"JW" wrote in message
And that's all I am going to say about it for now ! lol
=D
"
I wonder how long till the problems begin? Place your bets!
"
Fair enough, there are some minor points which I have already discovered:
Small little review:
1. The canon bag doesn't completely seal, there are same gaps, maybe this is
to vent it, but still... small bits of dirty could go into it.
2. The flash card must be inserted next to the battery, and if the camera is
placed on a tripod, then the flash card cannot be replaced easily, the
camera will have to be descrewed from the tripod attachment.
However I am pleasently surprised by the small size of the video, only 4 GB
files so far, but they last, and last and last... perhaps lossy compression
was used. I wonder if lossless h264 can be used with this camera that would
be cool.
I was lucky enough to visit my mom today... so I tried the camera out there
at night.
Filming at night as much more difficult, so far the video mode seems best,
it's easiest to zoom into stuff and wait it out and let the camera focus...
this gave best results for focus at least.
I also made some beautifull night pictures which also turned out well, but
these were mostly of big buildings with tripod, or handheld when the camera
recording was used and snapping pictures in between.
I also tried playing with manual settings in the dark lol... this is a point
of improvement:
3. The camera could use buttons which light up in the dark, that would make
it much easier to use at night.
I don't know much about the manual settings yet, I''ll have to read up on
aperture, shutter times and stuff like that... for me being dutch that's a
bit more though. I did play with those settings which was fun... but I
didn't know much what I was doing, fortunately the camera gives a preview of
what to expect.
I was most surprised about the stars on the picture. The camera is actually
capable of filming stars, but the LCD display didn't show this... probably
resolution a bit low.
4. Zooming on planets was hard if there were branches of trees in front of
it... the camera tends to zoom into what's closest in that sense because
that light is so far away it can't possible focus on it... fair enough.
During the day I filmed a plane and that was an awesome feeling/and sight to
actually see a plane fly through the sky up close... looking forward to
doing that again.
I have't seen any naked titties yet though lol
EEEEEuuuhhm
I also filmed the cat which was fun !
The sound is okish but probably not too great.
5. I also keep pressing the buttons on accident when trying to pick it up,
move it around or doing something with it... so the buttons a bit easily
pressed... also the wheel seemed somewhat easily pressed as buttons... so
that a bit confusing...
The thing that annoyed me the most is:
6. The camera goes off after 10 seconds to save battery power, but it even
does this if it's using wall power... so apperently it can't tell the
difference between battery power and wall power.
The wall power cable is a trick at best
I think this setting can be tweaked...
Filming ufo's at night will be hard, even with this thingy...
7. The tripod I have mixed feelings about... it's nice for the price... but
fully expanded it's a bit wobbly... keeping it smaller and it becomes more
steady...
There is somewhat of a problem with the head though, it tends to move pretty
easily side ways... and I don't think it can be fixed super tightly or
something...
I have not yet found a know to prevent side ways movement... fortunately it
does have some friction... but I wanna tight it down...
Maybe there is a know for it or maybe not... had I know this up front I
might have not chosen it...
Though I am still happy with it... for the price I payed it's pretty sweet,
head + tripod + bag
So I immediatly got to test out the bags, sweet, it works sort of
I just
care them in my hands... not yet around back or anything like that... don't
know how to do that...
The tripod is too big to fit in my backpack from old school days
All
tripods seem to be too large. It would have to be 45 centimeters max to fit
in my backpack... and there could even be other stuff in it... maybe that's
unreasonble, so a seperate bag is ok... though it would be nice if it was
maybe a backpack or something... then again I can only wear one backpack ?!
8. The battery life is pretty short... I went to my mom at about 17:15, I
then filmed almost non stop.... until 21:00 or so... So that's about 3
hours of usage per battery... I did do some stuff in between... However
compared to simple batteries this is still pretty nice... good thing I
bought 3 extra batterijes though. In total I now have 4 or so... one came
with the camera...
So this gives approximately 4x3 = 12 hours of filming, that should be enough
for a full day or so !
Fortunately my mother's laptop can read the sdhx so that was sweet, my
mother loved it, and found it funny, she did find it a bit expensive... she
was also amazed by the zoom.
