The answer to ANALOG versus DIGITAL in Low light / LUX answe

[arcorob]

I had recently asked about analog versus digital in low light situations. In my case , wedding receptions. It seemed that where my Digital camcorders were recording what looked like night scenes, the nalogs were cooking along where you could see everything.

Here is what I found, direct from SONY. It has to do with their LUX rating.

My old , nowhere near top end CCD-TRV16 ANALOG has a LUX rating of 0.4

My new digitals have a LUX rating of 7.0 !!! That means it has to be pretty fairly lit for the digitals to do any good.

After checking with them and reviewing specs, even the costly VX2000 by sony which I am eyeing has a LUX rating of 2.0

I wil not cover LUX here (Unless asked) but suffice it to say, if you plan on doing low-light filming and CANNOT use a light (as is my case) then analog is the way to go, and just convert in a digital 8 camcorder.

[fmctm1sw]

THe last thing I heard about "lux" (and this was probably years ago) was that there was no standard. What is 1 lux to one person may be 1.5 lux to someone else. Have you found a published standard?

[arcorob]

Well yes. LUX by itself is a measurement, just like a LUMEN or a WATT. What you may have thought was non-standard was the way in which SONY used it. They refer to the LUX 'as perceived' 'relative to'...etc.

The main point here is when they were making primarily ANALOG camera's, they were much better(more sensitive) to low light than the new digitals.

"According to the International System of Units, "LUX" is defined in terms of lumens per meter squared (lm/m2). One lux is equal to 0.00146 kilogram per second cubed (1.46 x 10-3 kg / s3). It would seem that now we need to know what a "lumen" is: it is defined in terms of candela steradians (cd multiplied by sr). One lumen is the amount of light emitted in a solid angle of 1 sr, from a source that radiates to an equal extent in all directions, and whose intensity is 1 cd. A "candela" sounds a bit more familiar, something to do with candles... it is defined as the luminous intensity, in a given direction, of a source that emits monochromatic radiation of frequency 540 x 1012 hertz and that has a radiant intensity in that direction of 1/683 watt per steradian."

or

The sun - 100,000, Sun with light cloud - 70,000, Sun with heavy cloud - 20,000, Home/office lighting - 100-1000, Sunrise/sunset - 500, Street Lighting - 1-10, Twilight - 4, Full moon - 0.2, Quarter moon - 0.02, Overcast moon - 0.007, Clear night sky - 0.001, Average starlight - 0.0007, Overcast night sky - 0.00005

Based on the above, my Analog could film in qtr moonlight whereas the digital would have trouble with twilight...BIG difference but the true test is when I do a evening meal setting.

DIGITAL = GREY characters
ANALOG = Nice picture

And here is the kicker. I just purchased a sony ANALOg with as many pixels as my digital...sooo I will have near compatibility...

Sigh...Expenses expenses

[fmctm1sw]

Yeah, nice... I certainly wasn't trying to cast a shadow (no pun intended :P ) on your observations. I just remember arguing with a salesman years ago about his camcorders and lux, etc, etc....

[arcorob]

No shadow of a doubt ??? LOL

Yeah, its a sick measurement but i am so anal I had to call sony and find out what was wrong...LOL

But I have found an analog model that is awesome.....So problem solved !