Sony RX100 IV 4K Video: Spring Flowers in Northern California

[Markr041]

Picture Profile 4 (REC709).

Frame grabs:

 

[Denis247]

Stills look very nice. What are the screen grabs like from a video shot in lower light?

 

[Markr041]

Stills look very nice. What are the screen grabs like from a video shot in lower light?

See here: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/57396100

 

[elliottnewcomb]

Thanks for the dose of Spring, another nasty rainy day here, and I like your screen grabs, well chosen.

Sound: I have mixed reaction. I see silent videos and miss sound, then, here we get sound that is natural, some distracting wind noise, wonderful water stream, ...... and did I hear a shutter sound from a pic taken while shooting?

Have you tried the wind filter, and if so, what have you determined about it?

And, of course, we can lower the sound, or turn it off. How much trouble is it to cut sound out for portions, and leave it in for others?

Just curious, not being critical, as I say, I often miss sound.

--
Elliott

 

[Markr041]

Thanks for the dose of Spring, another nasty rainy day here, and I like your screen grabs, well chosen.

Sound: I have mixed reaction. I see silent videos and miss sound, then, here we get sound that is natural, some distracting wind noise, wonderful water stream, ...... and did I hear a shutter sound from a pic taken while shooting?

Have you tried the wind filter, and if so, what have you determined about it?

And, of course, we can lower the sound, or turn it off. How much trouble is it to cut sound out for portions, and leave it in for others?

Just curious, not being critical, as I say, I often miss sound.

 

[elliottnewcomb]

Yeah, impressive, and lots of good and needed sound there.

The more control you have of adjusting the levels and blending the sound for each blended clip. You know, but we don't know, if we are meant to hear dialog, so we turn it up too much for that segment, then the next one might be a jump louder.

 

[Markr041]

Yeah, impressive, and lots of good and needed sound there.

The more control you have of adjusting the levels and blending the sound for each blended clip. You know, but we don't know, if we are meant to hear dialog, so we turn it up too much for that segment, then the next one might be a jump louder.

--
Elliott

Thanks for watching and listening. In that video, there is no artificial adjustment of volume in post - everything is ambient sound from the perspective of the camera person, so one may hear some mumbling dialogue in the background just as we would when we are surrounded by people. It would be what you would hear as you accompanied the videographer. The camera audio evidently (thank goodness) does not compress - the agc is very subtle. Viewing the waveforms across clips you see the large differences in amplitude that is recorded.

The only unnatural part of the sound in the video is when the amplitude was turned down to minimize wind noise (just a few clips). Again, wn really mucks up audio.

The change in volumes across clips thus reflects the true dynamic range of the sound, from the perspective of the videographer - so walking into the room with electronic games, the electronic sounds are loud (just as they really are); walking outside, the sounds from outdoors speakers are more muted as they are more distant. Close to the hanging shells, the soft tingling is heard as they are moved by the wind.

When we record orchestras, we do not turn up the gain to make the soft passages more audible, nor turn down the gain for the loud parts. To reproduce the experience, we want to retain the actual dynamic range (to the extent that is possible). Some complain about that as when they listen they turn up the volume for the soft passages and then get blasted when the recorded sound increases in volume.

 

[xi5]

Thanks for the dose of Spring, another nasty rainy day here, and I like your screen grabs, well chosen.

Sound: I have mixed reaction. I see silent videos and miss sound, then, here we get sound that is natural, some distracting wind noise, wonderful water stream, ...... and did I hear a shutter sound from a pic taken while shooting?

Have you tried the wind filter, and if so, what have you determined about it?

And, of course, we can lower the sound, or turn it off. How much trouble is it to cut sound out for portions, and leave it in for others?

Just curious, not being critical, as I say, I often miss sound.

--
Elliott

I fully agree with you that sound gets neglected, and we should pay more attention to it. I really dislike videos in which all ambient sound is replaced by a music track. I tend to favor getting as much natural sound as possible. But wind noise really ruins things.