My mom bought an impressive HP 5531 or something printer+scanner+copieing
machine all in one, and it was wireless...
It looked pretty impressive, it hat icon-touch display and it was easy to
use as hell... that kinda amuzed me...
My mom has expensive toshiba laptop... she had some weird problem with it...
windows didn't start so I went over there hit F8 during boot and told
windows to start normally... that fixed it... she's been having that issue
sometimes... a bit weird... Skype is nice on her laptop...
It's amazing to see how she uses the computer and other people
In a way her hardware is a bit more high tech than mine... but probably less
configurable or so
I should have taken some video of that HP printer/scanner... it was
swwwweeettt
like a thing from the future or something... black but
gorgious.
9. I sat outside in the cold at night at my mom trying to film weird stuff
It was cooooooold...
I went inside to go eat and call it a day... and the camera's lens
condensated... I got worried... I was scared that the moisture would be on
the inside and would never go away.
Fortunately it was probably on the outside, and after a few minutes it went
away, thank god for that !
Pfew !
I did notice a weird little bulge or the opposite of it on the lens...
probably exactly at the center... I wondered a little bit what that was...
but it's probably the counter of the glass at that very spot... probably
nothing to worry about, but it does make me wonder a tiny little bit why
it's shape is slightly different in the center...
10. I don't know why but I love the lens cap on the front. I just love how
it looks, I love how it protects the lens !
There is a little cable on it too... but I don't know yet how to attach the
cable to the camera, it's probably in the manual or so
11. There is some sticky thing inside the bag for the camera... I wonder why
it's in there... I wonder what it's for, fortunately it can be opened so it
doesn't get into the way.
The camera into the bag is a tight fit... it fits barely, but it fits...
little bit more room might have been ok... so far so good.
The bag has at least one little additional pockets for flash cards so that's
very nice.
So far I am happy with the bag. Though I do find the gaps in it kinda weird
!
I will definetly not put the strap on it... because I think the strap/cable
might be a yank-ridden thing... I don't want to end up, yanking the camera
bag into the ground but it's cable thingy/strap... so I think the strap
sux... I think the way it attaches to the camera is a bit nice but flimsy
too.. and wearing the camera on the front of my stomach would feel like a
third boob LOL... and I am a male lol... so that's kinda...
What I kinda miss is a manual explaining how to wear these bags on the body
when the straps are used.... so that's also kinda weird... maybe it's in
there something... or maybe somebody can explain...
Little details like these might be overlooked... the strap also has some
bending thing on it... I have no idea what that is far... perhaps a
handle... or perhaps a neck brace... I don't know.
12. The sandisks came in huge packages compared to the tiny little flash
card... waste of packaging... the plastic had to be cut open with a
scissor... that was kinda weird... but I guess it's to protect that disk at
maximum. So no dust goes into it...
I looked up bandwidth requirements for h264, the 45 MB/sec these chips
achieve seem to be more than enough for h264... which might be 15 MB/sec max
or so... so good to know these flash chips are overpowered/overspeed which
is a very good thing to have !
Playback on the laptop was butter smooth, except for windows picture
viewer/laptop not wanting to back to the previous picture that was kinda
strange... not sure if that's a flash disk issue/seek issue or windows just
being a stuck-up-nasty-not-wanting-to-go-back-bitch lol !
I just
circumvented it by re-opening the picture viewer...
It's also annoying how sometimes the picture viewer goes into
auto-matic-display mode... like sliding by... don't know the word for it at
the moment... auto play... like it flips through pictures every 10 seconds
or whatever... I am just saying... the windows picture viewer can be a lot
better... so that's what technology is always about... there is always
something
13. I haven't tried out the supplied software yet...
OH THIS IS A BIGGY:
14. The camera did not come with a USB file transfer cable... that was very
surprising to me... I though the manual depicted such a cable... but that's
not true... it's misleading I guess... there is so much unknown stuff to a
new user... I probably thought the lens cap's cable was such a cable.
Fortunately my old camera came with a USB file transfer cable... so perhaps
my camera can use that...
