CX115 - fireworks mode is very poor

[Pyrotrev]

Recently bought a CX115 camcorder to take some videos of fireworks displays, having noticed it has a pre-programmed fireworks mode, and  unusually for a Sony product found the results quite disappointing. It won't hold focus in this mode (why isn't this fixed at infinity???), and colour rendition is very biased to the red and over exposed. I partly fixed the former by manually setting the white balance to indoor, but the over-exposure means all colours tend to be washed out.  Furthermore I've noticed that if you change shooting parameters to manual control, some of these aren't remembered when the camera is switched off, so you have to remember to set them all again each time before shooting. Just wondering if there's any firmware upgrades available for this unit that might help fix these problems please?.

Message was edited by: Pyrotrev

Message was edited by: Pyrotrev

[Mick2011 · Accepted solution]

Hi Pyrotrev, welcome to the Sony Forums

I've seen some good results shot with cameras using "fireworks mode"... and some bad ones too. Sony handycams are generally highly regarded for this kind of filming, but I have to say the preset modes are probably not the best way of getting consistently good results.

Defaulting to infinity focus wouldn't work, especially with telephoto shots. It's quite possible to get closer to a fireworks show than the furthest focus distance on the camera, giving out-of-focus results and leaving people wondering why on earth the camera defaults to infinity!

A similar issue may be the cause of your over-exposure, as not all night skies are equally dark - it's a possibilty, I've never actually tried the CX115 in this mode. Colour balance is also likely to be affected differently according to shooting conditions. Going fully manual is the answer to most of these issues.

I suspect you already tried at least some manual control and the best way is to leave nothing to chance. Use manual spot focus along with spot metering (see the User Handbook p65) if you have the opportunity prior to the actual display. Choosing Indoor or Outdoor white balance is often a call you'll have to make based on a quick test, but I've seen both work well.

Like most consumer camcorders, it will eventually reset most manual settings when you switch off, based on the assumption that casual users will use the camera infrequently and likely want to point-and-shoot when they do power it up. However the CX115 will remember your manual settings for up to 12 hours after you close the LCD screen. Not sure how useful that will be for you, but it's worth knowing

As ever, firmware updates are rarely pre-announced and can appear at any time; sorry I have no info on that one.

Cheers

Mick

[Pyrotrev]

Well, 6 months on and a lot of fiddling + several hours (which is a lot of displays!) of footage later, this is still a problem unfortunately. The advice to go manual was good, and now focus/exposure are sorted. Also found out that using the outdoor white balance (as in the fireworks preset) is not good giving everything a red orange cast (pretty logical since the burning temperature of firework compositions varies between 1700 and 3400 degrees, a long way off the 6000K colour temperature for daylight) However one thing that I cannot get is any decent kind of colour saturation, the camera only seems to record colour over a very narrow range of brightness and if you expose over that everything turns to white, even if to the eye it's a very bright green or red. Turn down the exposure a bit and then well it's so dim it looks really weak. Anyone got any more suggestions as how to get a decent video with one of these cameras or should I stick it on eBay and go back to using the video mode on the Olympus still camera which although lacking in resolution does reproduce colours reasonably well.

[Mick2011]

Hi Pyrotrev

It sounds as if you've got it about right, the only issue being exposure. Getting decent colour saturation will depend entirely on getting your exposure bang-on and it's not easy figuring it in manual mode.

If you have a camera that happens to hit the exposure about right I guess it's the path of least resistance to use it... other wise I can only suggest you persevere with the manual settings, as the CX115 should be capable of very good results.

Sorry I can't be of any more help.

Cheers

Mick

[Pyrotrev]

Thanks for the reply Mick, unfortunately getting the exposure perfect for every single firework isn't really going to happen due to the variety of differences in colour, brightness, distance etc in a fast moving display. What puzzles me though is that a videographer who did some filming for me a few years back got some fantastic footage using a (older, larger and standard definition) Sony camcorder which seemed to cope admirably with a wide range of brightness and colour, which is what made me go for the CX115. Unfortunately I've lost touch with him so can't ask exactly waht the camera was and the settings he used.

[cmosse]

it is most probably a matter of dynamic range and HD does not necessarily means high dynamic range and high sensitivity. An older SD cam with (e.g. with 3CCD) can of course have higher DR than an entry level HD cam like CX115.

low sensitivity will lead too weak saturated colors.

I would still use the firework scene mode but combine it with manual exposure override.

you can also use manual focus setting in the scene mode but there is no way to set whitebalance when using a scene mode.

It is possible to see some sample of the fireworks you recorded with CX115 (youtube, vimeo etc)?

Message was edited by: cmosse