In this video I lowered the amplitude of the sound when there was wind noise but did not eliminate all sound in the clip, hoping the transition from one clip to the next would not be too abrupt. Also, as one views the flowers moving in the wind I thought some wind noise would actually be appropriate. I have not found digital noise reduction to be effective, and it tends to lower the quality of the sound when there is no wind. But the wind noise by and large is just plain annoying.

(I don't know what that click was - not me!).

This is one of my favorite videos for its sounds (some wind noise):

You may consider separately setting down an audio recorder with wind filter in backyard or other area without talking to capture the impression of the environment; birds, etc.

Later replace the entire audio track in post editing with a continuous chunk of the ambient sounds from the recorder without the wind or abrupt audio cuts..

 

[Markr041]

Thanks for the dose of Spring, another nasty rainy day here, and I like your screen grabs, well chosen.

Sound: I have mixed reaction. I see silent videos and miss sound, then, here we get sound that is natural, some distracting wind noise, wonderful water stream, ...... and did I hear a shutter sound from a pic taken while shooting?

Have you tried the wind filter, and if so, what have you determined about it?

And, of course, we can lower the sound, or turn it off. How much trouble is it to cut sound out for portions, and leave it in for others?

Just curious, not being critical, as I say, I often miss sound.

 

[xi5]

Thanks for the dose of Spring, another nasty rainy day here, and I like your screen grabs, well chosen.

Sound: I have mixed reaction. I see silent videos and miss sound, then, here we get sound that is natural, some distracting wind noise, wonderful water stream, ...... and did I hear a shutter sound from a pic taken while shooting?

Have you tried the wind filter, and if so, what have you determined about it?

And, of course, we can lower the sound, or turn it off. How much trouble is it to cut sound out for portions, and leave it in for others?

Just curious, not being critical, as I say, I often miss sound.

 

[Markr041]

Thanks for the dose of Spring, another nasty rainy day here, and I like your screen grabs, well chosen.

Sound: I have mixed reaction. I see silent videos and miss sound, then, here we get sound that is natural, some distracting wind noise, wonderful water stream, ...... and did I hear a shutter sound from a pic taken while shooting?

Have you tried the wind filter, and if so, what have you determined about it?

And, of course, we can lower the sound, or turn it off. How much trouble is it to cut sound out for portions, and leave it in for others?

Just curious, not being critical, as I say, I often miss sound.

--
Elliott

I fully agree with you that sound gets neglected, and we should pay more attention to it. I really dislike videos in which all ambient sound is replaced by a music track. I tend to favor getting as much natural sound as possible. But wind noise really ruins things.

In this video I lowered the amplitude of the sound when there was wind noise but did not eliminate all sound in the clip, hoping the transition from one clip to the next would not be too abrupt. Also, as one views the flowers moving in the wind I thought some wind noise would actually be appropriate. I have not found digital noise reduction to be effective, and it tends to lower the quality of the sound when there is no wind. But the wind noise by and large is just plain annoying.

(I don't know what that click was - not me!).

This is one of my favorite videos for its sounds (some wind noise):

You may consider separately setting down an audio recorder with wind filter in backyard or other area without talking to capture the impression of the environment; birds, etc.

Later replace the entire audio track in post editing with a continuous chunk of the ambient sounds from the recorder without the wind or abrupt audio cuts..

Yes, I think that would work for video clips with just flowers or trees. But note in this video there are fountains and streams. The second the viewer does not hear those sounds, the phoniness of a separately recorded ambient track is revealed. One could record the fountains and streams separately too (with some external wind protection) and add them (replace) in post in the relevant clips, as they do not need to be synched (constant sounds).

When you switch from one environment to the next, perhaps a small audio fade-out/then fade-in for new setting so as to remove the sudden audio jumps. Including a video fade along with audio would be a style choice, these are just suggestions.

I agree; the different sound levels are sometimes jarring. In fact there is one transition like that (audio + video) in the video, but it is for the same setting (fountain) with a different distance for each clip. Thanks.

 

[elliottnewcomb]

They are too omni-directional.

For my old S85, I made a 'bandshell', to put on the top edge of the camera behind the mic, so it became more directional. It was the curved piece of plastic you rip out of a coffee cup lid. Held it on with a bit of tacky stuff kids use to hold up poster-boards. Easier with a single mono mic.