However I will probably modify my Dream PC with a new card reader which I
got from alternate to make it easy to read flash cards. This is perhaps also
better if batteries are dead... then again I do have the power cable so I
will not run out of power... However if I take the camera somewhere else...
being able to read flash cards would be nice... but that's up to "some place
else to have this card reader support"... I also though about external card
readers but I didn't bother with those... now I wonder if it might have been
a better idea...
However the internal card reader I ordered and have now can read 57 types or
so ?! LOL 57 ?!?! you electronic designers are fokking insane ?!
Who
needs 57 different card types ?! HOLYMOLY... well fortunately this new card
reader should be able to read them all
However if I go some place else... my only option would be the usb cable in
case that other place doesn't have a sdhx card reader... I am a bit worried
that connecting my camera to a system might eletroshock my camera or vice
versa
So I don't feel completely comfortable with using this usb cable...
especially because it's not a canon, but a nikon cable
So it didn't came with the canon so I am not 100% sure if it's compatible or
electrically safe
but I guess it's probably safe and can't hurt to use
that !
So I now have to choose between laying my dream pc on it's side and risking
damage to my drives, or risk electrocution danger for my motherboard and
camera by using usb cable.
Both options not so cool.
Also taking out flash cards all the time might damage them perhaps...
Ultimately preventing damage is probably impossible... but I will sure as
hell try.
For now I like the flash approach best...
Which actually leads me to the following issue:
15. It's intuitive to simply take out the flash card and immediatly place
the camera on the table but: OOPS, the battery/card hatch is still open ?!
and it's vertically... so it seems damage prone.... the hatch must be closed
first before the camera can be placed on it's butt on the table... so that's
kinda weird and counter-intuitive.
So the hatch opening/position might have been better, I would probably have
preferred it if it was on the side.
16. I did notice some scratch-like-looking things, but this is probably just
dust or something weird... like nail stuff... it can be whiped off... there
was a tiny little disk particable on the lens rings... I couldn't scratch it
off with my nails... I did my nails recently... I figured well.. the next
time the lens opens and goes out it ll probably get pushed out...
Though this does raise a point: if the lens goes in and out a lot will
dust/particles get into the lens mechanics !? might this cause the lens to
get stuck in far future ?
Probably best to keep dirt/dust as far away as possible
So very it seemed very tight... so we'd be talking micrometers or nanometers
or so... but still... wondering is free... so there ya go !
17. I find it weird how the shutter button sometimes can be used to focus...
and sometimes it just takes a picture when I didn't want to... I just wanted
it to focus...
So the press "light" and then press "hard" thing is kinda weird/confusing
and not cool... so I dont understand why they do that.
18. Pulling the zoom thing to the right or towards me would have been more
intuitive... then pushing it the other way...
I now more or less need to push it away from the center of my hand... this
is counter-intuitive...
Pulling the button towards the center of my hand should have been zoom
out... or perhaps vice versa lol..
I find the horizontal knob-zooming thing to be very confusing...
A depth knob would have been more logical... push the knob away from me
would be zoom in.... (getting closer to target, since I am moving my hand
closer to target)
(pull knob towards me should be zoom out) (target moves away from me, so
zoom out)
I would have preferred to side buttons for zoom in and zoom out... perhaps
even a scroll wheel... that I can keep turning very smoothly...
The zoom in and zoom out is too sudden... it disturbs the focus too much
which is kinda annoying and causes the user to have to try and refocus...
this sucks bad sometimes. Perhaps I need more practice with it... or perhaps
this happens mostly in dark/low light situations or branches in way...
though I do feel it could have been even better
.
19. Perhaps a manual zoom by turning around the lenses would have given a
smoother form of operation... I saw somebody else write down this complaint
on a forum... now I understand him... the auto-zoom via a knob/button is a
bit strange... it's nice and lazy... but it has troubles with focussing...
perhaps a human hand around the lens might have been more precise.
So there is plenty of room for improvement.
I do hope Canon continues the product line and keeps testing this camera
with new users, and hopefully observes them to see how they use it for the
first time... Hopefully experienced computer users or programmers which have
never used such a camera before... and then observe each one of them for at
least 3 hours to see how they do with it...
