Does the X7 suffer exposure stepping like the X5 & X5S?

[MrTVR]

Auto exposure on the X5 & X5S does not provide smooth control of exposure as the aperture changes.

Does the X7 have the same problem?

Whilst I shoot most of the time in manual or with exposure lock on, it would be nice to be able to fly from a dark to light location (or vice versa) and be able to rely upon the camera to make a smooth exposure transition.

I am often asked to fly into or out of a building, which is fine with my old I1 & X3 camera but just can’t be done with my X5S.

Please can someone let me know how the X7 handles auto exposure?

 

[Paul Nordin]

Quite unfortunately, the X7 has a 1/3stop stepped iris adjustment, so there is no way to pull-off smooth iris-pulls. If DJI were to add a steppless iris motor to these lenses it would have been way more helpful. It's nice that you can assign iris to a Handwheel 2, but its still unusable within a shot.

I frankly, have not tried any filming with the camera set to Auto exposure, so can't help with any info on that.

 

[MrTVR]

Quite unfortunately, the X7 has a 1/3stop stepped iris adjustment, so there is no way to pull-off smooth iris-pulls. If DJI were to add a steppless iris motor to these lenses it would have been way more helpful. It's nice that you can assign iris to a Handwheel 2, but its still unusable within a shot.

I frankly, have not tried any filming with the camera set to Auto exposure, so can't help with any info on that.

I was looking for a reason to upgrade and this could have been the clincher but I guess DJI are saving that improvement for a later ‘X’ camera ... ho hum.

 

[Paul Nordin]

I was looking for a reason to upgrade and this could have been the clincher but I guess DJI are saving that improvement for a later ‘X’ camera ... ho hum.

Yeah, its sooooo close. The 6k CinemaDNG image quality is really good, and can be intercut pretty seamlessly with anything - Alexa, Red, whatever. But little things like iris steps keep limiting what can be used for on commercial and narrative sets. That nit aside, it is a huge step up from the X5s. I can work around the iris steps with tricky choreography a fair amount of the time...but not exterior to interior shots or vice-a-versa

 

[Alex Dawson]

Hi, I don't know if my issue is what you are referring to but I get exposure stepping in manual mode and manual white balance when i shoot cinemaDNG? So I can't render cinemaDNG nicely or at least not in Adobe After Effects. I works in DR14 but it dosen't render cinemaDNG anywhere near as nicely as After Effects CC18 besides my problem.

untitled folder 4.zip

Here is a link to 6 keyframes where you can se the shift between image 000165 & 000166 up in the dark part of the trees on the top left side. Then there is a cameraRAW extreme graded video sequence in 6k cinemaDNG thats 4 sec long where everything gets enhanced to show my problem better. My concern is why does the X7 DNG's vary/shift especially in the low green tones?

Please move my post if it should be in a different or new tread.

kind regards // Alex

 

[The Editor]

But little things like iris steps keep limiting what can be used for on commercial and narrative sets.

And no Paint/Matrix control
No Knee/Slope adjustment
No H/V split control over edge/frequency crisping
No timecode mode select

The list goes on.........

 

[Paul Nordin]

And no Paint/Matrix control
No Knee/Slope adjustment
No H/V split control over edge/frequency crisping
No timecode mode select

The list goes on.........

You are very correct that there are virtually no professional signal processing or color matrix customization tools in the X7. Just the standard DSLR- Sharpness, Contrast, Color. But, I almost exclusively shoot CinemaDNG, which is raw, so I would not want to start adding those kinds of tweaks / looks to the image sequences in camera. I do all that in post - Resolve.

But, timecode! Now that would be a pretty awesome add. Or at least allow recording an audio signal via 1/8" input from a TC box like Tentacle Sync or lockit.

 

[SWINDY]

Any Timecode? I was asked if there is a “time of day” shooting mode for the Inspire 2 X7? I’ve tried to find any sort of setting and assuming not. Looks like from previous posts there’s not. Any “time of day” timecode?

Asking for a friend...in post.