Sony FDR-X3000 low-ish light video sample

larsbc

Forum Pro
Messages
19,290
Solutions
14
Reaction score
8,214
Location
Vancouver, CA
I had an opportunity to take the X3000 out on the weekend. We went up to a nearby mountain to check out the snow. It was snowing fairly heavily and the light was poor. I was recording at 30fps to give the camera the opportunity to use a longer shutter speed and in 4K which I output at 1080p using Adobe Premiere. I also bumped up the levels in post processing as well. I spliced together a few of the clips so you can see how the camera performed:


It did a lot better than my Hero 3+ (not surprising considering that my 3+ is a few years old). There's noise but lots of good detail and no obnoxious artifacts. Colour saturation was pretty decent, too. I used the camera in its waterproof housing with holes drilled in the door for audio recording (although I removed the camera's audio for the sample video).

I couldn't walk very steadily since I was more concerned about not slipping on the ice and snow. Stabilization did a decent job and way better than my Hero 3+ with no stabilization.

Oh, I didn't use the best 4K mode. I haven't bought any Sony cards so I'm sticking with my microSD cards so the best data speed I could use was 60mbs I think.
 
Last edited:
I had an opportunity to take the X3000 out on the weekend. We went up to a nearby mountain to check out the snow. It was snowing fairly heavily and the light was poor. I was recording at 30fps to give the camera the opportunity to use a longer shutter speed and in 4K which I output at 1080p using Adobe Premiere. I also bumped up the levels in post processing as well. I spliced together a few of the clips so you can see how the camera performed:


It did a lot better than my Hero 3+ (not surprising considering that my 3+ is a few years old). There's noise but lots of good detail and no obnoxious artifacts. Colour saturation was pretty decent, too. I used the camera in its waterproof housing with holes drilled in the door for audio recording (although I removed the camera's audio for the sample video).

I couldn't walk very steadily since I was more concerned about not slipping on the ice and snow. Stabilization did a decent job and way better than my Hero 3+ with no stabilization.

Oh, I didn't use the best 4K mode. I haven't bought any Sony cards so I'm sticking with my microSD cards so the best data speed I could use was 60mbs I think.
The higher bitrate is actually more important for low light, since the random noise in low light creates a challenge for reproducing (it looks like detail to the processor and changes from frame to frame). Thus resolution for the things we want (like people or places) is lowered because of this extra "detail".

Any u3 microsd card will do, of any brand - cost should be around $25 for 64GBs.

This works perfectly at 100Mbps:

 
The higher bitrate is actually more important for low light, since the random noise in low light creates a challenge for reproducing (it looks like detail to the processor and changes from frame to frame). Thus resolution for the things we want (like people or places) is lowered because of this extra "detail".

Any u3 microsd card will do, of any brand - cost should be around $25 for 64GBs.

This works perfectly at 100Mbps:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...vf_064g_gn6ma_extreme_microsd_64gb_90mbs.html
Oh, so I don't need a Sony Memorystick one? I thought I saw some review that said it had to be MemoryStick or whatever that format is for the higher bitrates. Thanks for the info.

Ok, well I guess I'll buy a new card for the camera, then. I'm looking forward to trying the really high frame rates.
 
The higher bitrate is actually more important for low light, since the random noise in low light creates a challenge for reproducing (it looks like detail to the processor and changes from frame to frame). Thus resolution for the things we want (like people or places) is lowered because of this extra "detail".

Any u3 microsd card will do, of any brand - cost should be around $25 for 64GBs.

This works perfectly at 100Mbps:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...vf_064g_gn6ma_extreme_microsd_64gb_90mbs.html
Oh, so I don't need a Sony Memorystick one? I thought I saw some review that said it had to be MemoryStick or whatever that format is for the higher bitrates. Thanks for the info.

Ok, well I guess I'll buy a new card for the camera, then. I'm looking forward to trying the really high frame rates.
Just to be clear: all the Sony action cams take standard microsd cards. They also can take Sony micro memory sticks, but the latter are not necessary to use for any setting.
 
The higher bitrate is actually more important for low light, since the random noise in low light creates a challenge for reproducing (it looks like detail to the processor and changes from frame to frame). Thus resolution for the things we want (like people or places) is lowered because of this extra "detail".

Any u3 microsd card will do, of any brand - cost should be around $25 for 64GBs.

This works perfectly at 100Mbps:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...vf_064g_gn6ma_extreme_microsd_64gb_90mbs.html
Oh, so I don't need a Sony Memorystick one? I thought I saw some review that said it had to be MemoryStick or whatever that format is for the higher bitrates. Thanks for the info.

Ok, well I guess I'll buy a new card for the camera, then. I'm looking forward to trying the really high frame rates.
Just to be clear: all the Sony action cams take standard microsd cards. They also can take Sony micro memory sticks, but the latter are not necessary to use for any setting.
Yeah, I must've mis-heard or maybe it was old info that applied to earlier Action Cams? I don't mind spending more for a higher quality card as long as I can use it with my other cameras. So as long as it's not Memory Stick or Duo, then I'm cool with that.
 
Larsbc:

You call that a "decent stabilization" ????? I call that a superb stabilization on very cold frigid weather walking in the snow and ice. Are you kidding?
My frame of reference for stabilization is a powered gimbal setup. Yeah, it's a high standard. ;-) But from a practical standpoint, BOSS is superior since I can use it in any scenario that I'd run into. It's like that old saying about the best camera being the one that's with you.
 
Last edited:

Keyboard shortcuts

Back
Top