And ofcourse try and implement my suggested features in prototypes and then
re-evaluate if this offers more precision for zoom.
I'm loving the batter charger though... it's whicked cool... literally... it
doesn't overheat... it's design is simple and brilliant...
Just two leds:
One red/orange (?) led for charging.
One green led for indicating that it's charged.
The cool thing is... when can put a battery into it and see if the battery
is charged... if it's charged the green led will shine... at least that's
what I think it will do...
So the charged can be used to see if a battery is already full or not...
though maybe a percentage indicator might have been even better
but
perhaps that would make it too expensive... so far I like it a lot... I also
left it on when I went to my mother I came back way later, being a bit
worried... but it seemed everthing went fine... no overheat... it was cool
to the touch
battery and charger so that's a good thing.
Charging takes about 1 hour and 30 mins... another one just charged, I love
that green light !
Such charge time is not too bad, it's probably whicked good... the old
camera batteries took 8 hours to charge and would drain in a few minutes
lol.
So these canon batteries seem way better !
=D Oh yeah baby !
=D
When I was filming I was actually quite amazed how long it would go on... it
just went on and on and on and on, and that on a single battery and a single
128 GB chip... and only a few gigabytes were used !
So the camera run out of battery power before it run out of storage space,
that's a good thing !
This means more film material can be shot with more
batteries yeah !
Ofcourse keeping the file size down is always nice, this means easy transfer
to pc and easy storage on pc....
I am getting eager to work on my own video codec to see if it can do
compression better in lossless mode than h264, but probably not... and I am
curious if it will run in real time in cuda... probably also not... later I
might take a look at h264 and perhaps incorporate some of it's ideas into my
own codec to see if that helps, and otherwise I might freeze it and move on
to something else.
I do wonder what the highest quality of this camera is... I am kinda hoping
lossless, which would be great for testing my own lossless video codec
that would be awesome...
For now I assume this camera cannot do lossless video compression ??? I also
wonder how much data is being thrown away by the h264 codec.... so far the
video seemed quite good on the laptop display. A bit grainy sometimes but
not to bad... I wonder if the grainy is from video compression or just the
sensor chip... perhaps a little bit of both. Or perhaps slightly low light
conditions and thus higher iso/lens shutter issue or so... I think it's
actually a bit of everything.
I'll have to do a huge ammount of practicing with this camera in the manual
in my hand to get the most of this camera... it's fun... but time-wise it's
consuming... I want to do other stuff as well... but that's ok. I just hope
I get to learn how to use this camera at it's fullest potential as soon as
possible before that big UFO comes along LOL !
=D
Peace out... if I really have something interesting to share... like a
picture or a video I might put it online... for now... I am just gonna
chill, sit back and enjoy it... there is no rush for me at least
So ll
have to do with text descriptions for now... There are not that many power
sx50 videos on youtube yet... so it would be good to put some more online...
but privacy issues and such play a roll... I am sure you understand... so it
will take some time before I film something that does not violate my privacy
or that of others
Oh there was an interesting experience, when I first used it... I felt like
I was in a call of duty game or a battlefield game... as if I was a
sniper... looking for counter snipers in any window of the enemy building
lol
I slowly moved around the corner of my window... looking window by window to
see if anybody else was looking at me lol... one guy on a bike leaving...
spotted me... he pretended not to see me... he went far away... but I
secretly filmed him from the back... and yup... he did take a peak at me
from far away... just around the corner like a real sniper would lol... it
was hiralious to watch his little eye take a glance at me... without him
really knowing that I GOT HIM !
=D Yes his face was on my video... it was
difficult to get it to focus and hold steady... he got a bit lucky that the
camera was struggling... but eventually it did focus just in time to film
his glance a little bit... totally funny !
But I respect everybody's privacy... so funny stuff like that will not go
online lol !
=D
I will end with the last following words:
This cam does feel like the ultimately james bond spy gadget/cam !
=D
I can feel even James Bond wishing to have this camera ! LOL
=D
Let the good times/James Bond times begin ! LOL
=D
Bye,
Skybuck.
