered the little Toshiba.
An little it is, even tiny...But this toy is actually pretty impressive for the money, even if with 2 HD1920x1080 sensors on board, it records in the squashed side by side format that's used by 3D TVS. That means that the definition on the width is divided by two. Kind of stupid in my book, but that is what the engineers at Toshiba decided...
Regardless, after shooting some footage around the patio, I plugged it into my big 80" Sharp Aquos 3D television, and it looked pretty impressive. In fact, it tends to jump out of the screen a little too much, in front of the window, and I would want to correct that with software.
Also the video tended to be a little washed out, so I played with the few settings: average, center weighted or spot metering, digital light(extends dynamic range), backlight on/off. I reshot clips of my patio fountain till it looked better(darker).
Just to see, I then shot in the studio in tungsten light a shaky hand held close up clip of a group of some of my objets. There are a lot of things wrong with that clip: except for the beginning wide view, the rest is in "window violation". That is a "3D geek" term that means that objects that should be behind the window frame are instead in front of it, and cut off, which looks weird. You do not want to crop things in 3D as you do in 2D. The red pencil pokes out nicely, but again, the whole thing needs to move back behind the frame. Also, there is too much contrast: the darks and mid tones are OK, but the lights are blown out, which I hate. And at one point, the auto exposure changes and the image suddenly gets darker. But the white hand is still blown out. Finally, the focus is fuzzy because I am too close from the objects.
I will try and fix that close up focus problem first. I pulled out an old set of 52mm close up lenses and held them in turn held against the front of the camera lens:+1, +2, +4. All three actually work, with the image moving further inside the window as the lens gets stronger. They DO bring things in better focus, but the video is still really not very sharp at all for HD, which I explain by the fact that the lenses of the camcorder look through the edges of the close up lens. I ideally would need two tiny close up lenses( about 1" in diameter), which are not available commercially, and would be hard to hold in place. Instead, I will try the largest close up lens set made, and ordered a 77mm set.There is no thread on the Camileo lens , but I have a series of adaptor rings that I can fit to slip over the barrel. If that does'nt work, I will try to use the little lenses from an old pair of glasses or cut them out of dime store readers.
On the other hand, outside tests of a close up of an hydrangea adding a +1 lens are quite satisfying, but the image does comes out of the window more.
An little it is, even tiny...But this toy is actually pretty impressive for the money, even if with 2 HD1920x1080 sensors on board, it records in the squashed side by side format that's used by 3D TVS. That means that the definition on the width is divided by two. Kind of stupid in my book, but that is what the engineers at Toshiba decided...
Regardless, after shooting some footage around the patio, I plugged it into my big 80" Sharp Aquos 3D television, and it looked pretty impressive. In fact, it tends to jump out of the screen a little too much, in front of the window, and I would want to correct that with software.
Also the video tended to be a little washed out, so I played with the few settings: average, center weighted or spot metering, digital light(extends dynamic range), backlight on/off. I reshot clips of my patio fountain till it looked better(darker).
Just to see, I then shot in the studio in tungsten light a shaky hand held close up clip of a group of some of my objets. There are a lot of things wrong with that clip: except for the beginning wide view, the rest is in "window violation". That is a "3D geek" term that means that objects that should be behind the window frame are instead in front of it, and cut off, which looks weird. You do not want to crop things in 3D as you do in 2D. The red pencil pokes out nicely, but again, the whole thing needs to move back behind the frame. Also, there is too much contrast: the darks and mid tones are OK, but the lights are blown out, which I hate. And at one point, the auto exposure changes and the image suddenly gets darker. But the white hand is still blown out. Finally, the focus is fuzzy because I am too close from the objects.
I will try and fix that close up focus problem first. I pulled out an old set of 52mm close up lenses and held them in turn held against the front of the camera lens:+1, +2, +4. All three actually work, with the image moving further inside the window as the lens gets stronger. They DO bring things in better focus, but the video is still really not very sharp at all for HD, which I explain by the fact that the lenses of the camcorder look through the edges of the close up lens. I ideally would need two tiny close up lenses( about 1" in diameter), which are not available commercially, and would be hard to hold in place. Instead, I will try the largest close up lens set made, and ordered a 77mm set.There is no thread on the Camileo lens , but I have a series of adaptor rings that I can fit to slip over the barrel. If that does'nt work, I will try to use the little lenses from an old pair of glasses or cut them out of dime store readers.
On the other hand, outside tests of a close up of an hydrangea adding a +1 lens are quite satisfying, but the image does comes out of the window more.
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